There doesn't have to be so many small animals around. If breeders stopped breeding them and owners - who animal rights advocates want to rename "guardians" - spayed and neutered theirs pronto, there would be the beginning of the end of the current tragic glut. Those animals which don't get adopted either have a lonely existence in shelters or are put to sleep. In this time in history, that should not be.
San Francisco is considering banning the sale of all small animals, including cats and dogs. For one thing that will shut down those awful puppy mills. For another, those intending to go to the breeder for a pedigreed puppy would have to do without, shop at the shelter, or go outside the city for the contraband. If that happens, many animals will never have to know the uncertain existence faced regularly by the lion's share of cats and dogs.
When I was a volunteer at the Manhattan ASPCA, I adopted Havana Brown cat Carlotta. That's a pedigree brand. Yet she wound up on the streets of Manhattan skin and bones and with a litter. The kittens were sick and so was she. But there was a happy ending to that story. Carlotta still lives with me and her animal companion Jason, a black cat. Saturday at the vet I asked him if animals have the capacity to recall trauma. He said he didn't know. I hope that Carlotta doesn't.
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