USENET kookery—it's the cat's meow!
Jul. 8th, 2008 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterI've been reading rec.pets.cats.health+behav lately, in preparation to my cat adopting—and boy is there some serious anti-love going on for breeders over there. In fact, just about anyone who asks a question about breeding one's cat is apt to get his head bitten off by one of the anti-breeding brigade who feels that nobody has any right to breed new kittens while there are still cats being euthanized in shelters, and anybody who supports any breeding at all in any way, shape, or form is Evil with a capital Eev.
One of them has this big long list of health problems to which purebreds are more susceptible than average, and he likes to wield it like a two-by-four upside the head of anyone who dares suggest that people might have reasons other than snobbery for wanting a purebred. He also seems to believe that if all the purebred breeders closed up shop, suddenly everyone would immediately go to their local shelter and adopt a moggie. (In a way, it reminds me of the whole Napster/BitTorrent thing—the belief that if people couldn't pirate a particular album or movie, they would all march right down to the store and buy it instead.) And they show the classic behavior patterns of USENET kooks, including unwarranted crossposting. Sheesh.
Once again, I reflect on how aptly King Solomon was able to predict the Internet.
One of them has this big long list of health problems to which purebreds are more susceptible than average, and he likes to wield it like a two-by-four upside the head of anyone who dares suggest that people might have reasons other than snobbery for wanting a purebred. He also seems to believe that if all the purebred breeders closed up shop, suddenly everyone would immediately go to their local shelter and adopt a moggie. (In a way, it reminds me of the whole Napster/BitTorrent thing—the belief that if people couldn't pirate a particular album or movie, they would all march right down to the store and buy it instead.) And they show the classic behavior patterns of USENET kooks, including unwarranted crossposting. Sheesh.
Once again, I reflect on how aptly King Solomon was able to predict the Internet.
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Date: 2008-07-08 08:18 pm (UTC)The difference in health between moggies and pure-breds is that moggies are less likely to be taken to the vet when they get a really nasty disease, more likely to die at once in kitten hood if they are born malformed (malformed kittens are not unusual in all cats), and are more likely to be inbred because a breeder will try and prevent too much inbreeding, and the local dominant tom will probably sire three generations on his daughters and granddaughters and great-grand-daughters.