Feedback on Canine Cash Crop
A mini-article that sums up the most important points raised by the opponents of Dorothy Lockard's piece, "Consider A Canine Cash Crop".
September/October 1972
By the Mother Earth News editors
As we collectively struggle to find more meaningful and more ecologically sound ways of living, it becomes increasingly apparent that we're all a little bit right and a little bit wrong. We meant to use Dorothy Lockard's article CONSIDER A CANINE CASH CROP (MOTHER NO. 15) as a springboard into an in-depth discussion of that point . . . but, as usual, flat ran out of time and space before we got it done.
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We still don't have time to follow up on the opening we've created and we most certainly haven't got enough space to run all the letters we've received for the "other" side. The mini-article printed below, however, pretty well sums up the most important points raised by the opponents to Dorothy's piece and we'll leave the discussion at that until we get enough of a breather to wrap it up the way we intended in the first place.
In her piece, "Consider a Canine Cash Crop", Dorothy Lockard has written a perfect description of what serious dog breeders long ago labeled a "puppy mill",
I am a devoted reader of MOTHER and an admirer of its principles. It seems to me if MOTHER readers fully understood the implications of the Lockard article, which is quite simply the same activity founded on expediency that has produced so many of our planet's present troubles, they would quickly disavow her suggestions. If they do as she suggests, they will at the very least stand a good chance of increasing the world's store of misery. Here are some reasons why:
A. As a staff member of a thriving and busy SPCA I can attest to the following facts:
1. There are 10,000 unwanted pets born in this country each day,
2. Many of these are purebred dogs and cats,
B. As a serious hobby breeder of purebred A.K.C. registered dogs, I know from long experience that it is almost impossible to realize a profit from dog breeding if pursued in a conscientious, humane way. I can marshal a host of friends, enemies, and colleagues to back up this statement. The most that one can hope for is to break even. It takes only one minor upset — a difficult birth, eclampsia (perhaps not so minor) in the bitch, an unlooked for invasion of a pesky parasite, and you go way in the hole. No veterinarian of my acquaintance treats these things free of charge, and I have yet to meet that kindly old soul who gives breeders a break. One or two may exist, but I wouldn't count on finding one in an emergency, and with puppies, it is always an emergency. In my area veterinarians' fees are right up there with the pediatricians.
I will discuss points A and B separately, although both are related through the little understood fact that dogs are the only "man-made" creature — i.e., interfered with in their development to such an extent that they are largely dependent on man and probably could not live long in a state of nature. Only some so-called "natural" breeds can still do this. Their single most important function now is to serve as companions to man, and most breeds as we know them cannot develop fully except in that way, Therefore, a dog is uniquely dependent on man.
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