Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu announced proposals this week that would introduce greater penalties including jail terms and asset-seizure for people operating illegal puppy farms. The legislation would increase the maximum fines for those running illegal puppy farms and promises jail terms and fines of up to $30,000 for breeders who are found guilty of animal cruelty. This toughening of legislation has raised questions not only about animal welfare, but also about breeding in general. What are we doing when we breed selectively? What’s got our attention now about the plight of farmed dogs? Is there any link here between humans and animals?
Years ago my friend Manon and I had a beautiful grey cat we called Persephone Willow. She was rescued late one night in a raid on kitten farm not far from our apartment. She recuperated well enough, becoming used to us and even to strangers, but she never really got the hang of the motherhood thing.
When she gave birth to two flat faced black and white kittens, she looked at them like they were strangers from another planet. She would lie on them or ignore them, or push them away if they came too close. In order to allow them to feed, we needed to lie down with her to soothe her as she suckled them. Eventually we fed them with a dropper.
Persephone appeared to recover from her experience in every way except in her ability to care for her kittens. Somewhere in the captive breeding programs of zoos, the extreme cruelty of piggeries and puppy mills, and even in our own human attempts to control and regulate reproduction, our offspring have sometimes become commodities.
The historical arguments for both animal and human fertility and breeding control have largely been focused on a concern about overpopulation. Too many puppies, too many kittens, too many babies. And yet the reality for all of us creatures, is that when someone else is in control of our fertility they are in control of our lives. Putting an end to the existence of enforced breeding is liberation, whether we are speaking about human beings or about animals.
zoekrupka.com 
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