Support petition effort to make dog auctions and raffles illegal in Ohio

To the Editor:

If you love animals and especially if you love dogs, your help is needed to stop the dog auctions that occur in Ohio on a regular basis. These are not reputable breeders who are auctioning dogs; these are farmers and backyard breeders who are looking for a way to increase their income and have found that keeping dogs in great numbers and continuously keeping the female dogs pregnant can boost their income.

For these breeders, there is no concern for the welfare of the pregnant females, their male counterparts, and offspring. The breeding dogs are kept in primitive conditions, never leaving their "cages" and with no access to veterinary care. No veterinary care is provided during or after the births for the puppies or mother dogs, and when a birth goes awry, the owners will perform their own surgery. If their crude efforts don't work, oh well!

These dogs are forced to stand in their feces summer, fall, winter and spring, never having a chance to get outside and walk on ground. In many cases, there is almost no contact with humans, and the offspring are barely given the human touch before they are auctioned off to others who want to breed them or sell them at flea markets, disreputable pet shops, or whoever else may be interested in purchasing them. The psychological wounds are just as serious as the physical ones.

Many of these breeders live not far from Athens in the mid-Ohio communities of Sugar Creek and Millersburg in Tuscarawas and Holmes counties, respectively. Such nightmarish places occur in many Midwestern states and often have anywhere from 15 to 500 dogs. The number of dog auctions has more than tripled in number in the last few years.

Animal shelters are already filled to overflowing with unwanted animals. Our local shelter has no choice but to euthanize the large number of dogs that have not been adopted. Backyard breeders are contributing to this problem of pet overpopulation and over-stretched resources at shelters statewide.

A statewide group of dog lovers, Coalition to Ban Ohio Dog Auctions, has begun a petition drive to put an initiative on the ballot in 2011 to end dog auctions once and for all. Some 121,000 signatures gathered by Dec. 14, 2010 are needed to get this issue on the ballot in Ohio.

Please stop by the table near the Athens County Humane Society adoption event at the Market on State (formerly the University Mall) on Saturday, Feb. 27, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:03 p.m. to read and sign a petition that would make it unlawful for any person to auction or raffle a dog within Ohio for any purpose. Petitions will be available for anyone who wants to gather names on his or her own, as well. The number of petition signers is daunting so everyone who cares needs to help!

Please help spread the word that everyone needs to help end this most sordid and inhumane activity.

Linda G. Sauer
North Coolville Ridge Road
Athens