Here we go again.

Every so often, someone sets up a hoax website like Bonsai Kitten, which purported to be changing the shapes of cats by putting them in jars, Save Toby (that guy who claimed he was gonna kill his pet rabbit unless people sent him cash), and Kitty Beef (my personal favorite—the title kind of speaks for itself), and a lot of people get (understandably) very upset about the whole thing. Well, there’s a new kid on the block now, and this one may be the most interesting of them all, because it draws attention to a little-known aspect of the animal-experimentation business that really reveals a lot about the whole sick industry.

IBuyStrays.com is a hoax. Just to be clear on this, it’s not a real site. The person who set it up doesn’t really buy stray cats and dogs to sell to animal experimenters. So there’s no need for alarm on that front. But sadly, the situation it describes is very real. As many as 115 million animals are experimented on and killed in laboratories in the U.S. every year. Not that it makes any difference, ethically speaking, but a large number of these animals are cats and dogs, and a great many of those cats and dogs come from the streets, from animal shelters, and from people’s back yards.

Class B animal dealers, or “Bunchers,” are licensed by the USDA to obtain dogs and cats from “random sources,” which are defined as “animal pounds or shelters, auction sales, or from any person who did not breed and raise them on his or her premises.” And many states allow “pound seizure,” which means that the shelters are required by law to turn over certain animals to experimenters on demand.

So my point here is that anyone who’s shocked or upset by IBuyStrays.com should direct their attention towards the animal experimentation industry itself. Although it may be a bit tactless, the site isn’t doing any actual harm—in fact, if you ask me, it’s doing a good thing by making people aware of the fact that the horrific circumstances which it ironically depicts are a daily occurrence. And there is something we can do about it. To learn more about how you can help animals suffering in labs, check out StopAnimalTests.com, and if you haven’t already, you can click here to pledge to boycott products that are tested on animals.

Some Other Helpful Links

IBuyStrays.com Is a Hoax
What Is Pound Seizure?
More on Bunchers
List of Cruelty-Free Products
Testing … One, Two, Three
Moshe Solomonow’s Experiments on Cats from a Class B Dealer

To be honest, I’m having trouble coming up with a decent intro to this video. It’s a behind the scenes look at the companion animal overpopulation crisis, from the perspective of a woman who deals with it every day, up close and personal. It really made me think about what an absolute joke the whole idea of “responsible” breeding is, when millions of animals are killed annually for one simple reason: there just aren’t enough good homes for them.

Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think.

Princess Cuteyface: You can take the cat off the streets, but you can't take the street out of the cat

I hope day 2 of Be Kind to Animals Week is treating you well. This one's a wee bit controversial, but I thought it would be a good time to address the issue of purebred animals, especially given some of the surprising comments I've been seeing from so-called "responsible" breeders on a recent entry about some landmark legislation that's being pushed through in California to help cats and dogs. PETA's position on "responsible" breeding is that there just ain't no such thing, because every animal that a breeder sells means an animal in a shelter who won’t find a home. The harsh reality of the situation is that, with 6 to 8 million animals handled by animal shelters in the United States every year—3 to 4 million of whom won't make it out alive—deliberately breeding cats and dogs is about as irresponsible (and frankly, cruel) as it gets.

Anyway, without getting too preachy here, one great way to celebrate Be Kind to Animals Week is, if you or anyone you know is thinking about getting a pet, be sure to adopt them from a shelter. And if you happen to be running a breeding operation, frickin' stop it.

Here's a link to some more info on the topic. And here's a link (this one kind of dates me) to the only good kind of Breeders. Kim Deal rocks.