Let’s require all dogs and cats sold in pet stores to come from local shelters

Why do cats and dogs sold at pet stores frequently come from mass breeding often under appalling conditions? If we really must have pet stores selling cats and dogs (we should not in my opinion) then surely it is a “no brainer” for pet stores to get their supplies of cats and dogs from local shelters.

It is a bizarre anomaly of the behaviour of humankind for pet stores to sell cats and dogs from puppy and kitten mills and in parallel to kill, en masse, millions of healthy cats and dogs in shelters. How did we arrive at this state of affairs? Answer: we are humans and we don’t give a damn if we kill millions of cats and dogs at shelters. Or put it this way, we don’t care enough about unwanted cats and dogs to make changes and do the right thing. We must be undervaluing the lives of the vast pool of cats and dogs in shelters. If we really valued these lives the legislatures of each state in the USA would enact laws which made it obligatory for pet stores to sell cats and dogs from shelters.

Often these animals are extremely adoptable. They are often more attractive and more healthy that puppy/kitten mills animals.

There is another possible reason why shelters don’t supply pet stores: they don’t want to. Do we know if shelters regularly discuss contracts with pet stores for the supply of cats and dogs? I have never seen that written about in online articles but perhaps I have missed the point. Perhaps shelters and rescues have contracts with other suppliers for the carcasses of cats and dogs. Just a thought.

I am not the only person who wants to see pet stores selling rescue cats and dogs. There are two petitions on the petition site. They concern the states of Minnesota and Colorado. They have both almost met their targets.

The Colorado petition urges Governor Hickenlooper and the Colorado State Legislature to create a statute which makes it obligatory for cats and dogs sold in pet stores to come from shelters and rescues. There are 138,410 signatures at the date of this post. The target is 140k.

The Minnesota petition has the same goal. The target number of signatories (supporters) is 50K and 49,790 have signed.

There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of people support this idea. Why? Because it is common sense. It is humane. It is decent. And it is about time it happened.