Portia Stewart, DVM 360 editor and team channel director, deserves respect for her initiative to see another side of the canine world at a dog auction. It is where the dogs are bought and sold like livestock without the fuss and prim that are part of family member paradigms. For some of us reared in rural areas, animal auctions are part of reality. For Portia, I’m pleased this auction was rather formal and not a dark-of-night coonhound trial and accompanying auctioning of hounds based on their trailing voice and performance.
Stewart mentions Prop B, known as the Missouri Dog Breeding Regulation Act of 2012 and shares qualitative data about the reduction in kennel numbers this brought about. Ironically, Missouri was one of the places where post-WWII U.S. government funded, economic development activities included training for soldiers about dog breeding. As they returned to family farms and buildings that livestock production had outgrown, dog breeding was an income option. In those times, abandoned chicken coops, milking sheds and six-pen hog houses became foundational dog housing onto which runs were attached. Yes, indoor/outdoor production.
I am not comfortable with the auctioning aspect of this, and I’m beginning to understand why. As a pet owner, I think of these creatures as beloved companions, to be loved and enriched. In this place, the animals are livestock, not unlike cattle or hogs. Many of the physical needs of these dogs seem to be met, but I think of the completely social nature of the dogs . . . I’m struggling more than a little with the isolation of these dogs.
Source: DVM 360, August 24, 2018. Link.
Part of what’s likely bothering me about the dog auction is that at heart I believe it is an unethical practice, but in the moment, in my experience, the animals at auction were ethically treated, at least in the sense of their being livestock. It’s my anthropomorphizing of the dogs that sees the auction as a minimally acceptable experience for that animal, because it lacks the relationships and enrichment I perceive a pet would need.
INSIGHTS: I’m reminded of a colleague who, in explaining his farm-raised childhood said, “. . . where I grew up, I didn’t have pets. Dad’s dogs hunted or else. Cats had to mouse and weren’t fed at the back porch. Cows, sheep, horses, dogs, cats, poultry . . . it didn’t matter. We didn’t feed anything we couldn’t eat or eat from.” For this animal health pro, critters were all economic animals.
Again, I give kudos to Ms. Stewart for embracing her fears to experience the dog auction environment. Where ever you fit on the spectrum of tolerance for commercialized breeding, it is important to ensure we continue to promote stewardship of our canine population.