My Pedigree Shame

You'll notice that I'm the proud pooch mummy to a matching pair of squish faces. You'd be right if you guessed that I bought them from breeders. At the time we got Lord Wallace (the bigger chap) I was a meat eater (blergh!) and he was to be my first canine companion. I hadn't given any consideration to adopting a rescue dog that really needed us, or to the fact that by contributing to the world of breeding I was practically ensuring that some pooch, somewhere, was going to be euthanized because he had no chance of a loving home.

I really am mortified at myself for being so ignorant. The part I most kick myself for, is buying Cecil, the most miniature of my squish faces, from a breeder about 9 months ago. When I was vegetarian and I did 'care' about animal welfare.

I had literally never came across anything that had pointed out the perils of choosing a bred buddy over a shelter one. Obviously that's my own fault, it's my job to make myself aware. But my point is that it's no wonder shelters are full to bursting and the amount of wonderful creatures being euthanized is increasing each year, if even people like me, who are besotted with animals, are ignorant to these facts.

Luckily though, I just so happened to purchase the most wonderful doggies on the planet (what? Biased? Never!) who, I can safely say inspired me to become vegetarian and now to become vegan. Without this pair of monkeys I wouldn't have been convinced that non humans are magnificent, intelligent, loving, awe inspiring scamps who need to be given a voice.

I also take some solace in the fact that Cecil was intended to be a show dog or a stud. At least by him living with me I've put an end to that nonsense. I can't say the same for Lord Wallace, he was from the reject bin of show doggies - too chubby and ' imperfect' to be entered, too mischievous to be trusted with performing. They were wrong by the way. He's the biggest show off, a  natural performer and he's cute as a button. Perfect.