Who's a Breeder? Craigslist Is Out of Line

During a rare opportunity to browse Craigslist, I saw an ugly new trend in the pets section. Of course, Craigslist has always been for individuals with one-time ads rather than commercial businesses and services, so pet breeders aren't supposed to use the service. And the "flagging" policy, which basically seems to have been designed to be abused, is being used to target people who want to place extra kittens and puppies.

People had placed ads saying, "If no one adopts these kittens/puppies, they'll have to go to a shelter!" Some of these people were complaining that trolls kept "flagging" their ads. Of course, ads can be reposted within minutes after advertisers are notified that they've been flagged, and often they are. Of course, anyone who's ever had a personal enemy (or someone who wants a competing ad to be read first) launch a "flagging" campaign against a perfectly legitimate, utterly bland ad knows that "flagging" means nothing but inconvenience...so only the power companies, which bill people for the electricity they use to keep their ads on Craigslist, actually benefit from "flagging." And those of us who don't have the time to beat off the trolls just don't use Craigslist.

However, in this section the flaggers were openly inflicting their philosophical views on all other users of Craigslist, posting notices that "If you allow your pet to reproduce, you are a breeder!"

Not exactly. An animal breeder is someone who is trying to raise and sell animals for a profit. Most animal breeders fit into one of two categories: inhumane, or financially unsuccessful.

Inhumane breeders confine animals to isolated pens or cages and either force them to accept mates of the humans' choice, not their own, on the humans' schedule, not their own, or else force them to reproduce via artificial insemination. When the young animals arrive, they are weaned and sold ahead of their natural schedule and the grieving mothers are forcibly bred again. Animals are bred for looks that often indicate dysfunctional genes, so they have to live with congenital diseases that nature would have bred out of their family line.

Financially unsuccessful breeders have enough sense to treat animals decently, so their animals enjoy normal lifespans and aren't "overbred" for disease conditions...but there is no longer enough market for their animals to allow the breeders to quit their day jobs. Fortunately it's always possible that these people appreciate, and are appreciated by, their animals.

In overcrowded urban areas, attempts to prevent people from breeding animals make a kind of sense, although reality is that those conditions aren't fit for humans to live in either. However, I wasn't looking at the New York City page of Craigslist. I was looking at the Tri-Cities, Tennessee, page. This is a rural area. The normal way people around here acquire animals is to wait for someone else's pets (or working farm animals) to give birth. The only need we have for Craigslist is to expedite the connection between someone who has puppies, kittens, calves, lambs, or chickens and someone who wants them.

Here at the Cat Sanctuary, a lot of cats had been spayed (and male cats didn't stay long enough to be neutered) until someone rescued the cat Patchnose and three of her four kittens from an alley in Kingsport, Tennessee. Although Patchnose was a feral alley cat who didn't live long enough to receive the medical care she needed, she gave birth to some very special, social, intelligent kittens. Only one of her kittens and grand-kittens has been spayed...and there's a waiting list for future generations of this cat family.

Am I a "breeder"? Not exactly. Unless I see clear evidence that an animal's genes need to be removed from the pool, I don't try to dictate any of my younger friends' choice of mates, or push them to reproduce earlier or more often than they choose. Because these cats are very social and very close to me, I know who the kittens' fathers were (they don't seem to inbreed), but I don't make the decision.

A few years ago one of the more idiotic ads paid for by people who want domestic animals to go extinct compared people who allowed a pet to reproduce with parents telling a nervous teenaged daughter, "If it has a pulse, you should be wrapped around it!" The thinking was that that's what hormones are telling your pet, but in fact animals are pretty selective about their choice of mates. As a species for whom nature has made rape possible, we humans seem to be in a conspicuous minority.

I live with cats who hunt and raise kittens communally, but mate separately. When one of them is in heat, the others shun her and her mate. Last year, each of the three sisters in residence was friendly with just one of the three visiting males; since the tomcats didn't look alike, the kittens' paternity was easy to trace.

When one of these males tried to become a full-time resident and was moved to the other end of town, early in the year, the female who had been encouraging him didn't seem to come into full heat, and didn't have kittens last summer...although other male cats visited her sisters.

Apparently my cats share this trait with Pounce and Dusty, a couple of earlier "Cat Sanctuary graduates" who were separated shortly before they were able to reproduce, but not before they had bonded. Each of the humans who adopted these two cats stated intentions of sterilizing the cats, but then said, "This cat has no interest in the opposite sex. I think s/he is naturally neutered." This lasted for a couple of summers before each cat found another suitable mate. Both of them "married into" the Patchnose family.

Because I'd promised that Dusty wouldn't be allowed to have kittens and made her new human promise that too, Dusty and Steelgray (Patchnose's grandson) have had a nice sterile relationship. No such promises had been made when Pounce met Polly (Patchnose's daughter). Pounce is not exactly monogamous; he lives on the other side of the wooded ridge above my home, and apparently sneaks off to visit my cat Bisquit (Polly's daughter) in the woods. These cats' sense of family is almost human...a far cry from "If it has a pulse."

Horses are even more selective. Humans often want foals to be born in early January. Mares, who naturally have sex just once a year and carry their foals for the rest of the year, often want to wait a little longer to get into "the mood." In natural conditions horses have no trouble reproducing themselves, but when humans insist on speeding up the process, horse breeding becomes dangerous for both horses and all the humans who have to participate.

I don't know on what basis animals select their mates. I don't know on what basis humans select their mates. I do know that no bird or mammal likes to be separated from the mate of its choice and pushed toward a different one. They make their feelings about this very clear, if humans aren't in denial about it.

I also know that, if you just want to indulge in a feeling that you're nurturing someone who needs you, a cat or dog who's been traumatized by staying in a shelter may be a good choice. Of course they've been traumatized. Other than the species imprisoned, what's the difference between an animal shelter and a Nazi or Soviet prison camp? If you need an animal who can work with you, and in the country dogs and cats definitely qualify, it's a good idea to adopt a young animal who's grown up in a good home, with a satisfactory working parent as a role model.

Well, let the trolls on Craigslist consider me a breeder if they like--I don't anticipate advertising any of this cat family on Craigslist anyway. I think every rural farm should only be so lucky as to acquire a cat with a sense of family and the ability to learn words, which my cat family definitely have. And I think these cats' DNA should be reproduced as often as nature intends. But I'm not trying to capitalize on selling these cats. People who want a Patchnose kitten do have to demonstrate fitness to keep one. And the cats decide when, and with whom, they're going to carry on the line.

I am concerned about the little-publicized reality that domestic animal populations are disappearing from several urban areas. Rural animal shelters can now brag that they don't kill animals (who may have been kidnapped from farms, where they may be missed) any more, because they ship these animals to urban shelters that are no longer trapping enough animals to put up for adoption.

So, why continue to claim that "there aren't enough homes"? Because Humane Genocide Society shelters have set their own standards for suitable homes for animals--with the intention that very few homes qualify. Some of these shelters now demand that people fill out applications, disclosing all kinds of confidential information that no business like an animal shelter should ever see, before they even allow people to see the animals who supposedly need loving homes...so that a shelter volunteer can tell people that their age, income, etc., is a disqualification for adopting any animal.

I suspect that if the young students who've been enlisted to flag any ad that mentions "Free to a good home" or "Our dog had puppies" knew what they were actually accomplishing, they'd agree with me that they're hassling the wrong people. If they realized that some breeds of domestic animals really are threatened with extinction, we might see a backlash...and I say the sooner the better.

I'd like to see some of that intrusive concern directed toward the process by which animals arrive at shelters, with a demand for aggressive prosecution of any attempt to "rescue" outdoor pets.

Slogan to replace "neuter and spay is the only way": "When people kidnap pets, make them pay a body part for a body part."

I'd like to see students picket shelters with demands for absolute, DNA-verified proof that animals who have been euthanized were suffering from incurable diseases, and that if shelters weren't able to place animals according to ridiculously exclusive standards, those shelters returned to more reasonable standards.

Slogan to replace "there aren't enough homes": "Love animals--don't kill them."

I'd like to see Craigslist readers flagging ads that try to place shelter pets with ridiculous "adoption fees."

Slogan to replace "evildoers look for pets advertised free": "After the traumatic shelter experience, an animal can't be worth more than ten dollars. Putting animals in cages should cost money, not pay anybody."

I'd like to see a subsection of Craigslist's pets ad page devoted to warnings about the control freaks, as in "Look out for 'Analcompulsive at server.com'--that lunatic tried to demand in advance that I promise to neuter a puppy who's not even weaned yet."

Slogan to replace "helping animal shelters means helping animals": "Extinction is forever, and should only happen to animal haters."

I'd like to see even yuppies looking for evidence that the backlash had been successful. I'd like to read that when yuppies go to realtors' open houses, they ask, "Where are the neighborhood cats? Not locked up?! What's the problem? I certainly wouldn't want a house in a neighborhood where it's not safe for cats to keep down the vermin!"

Slogan to replace "kitty inside": "Roach and rat lovers inside...padded cells."