We need ethical breeders to come list their puppies for sale at
http://www.puppypassport.com
Advertise for free and visitors never have to pay to see your contact
information.
--

Thanks for visiting www.puppypassport.com

Andrew Lang
Lead Web Designer
PuppyPassport.com

In article 5Oixe.15603$ro.8614@fed1read02,
Andrew Lang wrote:

We need ethical breeders to come list their puppies for sale at
http://www.puppypassport.com
Advertise for free and visitors never have to pay to see your contact
information.
--

Thanks for visiting www.puppypassport.com

Andrew Lang
Lead Web Designer
PuppyPassport.com

(Sorry for the blank post, guys - my newsreader burped.)

Andrew Lang wrote:

We need ethical breeders to come list their puppies for sale at
http://www.puppypassport.com
Advertise for free and visitors never have to pay to see your contact
information.

*giggle* Oh, this is goooooood... y'all are going to like this one!!

If you go to puppypassport.com, you will find that one of criteria that
you can use in searching is whether someone is an "ethical breeder" or
not. While that's a notable goal, in fact it's very difficult (basically
impossible) to define an objective standard that will accurately separate
the wheat from the chaff. So naturally I was curious as to what their
criteria is for determining whether a breeder is "ethical" or not.

Well, it turns out that their standard is whether or not someone belongs
to the "National Ethical Breeders Association", http://www.breedrite.org.
And what is NEBA's standard? People who join must agree to abide by
the organization's "breeding standards." And what do these involve?
Gee, that appears to be anybody's guess since that section of the website
reads "coming soon!"

Naturally the question arises as to the relationship between these two
organizations:

puppypassport.com is registered to
Townsend, Andrew
Puppy Passport, L.L.C.
1719 E. 71st Street
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74136
United States
(918) 497-1911

breedrite.org is registered to
Aundrea Smith
National Ethical Breeders Association
1719 E. 71st Street
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74136
United States
(918) 497-1911

How curious that they share the same address and phone number! So let's
check that out. A reverse phone lookup on switchboard.com leads to the

Townsend & Smith Attorneys At Law
Townsend Andrew Atty
Smith Aundrea Atty
1719 E 71st St
Tulsa, OK 74136
(918) 497-1911
(Web site address: http://www.needlawyer.net/)

Curiouser and curiouser... while it certainly wouldn't be unusual for
a law firm to do the paperwork to incorporate a business of this type,
I don't think I've ever seen one show up in Whois as the administrative
and technical contacts for the business's domain names.

But back to the original question of how one can join an organization
by agreeing to a non-existent code of ethics. In spite of the obvious
difficulty here, it *is* nonetheless somehow possible, since doing the
afforementioned search for "ethical breeders" turns up one such: a
breeder of Brussel Griffons in Oklahoma, name Rene Smith, telephone
number 918-607-6262. Who might this be? Sadly, a reverse phone lookup
on switchboard.com doesn't turn up anything, so we have to look a little
harder here.

Fortunately there's always our best friend Google. A search on that
phone number turns it up in a number of ads for Brussels Griffon puppies.
But really revealing one is at http://states.puppydogweb.com/oklahoma/ :

Brussels Griffon
Aundrea Smith, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma 74011. 918-607-6262

What?! Could it possibly be that the "Aundrea Smith" with the phone number
918-607-6262 that sells Brussels Griffon puppies and is behind the "National
Ethical Breeders Association" is the same person as the "Rene Smith" with
the phone number 918-607-6262 and is selling Brussels Griffon puppies with
the approbation of that organization? Say it ain't so, Joe.

But here the Oklahoma Bar Association comes to our rescue in the person
of their membership directory at:

http://www.oklahomafindalawyer.com/F...ountySearch=66

Aundrea Rene Smith
1719 E 71st St
Tulsa, OK 74136

Now, doesn't this strike all of you as being the absolute epitome of
ethicalness??? *vvbg* Of course some of you will remember that this
identical tactic was tried before by our old friends at rocknrollover,
who ended up getting themselves spanked BIG-time by AKC. So it'll be
interesting to see how this particular situation plays out.

Another thing to be aware of: in spite of the number of times that the
names "Aundrea Smith" and "Rene Smith" appear via Google, I could not
document any association between her and any sort of objective evaluation
of potential breeding stock (conformation shows, obedience trials, health
testing or so on), nor could I establish any relation between her and
any dog club of any kind (Brussels Griffon, all-breed, obedience, agility,
etc.) Most people would agree that associations like those are vital
criteria in establishing a person as ANY kind of ethical breeder.

One last note: The "National Ethical Breeders Association" says on its
website:

"National Ethical Breeders Association or NEBA is a not for profit
company... "

And quite oddly enough the Oklahoma Secretary of State's office doesn't
show any company, either for-profit or non-profit, under that name. OTOH,
"Puppy Passport LLC" does exist as a domestic limited liability company;
its registered agent is Aundrea R. Smith.

Fun stuff, huh?

I'm mainly posting this as a reminder to people that there is more to
finding an ethical breeder than accepting someone's word that they are
worthy of the label. Do remember to dig a little on your own; you may
well be surprised by what you turn up.

HTH,

Dianne