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Groups need to band togetherI can't tell you how encouraging it was to read the recent remarks by Congressman Stenholm and others to the effect that the agriculture industry needs to do a better job against the animal rights movement. He's also right that "We've all got to get into it together," working to defend each other's rights and freedoms as our own. The attack is even broader than farming and ranching: Hunting, use of animals in education and medical research, circuses, zoos, and the keeping and breeding of pets are also under attack and from exactly the same groups. Across the board, HSUS is in the lead with dozens of lobbyists and literally hundreds of programs aimed at making all keeping and use of animals so difficult and expensive that most people will have to stop. My wife and I have spent nearly all of our free time for the last five years defending the right of hobbyists like ourselves to produce one or two litters a year of carefully home bred dogs without the government looking over our shoulder and requiring paperwork and fees at every turn. In that time we've seen the attack in our state go from one or two anti-pet laws per year to over twenty, often with two or three versions of the same bill. Five years ago, Virginia had one animal rights group sponsoring laws; we now have three or four. The pet world has the same difficulty working together as farmers: when the attack falls on commercial pet breeders, hobbyists may be unconcerned or even cheer, while pet rescuers may support any anti-breeding law. "Divide and conquer" is an explicit strategy for animal rightists, one that we must all learn to counter if we are to have a hope of winning. Cooperation needs to be even broader. We are not farmers but we now speak out against any law that would tell farmers or ranchers how to run their operations. NAIS as a mandatory system, the horse slaughter bills, anti fois gras, veal farming, and farrowing pen bills; we've opposed them all. We will continue to do so: I hope that farmers and farm and ranch organizations will oppose all bills seeking to extend regulation of pet ownership and breeding because the best of them are exactly as good as the bills attacking you. We are all in this together. Together, I hope, we will defeat the animal rights movement so that our children and theirs will be able to enjoy the many choices in foods and pets that we have available today. --Walt Hutchens, Timbreblue Whippets, Lexington, Virginia, www.timbreblue.com, www.pet-law.com B 4 3/26/07 4 Star NE Date: 3/21/07
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