Closed Minds Let Nothing In

It never fails to amaze me, really. This is the situation. I saw a posting on FB from Cesar Millan's page that Massachusetts banned debarking surgery. I don't agree with the surgery myself, even though sometimes I've considered it for Dalila but I don't think I'll ever do it. I've got a better handle on her bark these days so I know I can manage her. I also don't agree with it out of convenience; if you get a dog, train it. Simple. But I also understand that sometimes it can be the lesser of evils. For example my breeder has usually 7 shelties in her home at once. Now one sheltie is loud - imagine 7. And I don't care what anyone says, when one gets going the others will follow. That's just the way they are. And they are hard to calm down. It can be done, but it's hard. And she's now experiencing health problems, which compounds the issue. One of her seven (Dalila's great grandmother to be precise) is debarked. The bark isn't gone, it just sounds really raspy like she has a cold. She has neighbours and doesn't want to trouble them, and having one less loud barker helps. Okay, her dogs her decision. Maddie doesn't seem to notice, she barks alongside everyone else. But everyone on this page considered every dog owner who did this surgery to be horrible people. I threw in my two cents pretty much saying that while I don't agree with the surgery, I don't agree with judging people either. Of course I got jumped on (anticipated that) but I stood my ground. I'm not ashamed of my opinions, and I'm not ashamed of speaking them even when 90% of the people are being a little close-minded in their passion. People don't listen when they're on that high.

One lady saw fit to tell me that I and my sister were bad dog owners because I wasn't agreeing with the masses and pointing out a few real realities. I was also called stupid.

Haha, I'm a writer honey. You want to take a hit at my feelings you're going to have to hit a lot harder than that!

She gave up, I guess she didn't want to admit that she wasn't reading what I was writing properly. I guess it's hard to admit that things aren't always fair to dog owners and some people have to make ugly decisions. I'm not saying that shouldn't be changed, because it should, but it's stupid to ignore the reality here and now. If any of those dog owners commenting there could honestly say that if they were ever faced with the decision of getting their dog debarked or removed from them, they would let their dog go they're stronger people than I am. I hope never to be in that situation, but I'd rather debark Dalila than lose her. If that makes me stupid fine, but I knew what I was getting into when I got a sheltie. I know what a barker she can be and I know I have to work to curb that. And I just can't bring myself to give her up and then someone who's unaware of that adopts her only to get rid of her. She'd get euthanized. And she is just far too happy and far too wonderful of a dog to have that happen to her. Not everyone is lucky like me to have neighbours and a super who would work with me if she was ever a problem. Some people have neighbours who complain over the simplest, stupidest things and sometimes the law sides with them instead of resolving it. That's reality. It's not always fair, and there's not always happy endings and rainbows. I'm all for people being more responsible dog owners, but I'm also for people not being so anal retentive about a dog just because they bark on occasion.

And I'm also for people not being so damn judgemental when they haven't been there and done that.