Pet Rentals

[asterroc]

Ever heard of rental pets? I hadn't either until Dolittler pointed it out. Apparently they're targeting my lovely state next.

I am writing to you today regarding the House act “An Act Prohibiting the Renting of Pets” (H.D. 4864). My name is ***, and I am **occupation** in **location**, and I live and vote in **location**.

Pets are an important addition to our quality of life, and many of us view them as family members. Even Presidential candidates talk about their pets as they promote their candidacy for office. However, as humans it is our job to be stewards for them, as they cannot speak for themselves. Hence I am writing to you today about the disturbing new practice of "rental pets" by companies such as the FlexPets (http://www.flexpetz.com/) and their attempt to make inroads into our state.

Services such as pet-sitting while on vacation and dog-walking during the day while we are at work are important. These services allow the animals customary caretaker to provide care to our animals while we are out of town or unable to do so, while still allowing our animals to live in a stable loving home. A rental pet company on the other hand, treats animals as disposable toys, to be put away (or put down!) when the owner does not have the time or energy for the animal.

Besides such a service shifting the public viewpoint of animals from creatures in our care to commodities, the individuals animals in question do not have stable loving homes, and instead are constantly shipped from one home to another. Imagine if we started renting out human children the same way! Ultimately, a culture that believes in the disposability of pets is one destined to suffer strain on its public and private resources through increased pet abandonment.

I urge you to evaluate “An Act Prohibiting the Renting of Pets” (H.D. 4864) proposed by Massachusetts State Representative Paul Frost, and similar legislature in the Senate, with these cautions in mind. Please ask Rep. Angelo Scaccia and the Senate as well to move “An Act Prohibiting the Renting of Pets” (H.D. 4864) without delay into the appropriate committee. Passing such an act would send a message not only to companies who would exploit our pets in novel ways, it would also serve as a model for our entire country as to how responsible stewardship for pets is best achieved—by rejecting practices which would undermine their stable role in society.

Thank you for your time, and please feel free to contact me with any further questions you may have.

Send the email to your state Reps, and also the following people:
Rep.AngeloScaccia@Hou.State.MA.US
Rep.PaulFrost@Hou.State.MA.US
Rep.JohnFresolo@Hou.State.MA.US

And one more link
http://www.dogboston.com/blog/general/looking-for-action-on-anti-pet-rental-bill/

Comments

[sammka.livejournal.com]

They imply many are adopted, which I would like to believe, but I don't know.

They explicitly address this in the FAQ - dogs that age out without being adopted are taken care of for life at their site. Also, I'm not sure I agree with the "shipping" characterization - they operate on a local basis, dogs aren't being taken moved really serious distances from place to place, and they have a "home base" that they spend most of their time at.

Also lots of dogs that are excellent candidates for adoption, still get put down.

From what I can tell the people renting pets would not be good candidates for adopting pets themselves, so I don't think that the company is necessarily discouraging pet adoption. It may even encourage it, because people may become attached to a dog and end up adopting one, whereas they might otherwise not have known that they had room for a dog in their life full-time. And they're no longer breeding dogs for this purpose. So I'm not entirely sure how this practice will really hurt the situation overall. I'd be in support of a law prohibiting breeding dogs to be rented (or breeding dogs at all), or regulating the business so that it couldn't put dogs down afterward or something. But after looking at the site I just can't summon up that much moral outrage.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

But how is it good for the dog to be "living" with multiple families? You've had pets, you know they miss you when you're gone, and dogs bond more strongly to their humans than many other pet species.

And an admittedly ad hominem attack on FlexPets itself: the CEO of the parent company has been convicted of multiple counts of fraud. While I don't think that it's possible for pet rental to do right by most of the actual pets, I'm even more skeptical that *this* company will do it right.

Simon Brodie, CEO of parent company convicted of fraud in the UK.
His company also had the Allerca dander-free cats, and refused peer-review on whether they really were dander-free.

[q10.livejournal.com]

any law you get passed will have implications far beyond this one company, and will probably outlive it, so regulating a whole industry out of existence to deal with one or two bad cases seems kinda heavy-handed. (of course, leaving a whole industry unregulated because the biggest players this week happen to be well-behaved may not make so much sense either - the point, on both sides, is that any law you pass is going to be much bigger than FlexPetz itself, and needs to be viewed in a wider context.)

[sammka.livejournal.com]

From what I can tell, these dogs don't "live" with any family more than a few days at a time (and often only for a few hours). I've left pets with petsitters for much longer than that. Maybe they missed the petsitter, but I don't think it really scarred them for life. Therapy pets spend a lot of time with other people, too.

I agree, though, if the CEO of the company isn't ethical it does make it less likely that the company itself will treat animals ethically. But I don't necessarily see that as a condemnation of the entire industry.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

But while your pets were with the petsitter, they missed you. These dogs will miss the other dogs they usually spend their time with. Unless they don't actually spend the majority of their time with the other dogs running around like their FAQs imply, then they just won't have *anyone* they get to know enough to miss.