Stop Breeding Dogs For Now, Says Vet

The voice of Nedim Buyukmihci (Bewkmawkey) haunts me. It is a kind voice, thoughtful and articulate. And it sows troubling seeds of thought.

Buyukmihci is one of several veterinarians I recently interviewed about canine genetic disease. But he’s unlike any other vet I’ve spoken to. As far as Buyukmihci is concerned, genetic disease in dogs, serious as it is, is secondary to what he considers a moral issue now surrounding dog ownership in America.

A professor of ophthalmology at the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, Buyukmihci is founder of a movement called the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights (AVAR). Yep, animal rights. Fighting words among many scientists, farmers, hunters, furriers, cosmeticians, religious folk and animal owners of several stripes.

AVAR thinks America should stop breeding dogs and cats for a while. It’s a provocative idea, one that impacts others’ property rights. Because that’s how the nation’s Uniform Commercial Code regards pets. They’re chattel, which Webster defines as “an article of personal or movable property as distinguished from real property.” Cars are chattel. So is the toaster on your kitchen counter. Of course, slaves used to satisfy the legal criteria of chattel in our society, and wives did, too.

In a nation of animal lovers - or at least animal owners - AVAR’s stand on dog and cat breeding is bound to get a rise. The organization is virtually assured of minority status. Consider: There are roughly 54,000 veterinarians in America, of which only about 500 are AVAR members.

But Buyukmihci is unconcerned about numbers. Principles are what matter to him.

“To bring into this world another dog or cat should be anathema right now (to) any compassionate person,” says Buyukmihci. This is because in every community in America mass extermination of unwanted dogs and cats is a hidden fixture of life. Buyukmihci expects it to remain so until society stops regarding unwanted pets as “disposable items (like) car batteries - when they’re no longer useful to you, you dump them.”

Buyukmihci, and AVAR, believe that if America’s human animals began treating other species with a little more respect, society as a whole would inevitably become a kinder, gentler place. A good starting point, they suggest, is for dog and cat lovers to adopt their pets from animal shelters until the population of the shelters dries up.

“To me it’s appalling and morally unconscionable that we have at universities departments which are involved in improving the reproductive capabilities of dogs while we’re killing them by the millions,” says Buyukmihci. He’s full of troubling observations like that.

So is Kim Sterla, executive director of the Fund For Animals, another animal rights group. Sterla is the woman who stirred up the nation’s dog owners a few years ago when she drafted a breeding ordinance for San Mateo, Calif., aimed at saving dogs’ lives by dramatically curtailing indiscriminate breeding of them. The ordinance has become a model for many communities around the country. Sterla also happens to be married to Buyukmihci.

“Respect for all life” is the heart of the animal rights philosophy, she contends. “As difficult or uncomfortable as it may be to all of us, you try to make choices in your lifestyle where you’re causing the least amount of pain and suffering and harm to other creatures, human and non-human.”

These are typical of the animal rights ideas put forward by Buyukmihci and Sterla, ideas some regard as nettlesome if not downright inflammatory. Which strikes me as interesting. Neither Buyukmihci nor Sterla fits the caricature of the “humaniac” many animal rights opponents like to put forward as representative of the movement. They do not oppose animal ownership - in fact, they share their home with an ark-full of pets - and they denounce such violent acts as attacks on research laboratories as incompatible with the non-violent spirit of concern for animal rights.

While I don’t entirely agree with Buyukmihci and Sterla’s views - for one thing, I feel deep gratitude and respect for those who breed animals lovingly - as I say, they haunt me. I think their principles and proposals deserve wider discussion than they’re getting.