20 Good Reasons Not to Support the Pet Trade

by Co-ordinating Animal Welfare

1. A million dogs become stray every year.
2. There are over two million stray cats.
3. Stray dogs and cats are stolen from the streets for experimentation, dog fighting and the fur trade.
4. Many animals are brutally treated, drowned, kicked, starved or abandoned.
5. Millions of farm animals are slaughtered to provide food for our pets.
6. There are far too few good homes available for the many thousands of animals already abandoned and unwanted. Buying from pet shops merely reduces the number further.
7. The after effects of the pet trade are largely hidden, with literally hundreds of animal sanctuaries, animal rights/welfare groups and individuals being left to clean up the mess.
8. The skins of destroyed animals are used for the fur trade; their bodies are routinely rendered into fat.
9. The buying and selling of animals is nothing more than slavery.
10. The pet trade encourages children to see animals as play-things with no feelings or rights.
11. Small animals, (rabbits, hamsters, gerbils, birds, fish, etc.) are condemned to a living hell in tiny cages.
12. "Pet" animals endure insufferable boredom and psychological deprivation through human ignorance. They are denied the companionship of their own species and access to their natural environment.
13. Animals are completely dependent on us -- we can never fulfil all their needs, however well intentioned we are.
14. Animals are bred with deliberate deformities to meet breed specifications. This causes long-term health problems in many animals.
15. Animals undergo surgical mutilations, e.g., tail docking and ear cropping just to comply with breed standards.
16. Animals which do not satisfy breed criteria are routinely destroyed.
17. Drug companies have a vested interest in the pet trade; they make vast amounts of money out of animal suffering.
18. Pet shops and breeders thrive on "sympathy buyers", people who buy animals out of pity for the individual, ignorant of the fact that this merely encourages more breeding.
19. It is estimated that for every wild caught bird that reaches the pet shop, nine will have died in transport.
20. The cynical marketing of pet traders has led to a massive growth in so called "puppy farms". Animals are literally factory farmed; females are continually mated only to see their infants stolen away from them before they are weaned. Worn out and old before their time, the mothers are abandoned or killed.