The problem that I see with articles such as these is that the bias in them is just as apparent as the bias in articles written by hardline animal rights activists. The authors are clearly pro-breeding, anti-animal rights, which makes them just as biased as anti-breeding, pro-animal rights authors. I don't trust much of anything written by a source that isn't even making the pretense of being objective.
I'm not saying that the article doesn't make valid points or that it isn't on the money about several things - indeed, the book Redemption (which pushes for a no-kill movement) pointed out years ago that we don't have an issue of pet "overpopulation," but rather of pet abandonment and homelessness, that can easily be cured with better shelter management and public education.
Personally, I'm not sure how anyone can argue much in favor of pets being over or under populated in general. It is not a natural population being sustained by an ecosystem; it is a captive population and the degree to which the "environment" - human homes - can sustain it relies ENTIRELY on the degree to which humans are willing to step up to the plate and provide quality homes.
IDK, color me unimpressed. I can't take an article seriously if it suggests that the reason shelters "import" pets from other regions and countries is because they are money grubbing greed machines, for example - they have NO way to back that claim, might I add - it is conjecture, not a quantifiable statistic. I have worked at shelters that import from other regions, and they have one reason for it: helping where the greatest perceived need is. For example, one of the shelters I worked at up north would pull dogs from overcrowded high kill shelters down south. I knew the lady who did it, and do you want to know why? Because she visited the south, saw healthy, friendly, adoptable dogs being loaded into crude gas chambers, and said, "This doesn't have to happen; I can help these dogs." Our area had a greater availability of homes, due to a higher socioeconomic status and a lesser problem of pet homelessness. It seemed rational enough to someone who loves animals to help out those less fortunate.
I honestly find it very disheartening that two populations of people who love dogs and cats - (responsible) breeders and shelters - are more interested in sniping one another over a difference of philosophy than putting their differences aside and focusing on the real problem: why pets end up homeless. Because it is normally something HIGHLY preventable that could be worked on from both the breeding and rescue community.
