Ban on Pet Sales

In her article "San Francisco Considers Banning of Pets Except Fish", Carolyn Jones is reporting on a proposed ban on pet sales in pet stores. This problem appeared to be because many people bring pets to shelters after facing problems related with animal's unexpected behavior. If abandoned pets stay at shelters for a while and don't get adopted, they have to be euthanized which is not humane. So there is a testimony about restricting pet sales at pet stores with the exception of fish. The testimony is not approved because there are still a lot of opened questions.

There were two articles in response to this problem.

Ken White, the President of Peninsula Humane Society and SPCA wrote one of the response. Even though this response confused me a little, I'll try to summarize it as far as I understood. Although the question about pet stores banning was silly for Ken because of the economical situation now and all problems related to that, this problem bothers him a lot. His main point is that banning stores or not we should think that animal's suffering and death are what we should ban at first, because there might be not only problems with animals return back to stores by unsatisfied owners, but also problems with cruelty toward some animals right at the stores.

Michael Yaki (Attorney and Political Consultant) in his response "Banning Pet Stores in SF: A Solution in Search of a Problem" also gives us his opinion on the same problem. From his point of view it is mostly governmental try to get people's trust. He says the true is that this question is important because some people just don't understand the responsibility they have to care if they want to have pets. Michael wants customers and salesmen to think before buying or selling animals. At the same time, the most important point that Michael wants to emphasize here is that the government, which has a huge budget deficit, should not spend money on solving this "trivial" problem because there are a lot more important problems now that government should take care of.

In general I agree with all the writers because I see all the points they make. Our behavior toward animals should be smart, and we have to understand our our responsibilities. If there is something wrong with our pets only we will be guilty. I also agree that it is silly to ban the sale of pets in pet stores, because we have teach children to care for animals, and home pets are the best way to do that. Plus we know how important the small business for American economy, so I'm sure banning the stores will have a strong impact on that. And there is one more point that I agree with. The government has economic problems now which are hard to solve very fast, so I believe that they try to do everything to have better look for people, for example, doing something what could show a result much faster.