Death by Silence

(Picture Left: "Napoleon" -- Wonderful Pitbull recently rescued from Euth list of shelter and curretly doing well in foster home. The bad news? This is only one Pitbull out of thousands going down in our shelters annually.)

The loudest protesters against Michael Vick and the horrors of dog fighting should have been all those connected with shelters and rescue -- especially those in charge of running animal shelters and accepting the responsibility for killing all the excess pitbulls that are runoffs from the dog fighting industry.

We are killing the by-products of the dog fighting industry every day. For every litter of pitbull puppies bred for fighting, only one or two are actually kept and trained for the fight rings. In this way, breeding for fighting is somewhat similar to those who breed dogs for "show." Show breeders are lucky if even one puppy out of a litter is "show quality." "Pet quality" puppies are sold to the general public or occasionally given away or, in some cases, even killed. For example, white German Shepherds used to be killed at birth as they were considered "mutants.")

Pitbull puppies not deemed aggressive enough for fight training (i.e. "pet quality") are either sold, given away or abandoned in the communities. Most will later end up in shelters though they are not "fighting dogs."

But, instead of demanding attention to this issue, there has been dead silence from the animal sheltering community -- from shelter leaders, to rescuers to volunteers.

So, Vick will play tonight against the NY Jets with nary a protest.

It seems the animals have no advocacy. Not only is the Animal Rights movement seemingly dead -- but even that of animal welfare.

The fiasco with Vick should have been used as "opportunity" to bring attention to how dog fighting is impacting shelters around the country and resulting in millions of dogs (most of them, pitbulls) killed annually at taxpayer expense.

But, no.

Instead, break out the pom poms, while injecting the dogs with "Fatal Plus." -- PCA

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