We saw this posting on one of the better dog blog sites that we follow-YesBiscuit: http://yesbiscuit.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/a-little-more-influence/. We like reading her posts as they are not only very well informed but also contain ideas and solutions. All animal enthusiasts can agree that we should not put animals to sleep, but we need solutions to make that happen. This blog had an ingenius idea that we had not thought of before or seen posted though it surely has been.
The idea pretty simply is to take all the pet stores that make money selling dogs and cats and have them sell rescue animals instead of the animals from lower quality breeders. We use the term sell loosely but perhaps people would pay an extra $100 more than a normal rescue donation for the convenience of a store for instance. The idea makes a lot of sense because a large reason people buy from stores is the convenience, the hours, and the lack of hassle. Shelters are often poorly run, so why not let pet stores earn a small fee for housing the dogs and helping advertise them. For stores that follow the model first, would they not get a halo effect from people preferring them over other pet stores?
We have to think through this more but think it is a reasonable idea. Pet stores do not want to give up selling pets as they will lose a lot of income. Perhaps this model would earn them less money, but the world is going away from them anyway so this is a solution they should prefer over the alternative.
What we also appreciated about the post was that it does not just say all breeders are bad and people should only adopt rescue dogs. It is well reasoned and fair on both sides of the argument-it is definitely worth a read.