Pet sales banned in West Hollywood, raises interesting questions...

West Hollywood became the second city in the nation to officially ban the sale of cats and dogs when the city council unanimously approved a proposed ordinance to that effect on February 1. The city council has since then passed the proposed ordinance on February 16, and it will take effect next month. South Lake Tahoe was the first city to adopt such an ordinance last year.

The ordinance bans the sale of cats and dogs within city limits, exempting home breeders, municipal shelters, and private rescue groups. Currently, there aren't any pet stores selling dogs or cats in West Hollywood, so the ordinance is more of a preemptive strike as well as a model for other municipalities. While pet sales will be prohibited, stores will be allowed to offer shelter/rescue animals for adoption. The stated goal of the ordinance is to "address the inhumane conditions endured by animals in the puppy mill industry, which relies heavily on sales through retail pet stores for its profits."

While the ordinance will have the modest effect of withdrawing support of the puppy mill industry, it implicitly raises an interesting question about the cultural idiosyncrasy in America of treating pets as companions, while at the same time maintaining a multi-million (billion?) dollar industry and market in pets. On the one hand, our culture celebrates pets as though they are part of our families; even to the extreme that we have glorified beauty pageants for them, epitomized by the last week's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. At the same time, pets are just commodities. They are bought and sold like bags of rice, traded across state lines, and even mass-produced in deplorable conditions in puppy mills and kitty factories. What accounts for this cultural schizophrenia with respect to pets, particularly cats and dogs?

We anthropomorphize animals to such an extent, just mentioning that maybe people shouldn't have pets in the first place would outrage just about anyone, including animal advocates. To me, it's odd that we accept it almost as a right, that people can have a pet. What is the purpose of a pet in modern times, other than to provide companionship? And do people have a right to companionship? Companionship surely does not mean the same thing today as it did hundreds or thousands of years ago. Companion animals served a purpose other than companionship in the past. Humans relied on animals as much as animals relied on humans. Perhaps a greater level of inter-species respect existed then. It seems to me that present-day domestic human-dog/human-cat interaction is nearly without reason. We don't need pets. We like pets. We like the dominance that comes with having someone obey us, like us, feed our selfish desire to have value. But we don't need pets. This is not to say that we shouldn't have companion animals, but just take a minute to reflect on the concept of buying and selling life merely as a means to satisfy a human desire for interaction, which, arguably, ought to be fulfilled by our own species.

The value in WeHo's ordinance is subtle, yet powerful; it exists. Tapping into the compassionate side of the public's two-face mindset towards companion animals, the law may begin to raise some self-awareness about the contradictory way we treat animals. Sometimes, it's hard to put two and two together. Hopefully, ordinances like this will begin to give pause to people to think about their choice of getting a pet, before the next time they go to Petco.