I can see from my email box that I'm not the only one disturbed by the trend of seizing animals from citizens and residents. Like many of you, I've been sitting on the sidelines until recently. I knew of the 2 cases I blogged on because they were fairly close to me. I probably won't hear about cases unless someone emails me or they show up on one of the few lists I subscribe to. So email me but please try to get all the links in a limited number of emails and put the location (city or county and state) in the subject line. And now for a caveat/warning...
I was raised in farm country and I understand a bit about livestock operations as well as some about wildlife and hunting. I eat meat, fish, and fowl and that's not going to change. I don't think these animals should be treated as "pets" but neither should they be abused for no reason. We should all treat them decently and acknowledge our gratitude for their sacrifice in going to our plates. We should slaughter in the most humane ways possible but I have no objection to slaughtering "farm" animals and wildlife. Given what I've seen of commercial food, I think we should be bringing the source back closer to home and that also means having a thicker skin than those who think meat, fish, and fowl, show up miraculously in the frig at the grocery store.
Pet stores. In my opinion, they simply should not be in the business of selling cats, dogs, puppies, and/or kittens (and I may have to add to that list).
Pet breeders. They're your animals and you have a pretty wide berth with me. However, many of you aren't acting responsibly. There are too many dogs and cats being bred. While I support responsible breeders and breeding plans, you all need to get together and deal with the irresponsible within your own ranks as you're the only ones who can. I know each of these cases must be taken case by case but large numbers of caged dogs, outside, with little human contact, getting little exercise, being sold on the internet... Well, these are some of the signs to me that you are a big part of the problem. They may be akin to livestock to you but they come into people's homes as beloved pets and I know you already know the horrors and what goes wrong when you don't do your jobs responsibly. If you're bent on causing other heartache, I'm going to be bent on seeing you put out of business (legally and constitutionally).
I abhor animal abuse but I also don't think every pet needs to get top of the line care from cradle to grave and sleep on satin. Like marriage, pets are with us in sickness and in health, for better and worse - so long as we aren't taking the "worst" out on them by design. What I'm saying is that many of these seizure cases disturb me and I believe firmly and deeply in our constitutional rights. Try not to make it impossible for those of us on your side to take your side by egregiously abusing your animals.
Send those emails of worthy cases to me at PJBoo9@yahoo.com (and its at the bottom of the main blog page too). And I'll try to squeeze in some additional time to expand this blog.
Never forget that preserving our own rights means preserving those of others, even the "others" we disagree deeply with.