Many folks are already disappointed with the Obama Presidency. Some say that he amounts to no more than a slighly more liberal Bush. While some changes have been made by executive order, many other things are just about ths same as they woud have been if Bush was still in office.
Expediency trumps values and beliefs, it seems, once you are in the oval office.
To some extent, one can understand this. After all, the Iraq war (it is a war, or an occupation, or what?) cannot be stopped in a matter of days. Gitmo can't be emptied out without finding a place to take all the inmates (other than Venezuala?). Change doesn't come quickly.
But other things that are not as critical that can be done according to principles, unless you are just lazy.
Obama promised that he would get a dog from a shelter. Why is this important?
Well, every time a breed of dog becomes a celebrity, the puppy mills start cranking them out and the market is flooded, as people want "the same dog as the President has" or "that cute dog I saw on TV!"
Remember the Jack Russell craze from "Frazier"? People ran out and wanted a Jack Russell terrier, as the one on TV was so cute and trained. The reality was that the dogs can be a terror, and without careful training, can destroy an apartment in an afternoon. Throw in poor breeding and inbreeding to meet the demand for puppies, and you have a recipe for disaster.
2-3 years later, shelters were flooded with Jack Russells. Most were put down. You can't adopt-out hyperactive little dogs. No one wanted them. Frazier was off the air, and so much for the dogs.
The same happened whenever any breed becomes a celebrity. Dobermans, pit bulls, english bulldogs, chocolate labs, you-name-it. Once they become popularized, they end up flooding the shelters. Many, such as the fighting breeds, are hard to adopt out (other than to the Michael Vick's of the world) and are euthanized.
I PREDICT that in 2-3 years, we'll see the same effect as Portugese water dogs flood the shelters. West Virginia puppy mills no doubt are racing AT THIS VERY MINUTE to get these dogs and start breeding them quickly while the demand for puppies (and the prices) is high. YOU WILL SEE on CNN in the next few weeks, stories about how demand for these puppies has skyrocketed.
Human nature is a sick thing sometimes, and people will say "I need a Portugese Water Dog like Obama has" and not even think how perverted and depraved it is to want to own a live animal based on what amounts to a fashion trend.
Obama's PROMISE to obtain a shelter dog was a breath of fresh air -and if people followed his lead (as people tend to do) shelters would be flooded with people looking to adopt. The trend of breeding and creating life to satisfy fashion trends might diminish.
(NOTE: there is nothing wrong with owning a a particular breed of dog in an of itself. The problem is when people who don't really want the responsibiliy of pet ownership decide to acquire a pet as a fashion accessory or to be trendy. As a celebrity or leader, it is important to set a good ROLE MODEL for the rest of us).
But instead we have this. Lame excuses. "My daughters have allergies" (get a retired racing greyhound). "Ted Kennedy got the dog for me and he's sick." That's even worse. Trying to pave-over a campaign promise using the dying body of Ted Kennedy.
Yes, that is probably the most disgusting aspect of it. Any criticism of this broken campaign promise is shouted down by raising the cancer-ridden body of Ted Kennedy as a talisman. "How DARE you criticize Obama, when dying Ted Kennedy gave him this dog!"
And others will say, of course, "What a tempest in a teapot! We have a hostage situation here, and a war going on!"
Tell that to the 60,000 Portugese Water Dogs that will be euthanized in shelters in the coming years, as people buy these puppies and then realize, that like any other dog, they require time, patience, attention, training, feeding, space, etc. Yuppies love to buy designer dogs and then dump them at shelters.
Dogs will die, and it didn't have to be that way. Obama would have been better off with NO DOG than to purchase (through Ted Kennedy) a designer hound.
And you know what? I'd be willing to bet there was one of these dogs languishing in a shelter somwhere, too. But like most idiotic Americans, they want a "cute little PUPPY!". Puppies, like children, lose their appeal quickly, and then are ignored. I hope Obama's daughers think about those implications.
How sad, but not entirely unexpected.
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