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Comment by flavor8 | Hacker News Reader

> Why don't they force the breeders to have better conditions for the animals, and include livestock and lab animals along with it?

Breeding dogs isn't hard / has a low barrier to entry. You need a male and a female and a place to house the puppies. Conditions could be generally terrible. Enforcing licensing is unrealistic - who's going to do the inspections? Who's going to pay the inspectors?

Further, there are too many dogs and cats, period. Disincentivizing commercial breeding (making it harder to sell) is a _good_ thing, and rerouting some of the animals who would be killed by shelters who can no longer accomodate them is also a good thing.

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The point about inspection overhead / regulatory capture is a good one.

Regulation is difficult because of unintended consequences. So given a choice between "ban pet stores from selling bred animals" and "create a new bureaucracy to oversee animal conditions" (then pairing it with something like a transfer tax), the former is a lighter market touch.

And if we want to get realpolitik, mongrels tend to have stronger genetics than pure-breds ("Life finds a way"), so this is probably long-term good for pets in general.

But you need purebreds to get mongrels, otherwise you eventually wind up with mutts (which are healthier than purebreds but not as good as mongrels).

I thought that mutt and mongrel were synonyms. Is there some formal distinction?

I meant it as a synonym, debated on which to use, and decided mongrel carried fewer pejorative connotations.

'Cross-breed' is term I've heard involving pure-bred ancestors.

E.g. this adorable Bassador on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_crossbreed#/media/File%3...

Here's a few links describing the regulatory situation in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/dog-breeding-licence-england-scotland-wal... https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/breeding/dog-breeding-regul... https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/news-events/issues-campaigns/pa...

How would you enforce a ban on backyard breeders? I personally detest them as they flood the market with unhealthy dogs.

I find the overpopulation argument really interesting in how it compares to similar issues:

1. There's too many humans, killing humans to reduce the population isn't really a palatable solution to anyone. 2. There's too many cats/dogs, killing them seems much more reasonable to some, and awful to others. They're in the sweet spot between family and wildlife. 3. Pests (deer, rabbits, etc) are over-populating, killing them is pretty much A-OK.

Personally I see a cultural issue akin to wastage. Especially in the US, we love to buy and throw stuff out all the time. I would hypothesize that people who buy/rescue mutts and less desirable breeds are more likely to abandon them after some time. Others who spend thousands of dollars on a specific breed they like will be more likely to keep it the duration of its life.

I see the solution as more of a tax. Stop letting people get cats/dogs for $20. I also don't think inspections are unreasonable. The government already inspects half of the industries, what's one more?

The insinuation that people that adopt “less desireable” animals are less responsible is verging on insulting. The people that I have met that are working for neglected animals are some of the most dedicated and compassionate people that I know. Meanwhile, on any given day you can find “fancy” breeds that have been abandoned at the municipal shelter by owners that couldn’t be bothered to accomodate them.

>Meanwhile, on any given day you can find “fancy” breeds that have been abandoned at the municipal shelter by owners that couldn’t be bothered to accomodate them.

At least in my area, any expensive breeds (any pure breed that's not a Chihuahua or Pit Bull really) are scooped up by rescues almost immediately. Then if you want to adopt one, you have to go through an interview processes ran by people who are temporarily caring for the dog who are looking for reasons to disqualify you.

The approval process is completely arbitrary and far too invasive. The president of the ASPCA was turned down by a rescue a few years ago, and he wrote about the process.

In my experience I find that hard to believe, and if true, those rescues are doing a poor job. Everyone that works in animal rescue knows which animals are at high risk of being euthanized, and always prioritize pulling those animals.

Regarding adoption, rescues are more invested in what homes their animals go to because they often are making a promise to take back any animals they take resposibility for. They don’t want animals to go back to the shelter, so any sign of potential issue will get an adoption canceled. Are there false positives? Of course. But a lot of animals going to good homes that would otherwise be killed.

>In my experience I find that hard to believe

Just looked at my local shelter website. 78 dogs for adoption at the shelter. Not a single pure breed that wasn't a pit bull. And 90% of the dogs were pit bull or pit bull mixes.

>so any sign of potential issue will get an adoption canceled. Are there false positives? Of course.

That's the problem rescue workers are in a poor position to make this determination. They are in a perfect position to suffer from confirmation bias, plus they are too emotionally attached to the dogs.

They need more objective standards. When the Head of the ASPCA can't meet your standards, something is wrong.

>But a lot of animals going to good homes that would otherwise be killed.

And there are rescue organizations that buy dogs from breeders. Sure rescue organizations do a lot of good, but they could be ran a lot better I think they need more oversight.

>I see the solution as more of a tax. Stop letting people get cats/dogs for $20

Not getting on the specific argument, but any such kind of tax, it should be analogous to the buyers income/wealth, and not to the price.

Such that a poor person and a rich person have a proportionally equal penalty for buying the item -- else it's just a restriction on poor people.

One of these classes is wildly better equipped to care for an animal.

With that logic, we should just ban poor people from breeding as well. After all, they are not as well equipped to do it.

Actually that not true. You are reducing my logic to an absurd level.

A static price is not a prevention, but a disincentivization. Enabling people to do something they are otherwise economically incapable of doing is how we got the 2008 recession. Granted this is a whole different level, but the point is the same. A functioning economy reflects the value, not the means. And as a result, some are less able than others. A price point that makes it difficult for someone to afford a pet will (presumably) make them think twice before taking on a responsibility they might not be able to handle.

Banning is a strong word, but we should definitely discourage it. Poor unmarried people shitting out kids that the rest of us have to pay for is not something I am a big fan of.

Someone well off with those ideas forgets that he's here only because untold numbers of "poor people" had children up to his lineage -- even when they faced much worse odds than poverty...

If what somebody learnt from life is that "they have to pay for poor people's kids", then indeed some are better for all of us to not have been born in the first place. But those are not necessarily the poor people's kids.

I seriously doubt that a person with $70K/year income is less "equipped to care for an animal" than a person with $10M/year income in any meaningful way.

You'd be surprised. Vet bills can be unexpectedly expensive and a sick or injured pet can run up a thousand dollar vet bill pretty quick. A family with a $70K income and a couple of kids could find that pretty difficult to accomodate into the budget.

We could find terrible dog owners everywhere. Dogs are social animals and their psychological wellbeing and health is related with spending as many time as possible with their family group. Rich people have busy lifes and lack of free time to walk or play with the dog. They can overfeed they animals also to compensate.

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