There should be a moratorium on intentional breeding of cats and dogs.

A. Moral Framework: Companion animals are sentient creatures capable of pain and emotion, we therefore are obligated to refrain from inflicting wanton or unnecessary cruelty upon them and individuals have an obligation to give consideration to the well-being of companion animals in their care. However, companion animals lack the higher functions such as a sense of self, moral autonomy, and innate dignity that imbue humans with a right to life and freedom. Animals thus do not have the same right to life that humans do. We should prioritize the life, dignity, and freedom of humans over those of animals. B. Pro’s Advocacy Pro has not specified any details of a moratorium, so I am assuming the moratorium applies to the US, applies to all cats and dogs, and will last indefinitely. It is fundamentally unfair for Pro to deviate from this advocacy after I have made my opening arguments, as this makes his position a moving target and allows him to move the goalposts in response to my arguments. C1. Service Animals There are as many as 387,000 service dogs in the US. http://www.servicedogcentral.org... These dogs help a wide variety of people including the blind, veterans suffering from post-combat PTSD, and children with debilitating illness. These dogs require intense training over the course of years that starts almost the day the dog is born. Certain breeds such as retrievers are best suited for work as service dogs. Organizations that train service dogs often have waiting lists thousands of members long, meaning we already can’t train these dogs fast enough to meet existing need. http://www.cnn.com... Pro would eliminate our existing puppy stock, preventing the training of new service dogs. He would also prevent organization from breeding dogs that are best suited for this work. C2. Police Dogs Pro would similarly stop the breeding of police dogs, which are used across the US to track suspects, escaped convicts, break up prison riots, detect narcotics and weapons at airports, and many other tasks essential to keeping the civic peace. https://en.wikipedia.org... D. Black Markets Pro’s plan will restrict the supply of pets by shutting down legitimate businesses that are subject to state and federal laws protecting animal welfare. This will inevitably lead to black market puppy mills that will not follow existing laws. As shown below, there is a LOT of money to be made by breeding and selling pets. It is more expensive to responsibly breed pets than to breed pets and treat them poorly; the resulting black markets will be much worse for animal welfare than existing legal markets. Additionally, buyers overwhelmingly prefer to buy young animals like kittens and puppies. This means buyers will prefer black market puppies over legal mature shelter dogs. Animals are extremely easy to breed and upholding animal welfare laws is a low priority item for law enforcement. The moratorium would be nearly impossible to effectively enforce and local police won’t dedicate the resources to enforcing it anyways E. Economic Impacts US consumers spend $60 billion annually on pets. A moratorium would destroy the livelihood of thousands of people who depend on the pet market to run their business. Breeders would be forced to give up their career or turn criminal. Individuals should be allowed to responsibly breed animals for a living, restricting breeding unfairly inhibits individual freedom and creativity. We should prioritize the livelihood and well-being of people over that of animals. http://www.nbcnews.com... F. Pro Won’t Stop Shelter Kills Most animals in shelters are strays, not animals abandoned or relinquished to shelters. These animals will continue to breed and reproduce regardless of Pro’s plan, meaning we will kill a huge number of animals regardless. http://www.shelteranimalscount.org... Additionally, the black market will continue to produce new animals ripe for abandonment. Illegal puppy mills are more likely to produce sickly dogs or dogs with bad behavioral traits that are more likely to be abandoned to shelters. Many animals taken in by shelters are unsuitable for adoption. These animals may be aggressive, too feral, or too emotionally disturbed. I personally have worked first hand with shelter animals and have seen dogs that seemed ready for a home but were unable to be adopted out despite time and concentrated effort by volunteers. Even more dogs are simply too wild and unpredictable to be put up for adoption. G. FREE MARKET SOLVES The main source of pets in the US is overwhelmingly from the adoption of strays and abandoned animals! More animals are adopted from shelters than are purchased from breeders and less than 5% of cats and dogs come from pet stores. http://www.humanesociety.org... The number of animals being taken in by shelters is falling over time, as is the number of euthanized animals. http://www.shelteranimalscount.org...There is a concerted effort by many nonprofits to educate the public on puppy mills and responsible pet ownership. These efforts have made huge strides over the years. Even now many states are moving forward on targeted legislation banning cruel puppy mills and other inhumane animal practices. The way forward is a well informed populace and targeted legislation, not a blanket ban that hurts responsible breeders and rewards illegal breeding.