Everytime I go to
the mall to buy another packet of
cancer sticks, I pass this little
pet shop. Along one wall, in rows of cages are tiny
dogs, puppies mostly, waiting to be sold. In front of the opening of the store is a
birdcage overstuffed with cockateals. In an island of plexiglass boxes are a few rabbits. I'm sure in the back are tanks full of feeder goldfish,
frogs, and iguanas. But I wouldn't no for sure because I've never stepped foot inside the store.
I can't bring myself to. I'd really like to buy a puppy someday, but I'd been told to not buy them from pet stores, that the puppies sold there are the results of cruel and inhumane breeding by pet suppliers. Not only were they overbred, but I'd been told they were also interbred within litters. I don't have validation for these claims, but my cynicism about markets such as these allows me to assume there is truth to them, numbers notwithstanding.
But then I thought about the warnings: don't buy pets from pet stores. Well, someone needs to liberate these animals. Someone needs to love them and take care of them. Just because they're mutants (or could be) doesn't mean they don't deserve a chance. I only wish could do away with the practice, sitck to private owners if you want a pure-breed or with the SPCA if you don't care either way. This seems to me to be another way corporate America has fucked up a need many of us has as humans, the need to care for something, to love it and forge a bond with it. And, like most things I'm finding these days, it's just sad.