Playing on the Internet

The web is a great strange thing. Before the web, one had to listen to the "authorities" on a subject - and often they said whatever was best FOR THEMSELVES.


I like to read the points of view of regular people. So what, if they aren't perfect or always right?


The authorities of the pre-internet era were often just as wrong, and the voices of the public, who were the true contact point between idea and application (product and it's use), simply were not heard.


Wrong? Yes, the people who set national trends and policies have been known to sometimes be wrong.


How could a group of people, who were as wrong as wrong can be, control the media, have their ideas become the dominate theme of books on the subject, and put the public out of a right they had always previously had?


Before the internet, it was slow, but there just wasn't a good way for unorganized people to speak up about an industry trampling their rights.


Like the right to breed an occasion litter of puppies or kittens.


Most pet puppies use to come from the mother dog that belonged to a friend or relative, not from a dog breeder or pet shop.


People wanted a puppy from a mother dog that was good with children and who was mannered.


Somehow dog breeders have convinced some people that to get a good pet puppy, you should skip buying a puppy from a pet, and buy a puppy left over from a show litter (puppies who were not bred as pets, but to be show dogs, but they weren't showy enough for that).


I believe that breeding dogs to be good pets is an even better goal than breeding them so you can put them in shows. And I have personally watched efforts by an organized group to put the public out of the picture (through legal means).


Getting elbowed out of your spot is bad enough, but when people get lawmakers to pass laws that make the public have all the pet dogs and cats operated on so that they can not reproduce, but then the law gives an exemption to "fanciers", show dog people, or people who breed cats for cat shows, then it at the point where if people don't speak up, the situation will not be repairable.


I found this little gem over on terrierman (who is really good):
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2004/04/animal-rights-and-show-rings-rosettes.html


I have been browseing around the internet lately, and I have found so many things, like I found a photo of a famous person, who I had not heard much about, but who looks like so much like someone I knew that I wonder if they were closely related.


I have found lots of show dogs sites that say the same sort of things - the same things that I have been told by dog breeders at dog shows - about how great it is to breed dogs to try to win at dog shows, and how pet dogs are "just pets" and should not be bred.


Every once in a while, I find a site that I agree with, most of the time.