>If indeed the majority of animal companions were good hearted as well as
>responsible then the problem of abuse, neglect and abandonment would be
>virtually non existent.
 
Sorry, Kim, but I agree with William.  I think that there are a lot more
good animal people than bad ones.  I do think that a sad fraction of the
bad ones have one heck of a lot of animals, given the hoarding problem,
though certainly there are abusive ones with few animals, too.  There
are huge numbers of people with animals in the U.S.  which is why even
segments of the pet supply industry make billions of dollars.  A fraction
of such a huge number of people ( at least tens of millions given that
there are almost 281 million in the U.S.  -- with a net gain of one
person every 11 seconds allowing for births, deaths, immigration, and
emigration) -- even one percent -- amounts to one heck of lot of people.
One percent of even 10 million which would be 1 in every 28 having a pet
would be 100,000 bad people, and I think that the number with animals has
got to be higher than 1 in 28, even if you adjust that for family size
and make it something like 1 in 10 families having pets.
 
I suspect the abuse rate is higher than 1% of those with pets, though,
just as I suspect the numbers with pets are higher.  Used that to show
how easy it is to get high numbers fast with even working with very
low percentages.
 
Here's the population counter: http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/popclock.
 
Heather wrote:
>This is one reason that I really stress writing letters, well-stated and
>well-thought-out letters, to get concerns across.  People rarely take the
>time to write letters anymore, and it is too easy for a company to ignore
>e-mail communication.  Letters let them know you ain't kdding...you're
>upset!!
 
So true and so well said!
 
>What is flo?
 
Ferret Liberation Organization, begun long ago by some FML ferrets so
you can read about it in the archives.  They steal tubes of Nutrical,
send secret computer messages to other ferrets, have flying saucers,
got angry when their trebuchet schemes were discovered by a human, etc.
[Posted in FML issue 3862]