Everything Is Bullshit: The Greatest Scams on Earth Revealed (19 page)

The other children have finished college or are nearing
completion. Two of them intend to go on to graduate school in the sciences. The
rest have decent, solid careers in decent, solid professions such as business
administration, nursing, and education. They are all funny and smart and not
one of them has expressed an ounce of interest in becoming a television writer.
Marina is happy and content in Germany, having fallen in love again there with
a pleasant and quiet man.

I now live in Berkeley and have worked for several startups in
the Bay Area as a content specialist. I currently blog for Degreed.com, a
lifelong learning and self-education website in San Francisco. It keeps the
wolf from the door, which is good because it means I actually have a door. I
share a cozy house in Berkeley with two housemates.

My economic situation is still unstable; occasionally, I’ll fall
behind on rent. But it happens less frequently now and I’ve figured out enough
about how to survive that I can recover from small setbacks like that. Since I
moved to the Bay Area, I’ve worked at two startups. I had a substantial equity
stake in one of them and was promised an equity stake in the other once the next
round of financing came through. As I worked on them, I imagined having a
full-time job, nice apartment, and good salary until retirement.

But neither panned out. I could despair when the startups fail
or I fall behind on rent once again, but I just don’t worry about stuff like
that anymore. I already know what the worst possible outcome would be —
homelessness — and I know I can survive that. So why ruin your day
fretting about rent? I’ll figure something out. I know how to take a punch and
still keep standing.

So full-time, permanent employment in a real company with actual
revenues is still an elusive prey. Life is still perilous for me and blogging
is hardly a lucrative profession. But life is good. My emotional,
psychological, and spiritual situation is considerably improved. I am close to
my children, and I speak to most of them almost every day. I am healthy,
strong, and full of hope and ambition again. I have survived failure. I lost my
career, my home,
all
my savings — just about
everything that seemed important. But I have held onto what I value much more:
my children and their enduring love and affection, my health, and my ambition
and self-belief.

And in the end, those were the only things worth keeping.

17.

HOW WE TREAT PETS

IN AMERICA

T
he
American pet industry is almost as large as Americans’ love for dogs and cats.
In 2011, Americans spent nearly $51 billion on their 86.4 million cats and 78.2
million dogs. Our love affair with cats and dogs has produced luxury pet spas,
home-cooked doggie meals, and Christmas cards that feature the family dog. More
households have pets than have children.

Yet American shelters exterminate three to four million dogs and
cats each year.
Whether strays, abandoned pets, or the
unwanted runt of a litter, they are killed by lethal injection.
Our
relationship with pets seems an odd juxtaposition of compassion and cruelty.

So where do all these pets come from? Who profits from breeding
them? And why do we keep killing them? Answering these questions reveals that
Americans’ relationship with pets is less unique than one might expect; pet
owners have treated animals like family members for generations, while
tolerating or even accepting their mistreatment outside the home. Yet it also
offers positive news for pet lovers: over the past four decades, the
extermination and mistreatment of dogs and cats has steadily decreased.

A
Dangerous Shelter

The
number of stray cats and dogs in the United States is simply enormous. The
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals estimates that there
are as many 70 million stray cats. A conservative estimate of 80 million stray
cats and dogs would mean that the stray population is equal to one quarter of
America’s human population.

Animal shelters — the modern, more humane equivalent of
dog pounds — strive to care for animals. They return lost pets to their
owners and rehabilitate dogs and cats picked up by animal control for adoption.
To find them good homes, many perform background checks or even make stringent demands
on owners: a fenced in backyard, an understanding of pet ownership, and a
commitment to obedience training and being home during the day. In the U.S.,
half of the pets that move through shelters every year find homes.

The other half, however, are killed. Given the large stray
population, shelters are really in the business of population management. In
all but a few European countries, shelters kill animals that are not claimed by
an owner or adopted within a set amount of time, which is often less than a
month. Since shelters do not re-release animals for public safety reasons,
euthanization
is the only way to avoid overfilling the
shelter. Some shelters are “no-kill”, but they are generally private shelters
that have additional resources and less responsibility for the constant arrival
of new animals. At any given time, approximately six to eight million pets are
in a shelter, so three to four million dogs and cats are put down each year.

Yet Americans could drive than number down to near zero. While
shelters struggle to manage eight million animals each year, Americans keep
approximately 165 million dogs and cats as pets, and seventeen million
Americans acquire a pet each year. Only 17% of pets are acquired from a shelter
or rescue organization, and an additional 14%, especially cats, come from the
stray population. Americans could easily adopt every animal up for adoption in
a shelter. So why do we still kill so many pets each year?

An
Invasive Species

While
the stray population in the United States is enormous, the streets of American
towns and cities are unusually free of stray dogs and cats, which are quite
literally invasive species. In countries without resources devoted to managing
strays, the number of stray dogs and cats on street corners is seemingly
limitless.

As a result, veterinarians and pet advocacy groups recommend
that people spay or neuter dogs and cats to combat overpopulation. Shelters,
rescue organizations, and breeders seen as “responsible” all do, and this
is
often mandated by local law.

Many pet stores, breeders, and private owners do not, so many
pets will have large litters of puppies or kittens. This remains the most
common source of American pets, as some 42% of Americans get their pets
informally from an acquaintance. For some animal advocates, this is a point of
contention.
This crowds
out the market for rescued and
stray pets, indirectly contributing to high
euthanization
rates. Every puppy sold or given away, the argument goes, makes it more likely
that one in a shelter will be put to death.

But the focus on overpopulation can also obfuscate the cause of
euthanizations
. Of the pets received by shelters, 30% to
50% come from owners relinquishing their pets. The most common reasons cited by
owners leaving their pets? They were moving, the landlord did not allow the
pet, they had too many animals, or they could not afford the cost of food and
veterinary care. Regardless of the reason, when an owner gives up a pet to a
shelter, it’s a coin flip whether it will end up dead or with a new family.

The
All-American Dog

The
other reason Americans don’t adopt the full slate of shelter animals, of
course, is that most people dream of a golden retriever puppy — not a
five year-old mutt from a shelter. Twenty two percent of American pets are
purchased from pet stores or commercial breeders, which is more than the
percentage adopted from shelters.

When
Thornstein
Veblen coined the term
“objects of conspicuous consumption,” he had in mind purebred dogs. According
to Mark
Derr
, author of A Dog’s History of America,
purebreds began to be bred as “an extravagance for the wealthy” beginning in
the late 18th century. In countries like China, rising middle classes ignore
street dogs to mimic Westerners by buying from expensive breeders. In the U.S.,
people ignore even rescue organizations devoted to purebred dogs to pay
thousands of dollars for purebred puppies.

The desire for puppies and purebreds — we focus on dogs,
since the large number of stray cats
means that the dog
breeding industry is relatively larger — is met at the top of the market
by the breeders of a small number of purebreds
. Although some animal
welfare advocates criticize buying a dog while so many unwanted pets are
euthanized, others recommend these breeders. The high premium placed on
purebreds allows them to raise dogs in idyllic conditions on sunny farms. They
also maintain an ethos of professionalism and concern for their animals’
welfare; they specialize in one breed, work to maintain its purity, spay and
neuter most purchased animals, and screen their customers to vet out
irresponsible pet owners.

But the obsession with purebreds can go too far. The inbreeding
done to select certain characteristics for dogs, as well as the highly
exaggerated features of some breeds, can result in genetic and medical
problems. They range from mild — the popular
labrador
breed almost invariably suffers from eye and knee problems — to extreme:
the bulldog’s large head, flat face, and wrinkled snout leave it unable to mate
or give birth without a caesarian section, and they can barely breathe and
exercise. One study on the problems bulldogs face concluded, “Many would
question whether the breed’s quality of life is so compromised that its
breeding should be banned.”

The Pet
Factories

The
vast majority of animals, however, are not bred in utopian pastures. They come
from large-scale commercial breeders: anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 American
businesses that produce approximately two million animals a year, mostly dogs.

Although the United States is already overpopulated with dogs
and cats,
dog breeding
operations can earn six-figure
profits. The average female breeding dog can produce 9.4 puppies per year. A
large breeder may have 100 female dogs and sell puppies for $500 each wholesale
or more retail. That operation will make almost half a million dollars in
revenue per year with each dog generating approximately $4,700.

This revenue, however, could easily be eaten up by the costs of
pet care. These businesses can only profit by minimizing their expenditures on
the animals they use for breeding. This often results in conditions on par with
factories that mass produce chickens and pigs for slaughter, and it leads
critics to call these breeding operations “puppy mills.”

A number of rescue organizations have raided these mills, and
the accounts would shock any pet owner: stacks of wire cages and crates crowded
with dogs, rescuers in gas masks handling scared animals, and sick dogs with
matted hair, skinny bodies, and glazed eyes. When dogs used for breeding get to
an age where they are no longer needed, they are killed. Some puppy mills will
call rescue organizations to pick up a dog they would otherwise kill, and it
often takes a year for the dog to overcome its anxiety and enjoy human touch.

Raids take place on the basis of compelling evidence of animal
cruelty. But the average puppy mill is not actually illegal. One minimum
standard under the Animal Welfare Act, the sole federal law regulating these
breeders, only requires that an animal be kept in a cage six inches longer than
its body in any direction — even if it is never allowed out of its cage.

As a result, some three
thousand puppy
mills, which only meet minimum standards like these, are certified and
inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Internal audits of the USDA
have consistently found that it fails to enforce even these meager standards.
In an extreme example, inspectors found dogs that resorted to cannibalism, but
did not immediately revoke the breeder’s license. Other serious violations
resulted only in warning after warning. Meanwhile, major breeders selling
directly to the public, rather than through another seller like a pet store,
are not subject to any federal law, and often to no state law.

In the absence of legal standards, conditions in puppy mills
fall to the lowest common denominator; breeders simply view dogs differently
than pet owners. The breeders come together to swap dogs at auctions throughout
the Midwest, where they reveal a perspective of viewing animals dispassionately
as tools. In typical exchanges, filmed by animal welfare activists, an
auctioneer asks his audience, “Where else you
gonna
find something to produce you over $2,000 gross in a year?” and reminded
everyone that the dogs, “Got their whole lives in front of ‘
em
to work for
ya
.”

As a result, pet advocates assert, almost any puppy bought from
a pet store or online (or from any breeder that does not insist on a site visit
to see the puppy with its parents) came from a puppy mill. These breeders sell
millions of dogs per year, and by selling dogs through brokers, pet stores, or
online, breeders can sell puppies without customers ever being wise to the
plight of the puppies’ parents. One exposé, which gained prominence when
featured on Oprah, showed viewers adorable puppies playing in a pet store,
then
tracked down their parents to squalid conditions like
those described above.

A rare study on pet shops and puppy mills in California found
that 44% of those visited had sick or neglected animals” and 25% “did not have
adequate food or water.” Animal welfare groups believe that in states like
Pennsylvania and Missouri, which have fewer legal protections and less consumer
awareness, yet are home to most large-scale dog breeding operations, those numbers
are much worse.

A Cash
Crop

The
current condition of America’s dogs and cats — valued and treated as part
of the family, but also valued and treated like a commodity — is neither
new nor novel. In the West, pets have faced this seemingly contradictory
situation for some two hundred years.

In Europe, many dogs escaped their kennels and breached their
owners’ homes centuries ago. Mary Todd Lincoln, when asked about her husband’s
hobbies, described them as follows: “cats.” After the Civil War, as urbanization
began to rapidly move Americans off farms and into cities, selling pets became
an industry serving the middle class. Attitudes toward pets followed a
“Victorian ethic” by which compassion for animals was seen as civilized and
cruelty as “one outward expression of inward moral collapse.”

We might assume that today’s pet owners, who lavish as much
attention on pets as their own children, are the height of pet adoration. But
the 1800s saw devotion every bit as maniacal.

In
Pets in America: A History
, Katherine C. Grier
recounts the following story:

The most inspired pet-keeping was surely practiced by the Rankin
children of late 19th-century Albany, who turned a
hutchful
of rabbits “rescued from their fate as someone’s dinner” into a carefully
documented kingdom that was reorganized as a republic, complete with a
declaration of independence, a census, a postal system and taxes. Over the
years, the
Bunnie
States of America spun off a map
company and a medical college.