Obamas Adopt 2nd White House Dog, Name Her Sunny.

[jtuck004]

23. "Millionaire President Acquires Expensive Pair of Registered Portugese Water Dogs While Thousands of

Unwanted Pets Die in Shelters Every Day and 45% of Seniors Reach Social Security With No Retirement."

Yeah, I can see why they would want to veer away from the facts in their headline. It sounds a little different than people want to think of a Democrat.

I'm glad you took the animals in that you did, and have no problem that a few people buy from a breeder.

Buying from a breeder is buying a dog from someone who breeds and sells them for a profit. While those dogs are being purchased, other, perfectly good and unwanted dogs and cats die, unnecessarily, in shelters. Adopting means taking one in that has no home, such as from a shelter or rescue, that otherwise would most likely be killed. In the world of animal rescue and to millions of other people, those terms are very different and mean something very specific.

Which makes the reporter either incompetent or a liar. And anyone who doesn't correct them is complicit.

If there is nothing wrong with it, why did the paper use words that have such different meanings to so many people? Is there something to hide, something to be ashamed of? If not, call it what it is and be done with it. Or is someone trying to get, or give, credit that's not deserved?

I don't beat up on people who buy pets, because good scientific breeding (which very few breeders actually practice) can improve the animals health. Though, in reality, most don't. They are just in it for profit. (People convince themselves that they bought from one of the good ones because they paid something for it, yet the odds are they didn't. But that's another issue). But not everyone is cut out to be a shelter pet owner, just like not everyone is not cut out to be a parent. On the other hand, there is no excuse for screwing around with the truth when there are lives at stake, either.

We could stop the problem in fairly short order, if cities would fund low-cost spay neuter as well as they do the millions each city pays per year for a shelter to kill them. It would "fix" the problem. Prior to the 1960's, when they began to teach spay/neuter to vets, we were killing upwards of 20 million animals a year. Now it is down to around 4-6 million, and many live tragic, painful lives, and then die alone in a shelter or in pain on the side of the road because humans ignore them. As if they are worth nothing.

So when I see crap like that headline, I say something. Just like when I see bigotry or sexism. Because those animals mean something to me.