Although everyone in the world seems to be on bated breath waiting for President-Elect Barack Obama to select a dog for his daughters, Vice President-elect Joe Biden recently chose a new dog for his family. Apparently, Biden also had a similar “election doggie” promise. A writer for the Christian Science Monitor reports that if Obama and Biden won the election, Joe promised to get him and his wife a dog.
Well true to his word, Biden got a dog. He purchased a beautiful three-month-old German Shepherd puppy from breeder, Linda Brown of East Coventry Township, Pennsylvania. According to Delaware Online News, Biden chose the dog because he is familiar with the breed.
However, not everyone is happy about Biden’s decision. Animal rights activists are making a big bark about Biden buying a dog from a commercial breeder instead of getting a rescue or shelter puppy. There are an estimated four million dogs that are euthanized each year because they don’t have a home.
“We are surprised that Sen. Biden chose to purchase a dog from a commercial kennel since he has been a leader on animal-protection issues and has championed a number of important animal-welfare reforms in the Senate,” Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “President-elect Obama can send a stronger message of hope and change for animals by adopting a homeless dog from an animal shelter or rescue group.”
Even People for the Equal Treatment of Animals (PETA) came out with a statement about Biden’s breeder pup.
“I was extremely disappointed to read that Vice President-elect Joe Biden and his wife bought a dog from a breeder instead of adopting one from an animal shelter,” writes Dore on the PETA blog. “Obviously he or his wife blanked on Ingrid’s letter, which asked him to consider adopting,” she wrote. ”Every year, U.S. animal shelters are forced to euthanize millions of wonderful, deserving dogs and cats because of the lack of good homes.”
Animal rights advocates are still holding out hope that Obama gets a pound puppy. Meanwhile, check out Biden’s cute puppy on the video below.
Tags: animal rights activists, breeder, dog, German Shepherd, Humane Society, joe biden, peta, pound, rescue dog, Vice President elect
I like Joe Biden, but shame on him for going to a private breeder for his dog instead of a rescue group or shelter. There are purebred puppies available in those venues too, and by adopting through a shelter or recue group, he would not be encouraging “professional” breeders to breed ever more dogs (who are often so inbred they have serious medical problems) in a country where millions of healthy, adoptable dogs are “put to sleep” (i.e., killed) every year for lack of a home to be adopted into. And nowadays there are even more homeless dogs languishing in shelters because of the mortgage crisis and people having to leave their pets behind when they move out of their houses. Sure the puppy is cute (what puppy isn’t?), but Biden has now literally condemned one shelter dog to death and sanctioned breeder adoptions by adopting this dog.
Joe, we voted for you. We do not regret it. What we do regret, however, is that you did not heed the pleas that went out to President Elect Obama to adopt a shelter dog rather than to buy from a breeder. Your decision, Sir, will now cost some innocent shelter dog it’s life. It means one less dog which gets adopted, one less dog that a shelter will have room for and utimately one more helpless animal that will have to be euthanized. Sir, I hope you are proud of your decision. Your adoption of a shelter dog along with President Elect Obama’s decision to do so, could have done so much to raise public awareness to the plight of shelter animals.
I am all for adopting animals, but doesn’t anyone realise that if Biden didn’t get this dog, she would have end up in a shelter.
Joe, I did not vote for you. A man of the people would have adopted a shelter dog. Guess he’s just another low average politician. We invited someone from our local animal shelter to talk to our middle school kids about puppy mills. The kids also collect change to donate to several animal shelters in the area. If kids know the right thing to do, you’d think the vice-president would have also done the right thing.