Before I launch this next salvo, I'd like to say that my moron comment notwithstanding, im not fighting with you, im debating, and it would be nice if we could continue to argue our points without getting inflammatory. Because I continue to be opposed to your ethic is no reason to heighten your irritation with every post. Additionally, because in this back and forth I cant continue to write essays, ill convert to your bullet point mode of debate.
You've misunderstood me. My point was that many people, PRIOR to becoming members of this forum, did research on guinea pigs and came to the conclusion that it's better to adopt.
Ok, you have a point there, but lets not get caught in semantics. I think we can both agree that the many people (and there are many) who research pets before they buy them comprise a minority of the pet owning populace. This is especially true for guinea pigs, which are largely seen (by the populace) as a non-consequence pet suitable for impulse buying. This reality is not a good one, but it is nevertheless the truth.
I'm *still* not quite sure what you're suggesting here. Offer competitive prices to breeders? Do you not realize that one of the goals here is to eliminate breeders?
Right, breeders as they exist today are something to be eliminated, but theres more than one way to skin a cat producer.
My suggestion was that you operate shelters in such a way as to provide guinea pigs to stores at prices compeditive with the breeders. If you can do that, and maintain your shelter as one that does not seek to actively breed cavys (troubled sows with unintentional pregnancy pre-shelter counts as a rescue endeavour), then you dont NEED to force the breeders to go out of business. You simply make them obsolete. And with shelters taking over large portions of the guinea pig supply chain, less breeding occurs, and overpopulation is reduced.
t's all well and good to say that it would be better to have the pet stores act as adoption agencies, rather than point-of-sale outlets for small animals, but HOW do you think you're going to make that happen? If people are, at this point, willing to walk in and purchase an animal, why in the world would a pet store be willing to undergo the significantly increased costs to serve as a rescue only?
This ties into the previous point largely, and the simple answer is that store wouldnt have to be coerced into doing anything or be willing to change at all. On their end, very little would change except who they got their animals from. If shelter pigs were cheaper than breeder pigs, you wouldnt have to hig CEOs over the head with a mallet to make them buy shelter pigs. Your ethos of protest and boycott tries to get them to do what is bad for them and good for you, which is why you meet resistance at all.
I firmly believe it's possible to educate everyone adn bring about an end to the sale of animals in pet stores.
Definately. I totally agree. However it will take many years, and while you yell and spread leaflets and petition, guinea pigs are dying. I am not disagreeing with your feelings and compassion, im saying theres a faster way to help the pigs.
Do you not realize that it's already happened with dogs and cats? You don't see many pet stores any more selling dogs and cats. People boycotted that idea, and look at the results.
Again we come to the issue of the majority of owners vs the minority of activists. In respecting the rights of dogs and cats, the two groups were completely aligned. Activists wanted better treatment and a solution to the same sort of breeding and overpopulation problems, and the cause was easy to diseminate because everyone and their mother has a dog or a cat. Dogs and cats are the bread and butter of dometicised pets, and activists had an instant "in" with every dog or cat lover, which meant pretty much every owner. The number of people who own guinea pigs is a much smaller number. Even more than that, the perception of a guinea pig is much different, and unfortunately, not different in a good way. When I tell people about my guinea pig many of them are surprised you can own them as pets. Many of them consider them as purely a lab animal, and even more:
they are OK with that supposed reality for guinea pigs. I am not condoning this perception, and by no means is this the universal response, but nearly no one would ever hear about dogs and cats being experimented on and be OK with it. More people are OK with that sad fact about guinea pigs.
For these reasons, the fight for guinea pigs will be much much harder than it was for dogs and cats. You can think of it like sports. No one had to fight to get football or baseball on american television, but soccer struggles by every year, and only after a concerted effort has it gained a foothold in the minds of americans.
However unlike soccer, there is a better way for guinea pigs. A way to take the valuable rescue effort already in progress, and use it to feed the public demand for guinea pigs as pets. And along with the compeditive prices from shelters, the deal could be greased with the great PR possibilities of providing a more humane way of marketing pets. Along with that could be new policies at the storefront, tips on care, references to the shelter's information database, because, as the supplier, shelters would have some sway over pet stores. More emphasis could be brought to the end consumer about good care regimens and the unique needs of guinea pigs, as well as more interest in the rewarding aspects of guinea pigs, apart from their obvious draw as a cute and furry animal for ones children (again, public perception, not mine).
I posit that more "education" could be wrought through this influence shelters would have on the store, than could be brought from spreading leaflets and informing the few people who stumble upon our community of cavy-lovers.