‘Tis why I consider the AKC to be a vile organization. They perpetuate the notion that a dog’s value lies in superficial qualities such as appearance. This mentality causes such things as overbreeding, in-breeding, breeding for particular traits that cause the dog to have physical discomfort and/or health issues (such as breathing difficulties for short-snouted dogs and hip dysplasia for “well-tapered” German shepherds), physical “modifications” (mutilations such as tail docking and ear cropping) to dogs solely for aesthetic reasons, etc., etc. Their mindset also adds value and appeal to the pure-bred dog, encouraging people to make money from dog breeding. This increases the supply of a “product” for which the supply already far exceeds the demand, increasing the number of dogs that are killed simply because their numbers are too great. Anybody who truly loves dogs (or cats) would never breed them – every dog or cat that’s added to the population is one more dog or cat that is put to sleep. (Even if every one of my dog’s puppies goes to a good home, the odds are that they’ll go to families that would have gotten a dog anyway. If that family doesn’t take my puppy, then they’ll get a dog from some other source. Somewhere down the line, for every puppy that my dog has, there’s some dog somewhere that is not finding a home and is instead put to sleep. Only a scumbag could live with such a notion.)
‘Tis why I consider the AKC to be a vile organization. They perpetuate the notion that a dog’s value lies in superficial qualities such as appearance. This mentality causes such things as overbreeding, in-breeding, breeding for particular traits that cause the dog to have physical discomfort and/or health issues (such as breathing difficulties for short-snouted dogs and hip dysplasia for “well-tapered” German shepherds), physical “modifications” (mutilations such as tail docking and ear cropping) to dogs solely for aesthetic reasons, etc., etc. Their mindset also adds value and appeal to the pure-bred dog, encouraging people to make money from dog breeding. This increases the supply of a “product” for which the supply already far exceeds the demand, increasing the number of dogs that are killed simply because their numbers are too great. Anybody who truly loves dogs (or cats) would never breed them – every dog or cat that’s added to the population is one more dog or cat that is put to sleep. (Even if every one of my dog’s puppies goes to a good home, the odds are that they’ll go to families that would have gotten a dog anyway. If that family doesn’t take my puppy, then they’ll get a dog from some other source. Somewhere down the line, for every puppy that my dog has, there’s some dog somewhere that is not finding a home and is instead put to sleep. Only a scumbag could live with such a notion.)