Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned. It's been thirteen days since my last submission.
The weekend was filled with my usual - Dogs vs. Horses - training and grooming and taking pictures. My entire holiday weekend was filled with great dog and horse people - and of course - great dogs and horses.
Everywhere I went last weekend the animal talk was the same, "Mandatory micro-chipping" and "Mandatory Spay and neuter" bills are threatening to take away the lifestyle that we animal people love so deeply. While the surface thinking - animal rights activists chant that we breeders are amoral and irresponsible - we try and save our breeds from extinction, juggle our beloved family of dogs (and horses) and rescue others that have fallen onto hard times. None of us complain, we know how special our lives are because of animals but as the song goes, "it ain't easy." Providing quality food in their bowls and bins and vet care keeps most of us empty-pocketed regardless of how much money we make. But the trade-off makes it more than fair. To watch our beauties happy and running free, to have a dog at our sides on a long drive, to hug a pony at daybreak.. what life could be better?
What life is more at risk of being lost?
At night, we animal people lose sleep wondering when the community activists will come knocking in judgment, telling us how irresponsible we are to spend our money on dogs and horses when there is so much want in the world. Will they fabricate charges against us? Will they tell us what kind of dogs we can have and how many? Will they take away our dogs?
They already are.
Surface thinkers probably do not know what happened in Russia after Lenin (and later Stalin) got a hold of the landowner's dogs and horses. Surface thinkers who endorse bills and candidates eager to carve away our Fourth Amendment rights have never heard about what happened to the dog kennels and horse breeding farms when the Bolsheviks overthrew Czarist Russia. Was Castro merely copying them when he came to power? "For the Greater Good" was the mantra. Entire kennels and farms were seized without warning. Land and animal owners were evicted from their own homes and citizens of the Worker's Party - urban people for the most part - with little to no agricultural experience took over the care of the animals. Under a Socialist edict, these once privately owned dogs and horses were now bred as commercial crops for the "greater good." For Castro's government.
I know. It sounds like a nightmare, doesn't it? It was a nightmare. A real one.
Many breeders (that I have interviewed) smuggled their dogs to America but not everyone had the chance. For some, the warning came too late. For some, they simply could not believe their ears. At the final hour, one woman learned from her butler that "Castro's men were on their way to her estate to seize her hearth and home including her large kennel of show dogs. Looking out the top story window of her home she could see the military vehicles far in the distance. A chill went down her spine. The butler had been telling the truth all along. Castro wanted her German Shepherd Dogs for use in his military.
With little time to spare, she ran to her kennel office and and found the deadly poison she kept locked in a drawer. It was for severe cases - to be used humanely for the purpose of ending suffering. Allowing her beloved dogs to be seized by unknown human beings was suffering in her book. With great courage she picked up a hypodermic needle and the deadly poison. Grimly she opened the kennel doors one by one and gently put every single dog to sleep. It was the only way she could be certain. She would not allow her beloved dogs to suffer by unskilled hands.
Knowing that all of the above took place in what are considered "Modern times" causes me shiver late at night. What will I do with my darling animals? What will you do with yours? As my husband likes to say, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
As I read the reports of animal rights activists linking arms with today's political leaders on both local and national levels, I realize that all that has happened in the past could easily come again.
It is already happening.
Indeed, our nation's President was endorsed and heavily supported by HSUS, the world's largest animal rights organization. And what experience does he bring to his role as President of the United States of America? Community activism.
If the old "Trickle Down" theory is true, than what kind of horror are we in for as dog and horse lovers? Will there be a day when the government tells us what kind of dog we can own and how many? Will there be a "Pet Czar"? If so, what will be his/her credentials? Will he/she be one of us?
Are you biting your nails? Well, your worry is based on historical facts from the not so distant past.
The questions begging to be answered are thus: What are we going to do about it? How? When?
Kerrin Winter-Churchill is a writer-photographer with a specialty in dogs and horses. Further information on her work can be seen at http://www.kerrinwinterchurchill.com
