As I think about past posts about pet stores and mistakes, I am reminded by how often people try to solve things by aiming at the symptom and not the cause.

Pet stores have a long history of treating animals only from the perspective of the bottom line, so they do not get treated.

Vets charge huge rates for service, labs charge huge fees for service, it is ultimately the animal who suffers.

People take in animals as pets without doing any research into ownership.

The list is endless and nauseating.

Some people say get rid of all pet stores. Others say regulate pet ownership. I say take a look at the big picture.

At the core of it all is integrity, and that is what will become even more apparent as we evolve. Mistakes that lead to positive change are good, mistakes that are allowed to continue are reprehensible.

Animals are here to experience life lessons the same as we. They have a different package with far less free will and power over their destiny, and since we are the ones who have taken away their lands and/or domesticated them, they have become our responsibility and act as a visible measure of the human race's level of integrity.

It's not that it's wrong to eat a cow - that's a cow's purpose. But to make a cow live in squalor, and to slaughter them so inhumanely, just because it is convenient for us, that is what I object to. We could at least give them a finer quality of life and easier death. They make life on this earth possible. There simply isn't enough arable surface to make vegetarianism possible for more than 5 billion people.

Pet stores could instigate better policies, have vets-in-training work for them for free, there are tons of options that haven't been investigated or suggested. Most people just say to "just say no" as if that ever worked. It didn't work with drugs and it certainly won't work for cute little bunnies or for whatever dog is being glorified by the latest Disney film.

We have the choice to live in balance with nature and to nurture all creatures as far as we are able. We can make the choice to be educated, to care, to make a difference. It isn't so much that it is wrong to buy and sell animals, it's more that any kind of commerce without scruples, conscientiousness or integrity is wrong, whether it's a pet store or an individual.