My thanks to all of you, and especially to Joye. What would we do without her!
My donation was split evenly between BARC and LOC. While I may have started my Bernerful life with a BARC puppy, and now serve as BARC Secretary, I know only too well how important the lobbying effort is. My dear Sophia was part of the Lucky 17 from March of 2001. When I met her at Amy's house, there were at least half a dozen other puppies exactly the same size as her -- yet her papers indicated she should have been a month older than the rest! Someone didn't do anything more than stamp the paperwork when she was imported. She was certainly removed from her litter too early, and I cannot imagine what she went through being transported from Eastern Europe to the US. Others here have mentioned the onlinepetauction.com site. It is run by the same guy who runs USABreeders.com, and if you have ever read their public forums, you know that they discuss animals as a commodity here for them to profit from. NO ONE involved in that site needs to have a USDA license! it is considered retail activity, and since the server owner and webmaster, Glenn Knox, never takes physical possession of the animals, he doesn't have to be licensed, either. I am still so stunned by this turn of events that I have yet to figure out what can be done, other than lobbying our legislators to close this rather large loophole. The other item to be concerned about is the rumor now making the rounds that Wal-Mart is considering selling live animals. I have seen neither confirmation nor denial on this, and the response that was posted from Wal-Mart looked more like obfuscation than any kind of answer. I hope that this is just a nasty rumor, but I cannot assume that it is. There is no point in trying to flood the onlinepetauction site with e-mails -- Glenn would just see it as more proof that commercial breeders are being victimized by animal rights wackos. If you see any sponsors on his site, however, it would be worth writing to them to tell them you find their sponsorship of live animal auctions reprehensible. There is an enormous amount of work to do, and many of you are working hard to protect this wonderful breed, but we need a lot of help and efforts like LOC can mean a lot -- and I hope that one day LOC can put BARC out of business! But we're not there yet, and every dollar counts. Once I get through our extended family Christmas, I'll be sending another check, in honor of all of the dogs we could not save. Liz Caldwell, with Sophia and Faith Lawrence, KS
