Why Cat Fanciers Support Animal Welfare, not Animal Rights

Animal Rights and Animal Welfare - Explaining the Difference to a Child

Restrictive and Coercive Legislation

Many communities are considering restrictive laws limiting the number of cats one can own, mandatory neuter/spay laws, licensing laws, or so-called indoor-only laws. These measures are being taken in a mis-guided attempt to control the outdoor cat population and reduce the number of animals in humane society shelters. What most legislators don't understand is that the majority of the problem with surplus cats is due to the feral or un-owned cats, not the pedigreed cats who live their entire lives indoors.

Feral cats are those running wild, or abandonded animals that have no homes, and feral cats have no owners - therefore:

• nobody is going to take them in to be neutered or spayed
• nobody will pay for their license fees
• nobody will stop them from roaming

no matter how much legislation is in effect!

Many comunities are also passing laws limiting or banning any and all breeding of cats and dogs. Unfortunately, these sweeping laws are passed with little concern for the responsible, pedigreed cat breeder. These laws are not affecting the people who are causing the problem with a surplus of pets. Kitten and puppy mills, where quantity not quality is the ultimate goal, are causing the problem!

Mandatory cat licensing is not the solution! Remember, the problem cats have no owners to buy them a license! The San Francisco SPCA's Position Paper on Mandatory Cat Licensing explains the problems and their innovative solutions very well.

Communities and local humane organizations need to invest their time and energy into developing progressive projects such as the Trap, Test, Alter, Vaccinate, and Release Program. This program would at least control the population of feral or on-owned cats to a certain extent, and ensure that the feral cats in the community are healthy.

Animal Rights Activists

In the past few years, the stance taken by Animal Rights activists seems to be centered on working toward a hidden agenda - the total elimination of all pets as companion animals. Activists have managed to get themselves appointed to local animal welfare councils, and are now working to achieve the goal in their "hidden agenda". For example, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA) sounds like a worthy organization as described in their literature, until you begin to explore the depths of their agenda. The following quotes from their leader, Ingrid Newkirk, give insight into their true goals:

"Pet ownership is an absolutely abysmal situation brought about by human manipulation."

-- Ingrid Newkirk, national director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Just Like Us? Toward a Nation of Animal Rights" (symposium), Harper's, August 1988, p. 50.

"I don't use the word 'pet.' I think it's speciest language. I prefer 'companion animal.' We would no longer allow... pet shops... Eventually companion animals would be phased out."

-- Ingrid Newkirk, national director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Harper's Magazine, Aug. 1988

• "The bottom line is that people don't have the right to manipulate or to breed dogs and cats ... If people want toys, they should buy inanimate objects. If they want companionship, they should seek it with their own kind.

  -- Ingrid Newkirk, national director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Animals, May/June 1993

  "You don't have to own squirrels and starlings to get enjoyment >from them ... One day, we would like an end to pet shops and the breeding of animals. [Dogs] would pursue their natural lives in the wild .. they would have full lives, not wasting at home for someone to come home in the evening and pet them and then sit there and watch TV,"

  -- Ingrid Newkirk, national director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), Chicago Daily Herald, March 1, 1990.

"The cat, like the dog, must disappear... We should cut the domestic cat free from our dominance by neutering, neutering, and more neutering, until our pathetic version of the cat ceases to exist."

-- John Bryant, Fettered Kingdoms: An Examination of A Changing Ethic (Washington, DC: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PeTA), 1982), p. 15.

Not having pets as companion animals - we can't imagine it! To not know the love and affection for and from a pet is unthinkable to us.

Animal Rights and AIDS Research

We fail to understand the logic behind the financial support for the animal rights groups handed out by many of today's movie stars and recording artists - mostly people with extremely high profiles and lots of money. These people donate millions each year to animal rights groups, and then show up at ceremonies like the Academy Awards wearing a red ribbon to support AIDS research! Again a quote from PeTA's leader:

"Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it." (Vogue, September, 1989)

Ironic, isn't it? To financially and emotionally support AIDS research with one hand, and with the other hand give money to a group who is obviously against AIDS research!

Check out the excellent Americans for Medical Progress site for even further information on this topic.

Our Beliefs and Policies

As a breeder of pedigreed cats, we firmly believe in quality, not quantity! We work steadily to improve our breed to a standard set by The Cat Fanciers' Association. All of our cats that are sold as pets, i.e. not for breeding purposes, are sold with a mandatory neuter/spay agreement which is enforced. Check out our Kitten Sales Policy.

We keep a closed cattery, and will not hand out breeder recommendations to someone who has a pet cat and just wants to breed it once "because it's the right thing to do" before having the cat spayed. And telling us that "children need to see the miracle of birth" doesn't work either! There can be a great deal of heartache involved in the breeding of cats - and children are not yet ready to deal with that emotional heartache. Before you breed your pet cat, think about how you would explain it to your children if something went horribly wrong, a caesarian section was required and the mother and kittens for some reason didn't survive the surgery, or if one of the kittens born just flatly refuses to breathe despite all efforts to save it. Instead of seeing the miracle of birth, you have to explain all about death. It happens - rarely, thank heaven, but it can and does happen.

Related Links

Here's a list of links to organizations dedicated to animal welfare.

• National Pet Alliance - provides valuable and detailed research into the argument against licensing and mandatory neuter/spay laws.
• San Francisco SPCA - this innovative and progressive SPCA deserves to be highly commended for it's intiative and the foresight shown through introduction of their solutions to the over-population problem in San Francisco. SPCA's around the world should learn from their example!