Sheltering From a Loaded Question

Miss Manners offers a happy dog owner advice on dodging shaming attempts disguised as small talk:

[E]very time someone asks about our new puppy, they want to know what shelter I got him from. Many people are horrified to hear I would even consider anything outside of a shelter. I don't want to go through the three-year story of our search [for a dog breeder] every time this comes up, but I am scared and almost embarrassed to admit I didn't adopt.

I guess we can add normalized bullying to the sins of harms pets and endangers livelihoods to the consequences of the crusade against pet breeding.

While I vehemently disagree with Miss Manners's mention of Immanuel Kant as some kind of moral exemplar, I otherwise agree with the advice below, with one proviso:

[Y]our dog is smart enough to know not to give a stranger a stick when experience tells him it is going to be used to smack him.

Instead of telling the stranger that your source was a backyard breeder, say you found your puppy through a friend of a friend -- or whatever characterization you can invent that is technically true. At the same time, emphasize the other truth that your new family member was, just like a shelter animal, in need of a good home.

Then change the subject...

The proviso is, of course, that you are not interested at that moment in fighting back against this latest example of performative bullying dressed up as a moral crusade.

For those times that one is interested in fighting back, it is fine to indicate (as the letter writer can) that there are, strangely enough, breeders who take good care of their property; or (as I have), that there can be good reasons to seek out a breeder, ranging from allergies to preferences); or to become informed about the damage this cause is doing in the name of being humane to animals.

For those who do engage: The bullies might become more circumspect the next time, and people more innocently involved (and who actually care about animals) will perhaps become more careful about how they help animals and whom they view as allies in that endeavor.

-- CAV