Could I effectively take out ads in local papers that referred to the issue but not the pet stores by name?
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Margaret Mae |
pet stores: : New Idea... an anti puppy mill/ pet shop ad ? |
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Could I effectively take out ads in local papers that referred to the issue but not the pet stores by name?
Last Edited By: Margaret Mae 07/03/09 7:27 PM.
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KellieB |
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I think you could, but I don't know how effective they'd be. Just about everyone knows "you shouldn't get a puppy from a pet store", but
for various reasons (don't know how to go about finding an actual breeder, may have been rejected by rescues or breeders, impulse desire to
'rescue' the puppy...) may do it anyway.
I don't know how many novice dog people would actually read the ad and take away info to stay away from that shop because.... My .02 is you might have more luck showcasing where people should be getting dogs from, or some of the awesome shelter dogs in your area (along the lines of training right? Don't say what not to do--that doesn't help, give an alternative behaviour. I read your original post, and thought the same thing. I know that I probably would have avoided a protest in front of a pet store, even if I shared your beliefs (and I do), because I'm not into blatant confrontation, and don't respond to it well as a consumer either. As above, I think people *know*, but don't know what to do instead, or why it would be in their best interest to go places other than pet stores for their pup. Re the protest: I get the feeling that many would just move onto another petstore where there were no protesters if they were seriously looking for a pup for the above reasons.
Some is better than none.
~Kellie
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Margaret Mae |
the link is to puppy mill victims: sad and upsetting | #2 | ||
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Thanks so much for your reply Kellie... yes I totally see what you are saying about avoiding a protest, moving on to another store and whatnot.
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jemini574 |
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You might sway a few not to buy, but I think the majority still would. People want instant gratification--they want that puppy right now--and if they know they
shouldn't buy a puppy from a pet store, they will find a reason that justifies doing it. Believe me, I know people who have done just this.
I even think that a lot of shelter adoptions of puppies are often for the same reason. A person can walk in and get a dog today, no waiting. And, they even appear politically correct in doing that!
Last Edited By: jemini574 07/03/09 8:41 PM.
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Sharon |
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Margaret -
I wanted to take a stab at answering your questions - but I am not an expert, just a long time dog lover. Q1: Do you think that average people, new buyers...the general public, know that almost all the puppies in the store come from terrible breeding situations? I believe, if you are talking about brick and mortar pet stores, most of the American public now knows that those puppies are from commercial puppy mills. The source of dogs on the Internet puppy sales is still an unknown to most folks. I think that what people don't know is the actual conditions/ life of the breeding stock at a commerical puppy mill. It's sort of like those of us who eat chicken... we know it's "bad" where the chickens live, but what does that really mean? Q2: How can I help to get the word out to average consumers? I try to talk to people one on one when they tell me they are looking for a pup. But that does not always work... see answer to question #3. Q3: And if I did, do you think a siginificant number of uninitiated puppy buyers would not buy from a pet store if they knew this? (These aren't rhetorical questions!) Sadly, I think the answer to this is NO. I know a number of people who bought pups from a pet store even though they knew full well it was a puppy mill pup. WHY you may ask? Well - I ask :-) 1. They saw the pup and it looked so sad at the store - so in their minds they are actually rescuing, just like if it was a pup from the shelter. Often this is from folks who adopt the older pups that are still at the store after weeks. 2. They want a specific breed or designer breed mix and there are none available by other means. Most of us have no patience when looking for a dog, me included. That leads some folks to the pet stores or the millers in the paper who have what they want NOW. 3. They have been turned down by others. A breeder or a rescue may have turned them down, and they still want a pup. I've seen this a few times in families with toddlers who want little toy dogs. Most rescues and good breeders won't make that placement, but a pet store does not care as long as your credit card goes through. Sharon |
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Margaret Mae |
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Thanks so much for your replies. I want to do something, but I want to do the best thing, you know? I do talk to almost everyone I know about it, but I'm
preaching to the choir because I don't know very many people, and those I do know are good dog people.
I'm starting to think that I'm going to have to get on board with the HSUS and push for national legislation. I don't want to do this because I'm worried about the effect it will have on good breeders and in particular, working dog breeders who keep dogs in ways that might seem alien to the uninitiated. But I just watched the Oprah show on puppy mills and the numbers of these dogs and the conditions they are kept in... I don't think I can stand by much longer.
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cdturner |
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Unfortunately, I've known some really knowledgeable dog people who justify their purchase of pet store puppies, as "saving" those puppies.
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SW845 |
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Gees - CD - get some sleep woman.
As long as there is demand, there will be supply. People have been protesting puppy milling for as long as I can remember in this biz. So you want to influence mills - influence sales. Why do people buy from stores? Ignorance is one reason - what are the MANY others? Because in there lie the real issues - IMO - about why stores exist and probably will continue to exist.
Sarah Wilson
Your dog can change but you have to change first. |
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Margaret Mae |
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Hey Sarah and CD.
Thanks for replying! I was thinking of placing ads in local papers. What about a big ad in the pet classifieds of the cities that are just south of us? Many people come up from Massachusetts to shop here because of the tax break. Sarah, could you refer me to someone who could help me tailor my message and design it? The big sign that Mainline Animal Rescue put up to get Oprah's attention makes me wonder about that too. I assume the signs around these parts aren't as pricey as that one in where was it, downtown Chicago? The two stores that motivated this post are a case of light and dark. The puppies in dark are sad and listless, the place stinks.. the puppies are in the back of a huge wretched privately owned pet supply store. Even I wanted to rescue them. There was a very large as in big not fat young woman tending to them there. I asked her, "Where do your puppies come from?" First she said, "local breeders" stopped herself and said, "out of state." I said, "From the Hunte Corporation?" She confirmed this, and I said, "You know they come from puppy mills, right?" She said, "Some of them do." In retrospect, I would imagine that they buy from local small scale bybs and mills here in NH. As I left that place, I passed two male employees beelining back to the puppies... , I'm assuming they were heading back to keep an eye on the radical. They didn't spare a glance for the chubby middle aged woman who was making it for the front door and fresh air. The light was a very nice little store. As I get older, I start to believe in fate more and more. It would have been much more convenient for me to have found another hellhole. No such luck. :P In this place, I pretended to be buying for my 13 year old granddaughter. I was met by a nice woman and her nice but tough looking husband who was watching over the puppies and holding one and petting it. This was long haired Chihuahua who looked very fearful and sad. In the window were 2 smooth chi pups and in the center of the room 3 Plexiglas cases with a bichon and a lhasapoo, some sort of brussels griffon mix (this pup looked totally shell-shocked) ... he was in with the chi the man was holding... and on the end, more chihuahuas. The shop was clean and bright and smelled great. The pups were on immaculate bedding (I think I was giving off a ton of dog person vibes because at one point the woman confided in me that she wasn't really happy with that bedding and looking for something else. I actually had to stop myself from starting to brainstorm with her ). Lots of toys and little outfits to dress the pups in hanging on the walls. From the responses I got from the woman and her husband (soon their very nice young daughter came out smiling and proud of her mother and their cute puppies) it seems to me that she is trying very hard to believe that she isn't doing wrong. Her eyes have that look though. I think she knows she's complicit in bad stuff. She told me that she is a very discriminating buyer... searches the web for the best source of puppies. She showed me the "papers" of the Bichon. He is from a (big surprise incoming) fine breeder in Kansas. She assured me that they come in on air ride trucks (big emphasis on "air ride.") I asked how they were vetted, and she told me that a vet from one of the popular animal hospitals in town had done it, but that she had shopped around and gotten a better price from a vet north of Manchester. I assume that the local vet got some pressure from local dog folks, but who knows. Just on an interesting side note... the minute I walked into the store the husband asked me if he had seen me in there before. I had stopped when they were closed and looked over the storefront. I assume they know that there are matronly women lurking around town who are struggling against the impulse to spray paint STOP PUPPY MILLS NOW on their window, so security cameras ftw. I asked them what they would do with the puppies today, while the shop was closed and they said the pups would stay there in the shop. Lol their clean pink facade took me in too. I had this wishful thinking going where they took the pups home with them. I'm just starting to process my thoughts and feeling regarding this pet shop. I'm actually wondering if something positive might be done with this woman. Is this crazy? |
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BasiaMH |
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I know this is weird and in some ways may seem antithetical, but sometimes I wonder if we had more BYB toy dogs (i.e., 'let my dog have a litter or two and
put an add in the local paper' people), if there would be less puppy mills? I don't know, but I know that if someone wants a small dog, particularly a
puppy, they will not find them all that often in a shelter, and it would be rare able to bring one home from any reputable place (breeder or rescue or many
shelters) the same day without an application form. The one place I know of that a basically decent but not really 'great' potential dog owner (i.e.,
by rescue/good breeder standards) can consistently and easily get a small breed puppy is through puppy mills (esp pet store for speed and convenience but also
internet puppy mills for the choice available). I used to be violently against people ever letting their dogs breed, and I still mostly am, but my feelings
have shifted somewhat over time, particulalry as regards smaller dogs that the shelters aren't as much full of (I'm still VERY VERY against it for
cats, because of the magnitude of the overpopulation problem for cats).
That suddenly makes me think of a question I'm not sure I've ever heard discussed before -- anyone know anything about the history of the puppy mill/pet store phenomenon? It's hard to believe it's a tradition that goes way back in human history. I'm inclined to think it may be a pretty recent development (recent speaking relatively, I mean)? Regarding newspaper ads - yeah, you could maybe catch a few people that way. But, I'm not sure how much because, for one, I think by now it's something most people know, and secondly, the puppy mills and pet stores have gotten better and better at counter-marketing. I.e., 'our puppies come from local breeders' (which may even be true, since there's no reason the puppy mills can't be local), in some cases using pity ('rescue' this puppy from the pet store by paying his abuser to abuse more dogs) or pushing how clean everything is (i.e., contrasting the horror movie image of puppy mills that people have seen with cleaner more 'hospital-like' looking settings that are still puppy mills and are still terrible for dogs but don't look so gross at first glance and so may not seem abusive to someone who doesn't know what dogs really need, etc.) |
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jemini574 |
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I know this is weird and in some ways may seem antithetical, but sometimes I wonder if we had more BYB toy dogs (i.e., 'let my dog have a litter or two and put an add in the local paper' people), if there would be less puppy mills?I'm inclined to agree with you some here. BYBs really get villified, but if a person wants a purebred puppy and can't quite meet the qualifications of a show breeder (I'm a very good dog owner, but I was turned down several years ago because I already had 3 dogs at the time), I would much rather see them buy from a BYB than a pet store or directly from a puppy mill. Here in Kansas, plenty of puppy mills sell outright to the public, and their ads are all I ever see in the newspaper anymore. It seems that spay/neuter education has worked and gone are the days of a family allowing their nice dog to have a litter to sell. I guess it's what we all wanted, but I'm not sure if we knew the side effects.
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BasiaMH |
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I think there actually are _some_ people who have never heard of pet stores and puppy mills, though. What comes to mind in particular is recent immigrants.
Newspaper ads are difficult, though, because most people are pretty cynical about anything they see that looks like an ad (i.e., many will tend to assume it was written by the competitors of pet stores, or by an extreme animal rights group, even if it wasn't). It can be hard to write something that looks unbiased and that people will trust. If you want to go that route, working with some locally respected organization that people have a good opinion of could help? Or referring people to very solid, verifiable sources if you make any claims? |
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Margaret Mae |
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Well,
I think if there weren't puppy mills and the small breed puppies they produced being sold through pet stores there would be A LOT more room for breeders who breed occasionally. I wouldn't ever say that bybs are good although generally they might be more humane to the mothers and the puppies. Any breeder who doesn't place her puppies carefully, with spay and neuter contracts attached for example is contributing to the domestic pet population explosion and to the epidemic of problems we are seeing with regard to aggresssion, cruelty and pet abandonment when dogs are placed poorly. What do you define as "knowing about puppy mills?" Do you think that most people know about them like.... I know about the genocide that has taken place in the Sudan? I know it happened but I have never listened to or even read detailed accounts of the atrocities there. Do you think that people have an informed, detailed knowledge of the insane level of cruelty that goes on in mills? |
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jemini574 |
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I wouldn't ever say that bybs are good although generally they might be more humane to the mothers and the puppies. Any breeder who doesn't place her puppies carefully, with spay and neuter contracts attached for example is contributing to the domestic pet population explosion and to the epidemic of problems we are seeing with regard to aggresssion, cruelty and pet abandonment when dogs are placed poorly.I don't think I can agree with this at all. BYBs treat mothers ALOT more humanely because they are generally loved pets, NOT a commodity. People who breed their pets usually don't do it for a huge profit, just because they love their dog and think others would want one, too. Not to say this is necessarily right, but... Also, bybs aren't as picky about who gets their pups which may be a problem, but I don't believe they are big contributors to pet overpopulation. We live in different parts of the country, and that may contribute to my perspective, but I don't think there is much of a purebred dog overpopulation problem, especially if we're considering small dogs. They are in demand and if they don't have serious temperament problems, they get adopted from shelters if they end up there somehow (and just because someone buys a dog with a contract to return it to the breeder doesn't mean they do that. Those dogs can still get dropped off at the shelter. People are supposed to return adopted dogs to the humane society if they don't want them anymore, and they sign a contract, but I see them on craigslist all the time). And we all know that dogs with serious temperament problems don't just come from bybs. There may be a mixed breed dog overpopulation problem, but that's a different issue. And I'm not even convinced that small mixed breeds are overpopulated.
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Margaret Mae |
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I don't think I understand your use of the term. Backyard breeders are to me, people who have an unspayed bitch which either is bred by accident or
purposely but with no substantive knowledge of the parents. Would you agree with that?
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BasiaMH |
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I don't think I understand your use of the term. Backyard breeders are to me, people who have an unspayed bitch which either is bred by accident or purposely but with no substantive knowledge of the parents. Would you agree with that? That's about my definition. And for me, I don't actually object to the whole idea 'on principle', _if there wasn't a problem with overpopulation_. It's how most dogs have been bred through the majority of human history, and for the most part I actually think it's worked relatively fine most of the time. I actually wonder if it maybe works worse with purebreds than with mixed breeds, simply because the narrow and more homozygous gene pool of purebreds would presumably require more care to avoid serious problems. Educated breeders, who do their research and understand who they're breeding to whom and why are even better, and I would think are particularly important for working breeds, especially if the requirements for the work are very specific, but as I say, if there wasn't an overpopulation problem, I really wouldn't have a problem with most backyard breeders. If they love their dogs and take decent care of them, and try to do the same with the puppies, and raise them in a caring home atmosphere, we could do worse. And breeding one apparently healthy nice dog to another apparently healthy nice dog in hopes of getting more healthy nice dogs is a big gamble, but it's a basic start and more than puppy mill puppies or bad breeder puppies get. It's a system that seems to have worked awefully well for cats (the vast vast majority of cats are randombred, and it seems pretty rare to find cats that have the kinds of serious health, temperament, and structural problems that are so common in dogs). If I wanted a kitten, I could pretty much take the first free kitten that was offered to me at random, and be pretty confident everything would be fine. Part of that is because cats aren't bred for the range of body and temperament that dogs are (or technically they are, but non-DSH or DLH cats are so rare as to be almost negligeable). BUT, it also results in vast quantities of homeless cats, and litter upon litter of homeless kittens. Which to me is the real problem to backyard breeding, and the main reason I support trying to reduce it. If the reproductive rate of a species is way above replacement, either most have to die in each generation (the old-fashioned model of drowning each season's litters of puppies or kittens, or the modern method of crowding the streets with feral cats where half die of malnutrition or disease every year, and euthanizing many more in the shelters) OR most have to not breed in each generation, with the ones that breed preferably selected in some way as being most likely to pass on healthy happy genes, etc... That's part of the reason I specifically mentioned small dogs in my previous post. We live in different parts of the world, so this may be just where I live, but I sometimes get the sense that there actually _isn't_ an overpopulation problem with very small dogs where I live (and they also seem to be the ones most heavily bred in puppy mills). Even with larger dogs, it's rarely whole litters of puppies being brought in to shelters and rescues, it's more mismatches (shouldn't have got a dog at all, or picked a dog that was too active) or people with lifestyle changes or sometimes, dogs with problems. I also think some of the toy breeds are really hard to breed responsibly, since many really have no ostensible 'purpose' to breed for, and many of them were basically just bred for interesting appearance. In theory they're bred for companions, but only a small number of breeders really seem to take that to heart and work all the dogs as therapy dogs or something like that to justify their existance or what they are really doing besides adding to the 'overpopulation problem'... by my definition only a small percentage of breeders who think they're responsible breeders really are. The supply and demand situation is very different with puppies and kittens where I live. People still routinely pay around $500 or more for BYB or pet store puppies where I live. Why is it not like with kittens, where you have to put adds up giving them away for free and try to get cuter picture of them than all the other free kittens other people have if you want to have a chance of getting someone to take them, and all the shelters and numerous local cat rescues have a couple of pages each devoted to rows of pictures of kittens?
Last Edited By: BasiaMH 07/06/09 5:16 PM.
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jemini574 |
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I guess to me the term backyard breeder means anyone who does not show dogs or work them in performance. They just breed dogs because they love a particular
breed and enjoy having puppies around once in awhile. There is a large variance in this group, some I consider responsible and a decent place to buy a pup, and
some I don't.
My biggest issue is that anyone who does this is not considered a reputable breeder by most definitions, yet I don't see a whole lot wrong with what the responsible end of this category does. So, maybe, Margaret Mae, we're not really in disagreement, it's just a misunderstanding of personal definitions, as you said.
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Margaret Mae |
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Well, my brother-in-law's pug came from a backyard breeder. He and my sister-in-law love this bitch dearly, in spite of her horrendous temperament and her
health problems. I can't visit their house with even one well-behaved small dog or puppy because she goes crazy. She has bitten my children numerous times
(despite the occasional surreptitous punt from me) because she seeks them out, away from Nick an Laura and snarks them.
Granted this is just one dog from one byb, but it's enough for me. Actually, I don't think that the majority of dogs have been bred this way historically, but I don't have any academic evidence to support my belief. My sense is that either yin wee bitch was useful or she was gone. Most toys were just that playthings for the idle rich and more currently the idle middle class, but the majority of these tiny variations come from useful dogs historically, and were the product of careful breeding if on a more modest scale than those bred post Mendel. The chihuahua and the lhasa and the jack russell are examples of smallish breeds that had a purpose and again were bred carefully and purposely for vigor and work. Have you ladies bred litters? If so, what breeds are we talking here?
Last Edited By: Margaret Mae 07/06/09 5:53 PM.
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jemini574 |
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Well, my brother-in-law's pug came from a backyard breeder. He and my sister-in-law love this bitch dearly, in spite of her horrendous temperament and her health problems. I can't visit their house with even one well-behaved small dog or puppy because she goes crazy. She has bitten my children numerous times (despite the occasional surreptitous punt from me) because she seeks them out, away from Nick an Laura and snarks them.It's sad that your brother and sister in law have such a horrible dog, but you really can't judge a whole group of breeders by one dog. I knew a champion Dalmatian who killed a Sheltie he lived with and was horribly growly to people, but not every breeder with show quality Dalmatians breeds aggressive dogs. My smooth Dachshund was bought by his first owner from a pet store, and I looked up the kennel on his "papers" after I bought him from his original owner who was moving and didn't want him anymore. He was DEFINITELY born in a puppy mill. However, he is the sweetest dog I've ever owned and extremely healthy. But I don't think all mill dogs are that way. And, no, I have never bred a litter. I have never even owned a dog who wasn't spayed or neutered, having had all my pets altered as soon as possible.
Last Edited By: jemini574 07/06/09 6:03 PM.
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BasiaMH |
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Granted this is just one dog from one byb, but it's enough for me. Actually, I don't think that the majority of dogs have been bred this way historically, but I don't have any academic evidence to support my belief. My sense is that either yin wee bitch was useful or she was gone. Maybe we don't disagree so much as all that, because 'keep them if they fit your purpose' is kind of what I was thinking of. It's just that for pet dogs, that actually sounds to me vaguely more like people breeding their pet dogs than some dogs bred for show and bred or not bred based on appearance while possibly even living in a kennel. I'm just rambling and thinking out loud, mostly, though, and maybe it will turn out half of what I've said won't make sense The chihuahua and the lhasa and the jack russell are examples of smallish breeds that had a purpose and again were bred carefully and purposely for vigor and work. JRTs are still routinely bred for a purpose in some way -- but for the other two, I don't really get what you mean (historically maybe, but not today in any meaningful way, surely). |
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Margaret Mae |
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As I understand it Basia, Chis are all around useful dogs sort of "south of the border terriers." Pest control, alarm systems... not bred to be
wimpy by any means. Lhasas were initially bred as guardians for (Tibetan?) temples. Poodles were water dogs. I suppose that Yorkshire terriers were just as
useful and tough back in the day as the russel and the border are today. Dachsunds still work as earthdogs... I know a greatly respected terrierwoman in NJ
who hunts with dachsunds and so on and so on..
Last Edited By: Margaret Mae 07/06/09 7:04 PM.
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