Quarterly Amish Rant

The BBQ Pit
21

So you’re opposed to imprisonment as a punishment for crimes? (Yeah, they’re criminals, but “not being let out” is still EVIL.)

Exactly. This is something most city dwellers (which is most people on the SDMB) just don’t grasp. I grew up in Holmes County, Ohio, one of the biggest Amish settlements in the nation. Those people work HARD, a hell of a lot harder than I ever want to work for a living. They do not abuse their animals in body, because they are valuble property. If being kept in a kennel is abuse of the mind, well, then so is keeping a goldfish in a bowl or a hamster in a cage.

The Amish are just ordinary people. Some are nicer than others. Some are smarter than others. But they all work pretty hard and mind their own business, which is a LOT more than I can say for most of the non-Amish I know.

22

clop clop clop
BANG!
clop clop clop

23

I know that sound

A Amish drive by shooting

24

Lizard – I hope that you are not trying to say that puppy mills are a “normal” part of farming because they aren’t. Raising dogs for sale is one thing but a puppy mill is generally a horrible way of creating dogs for profit. Please, please, PLEASE don’t tell me you think that is okay…

25

No, I don’t think puppy mills are okay. But I’m also not sure that Scylla didn’t use the term rather frivolously. As Scylla himself admitted, the animals aren’t actually abused. To me, if there is no abuse, than using a damning term like “puppy mill” is uncalled for.
Not only that, but I’ve found that the definition of “abuse” varies depending on who you talk to. I grew up in the country surrounded by farms. Taking care of a dog out there consisted of giving it sufficient food and not beating it. And that was it. When I moved to a good-sized city (Columbus, Ohio) I met people who fed their dogs incredibly expensive dogfood, had them professionally groomed, etc. These people struck me as idiots. Ever since that experience I don’t trust the opinions on what constitutes “proper” care of animals unless I know the person talking. Ordinary farming activities are cnsidered “abuse” by some people, even though there are human beings in the world who live much worse than 99% of all farm animals.
The term “puppy mill” to me conjures up images of animals locked in too-small cages, with just enough food and water, who spends their lives doing nothing but breed. That’s no way to live. But it’s also not the way any farmer I’ve ever known treats his animals.

26

Consist of a portable building about 50 feet long and twenty feet wide. There is a walkway in the middle of the building and on each side is a series of indoor/outdoor kennels. The outdoor portion of the kennels are about 4 feet off the ground and have some sort of steel mesh as a flooring so that feces and urine can drop through.

The dogs are fed from the indoor walkway. The kennels are cleaned twice a day, and the dogs are fed twice a day. To my knowledge they are never let out of the kennels. Most of the time the dogs stand in the outside portion of the kennel and bark. The barking increases during feeding and cleaning times which is how I know how often this happens.

The dogs are pretty much continuously bred, but appear healthy and receive their shots.

The Amish boy of about 16 who’s kennel it is showed it to me , when he moved in, and asked me if they should build a privacy fence because of the noise. He called it a puppy mill. It is a business for him. One that he is proud of, and one that he takes very seriously.

There are about 15 adult dogs and usually a bunch of puppies in it. Their Pomeranians, Cockapoos, or some such smallish fashionable apartment type dog.

If this were a rabbit hutch, or a chicken coop, one would be impressed with its cleanliness an orderliness.

My only problem is that I don’t consider such a suitable environment for dogs because I feel that they are better than chickens or rabbits, and that such practices of indiscriminate breeding often are detrimental to the dogs and the breed though I have no evidence that this is so in this particular case.

My problem with this is of course my problem. I don’t expect this young man to give a flying fig about my opinion of this and wouldn’t presume to inflict my personal conceit on him.

I have tried to be as fair and accurate in this description as possible since this is turning into something of a debate on the subject.

Such Puppy Mills are fairly common around here, and all that I have seen seem to follow the above description pretty accurately.

I have no idea what they do with dogs that are no longer able to breed.

27

Scylla-thanks for the info, though it wasn’t really necessary. I personally don’t like keeping any kind of animal copped up-I think it’s unnatural. The dogs’ constant barking is evidence that they are bored and probably unhappy. I don’t like kennels like what you describe, but since the kid cleans them reularly and seems to care about their health, I wouldn’t consider it abusive either.

I don’t consider confinement appropriate for any animal, but you are not entirely incorrect to draw a distinction. It’s a fact that the more intelligent an animal is the more difficult confinement is for it. Dogs are among the most intelligent of all domesticated animals, so they handle confinement poorly. That kid would be well advised to give each dog a certain amount of exercise each day. It might even help their libido.

28

Yeah, but I hear the PA Dutch have a more conservative marijuana policy.

29

The “Pennsylvania Dutch” have nothing to do with the Dutch Dutch - they’re of German ancestry.

And shoo-fly pie cannot be described as anyone’s “fault”, you - you Philistines!!!

30

flodnak: Argh! I know, I know, since I now live in York, PA, near the heart of the PA Dutch community, surrounded by such towns as Hanover, New Berlin, Germantown and the rest. It was supposed to be a joke on Coldie…

31

I never found Mormons all that annoying. I did work with one in Provo that was kinda pushy, but for the most part most of the ones I’ve delt with generally nice folk. I don’t particularly agree with them on most religious things, but other than that.