Writers Guild Bigwigs See a Happy Ending

"What are you doing?" asks Picture-Perfect Dad.

"When you buy a dog from a breeder, you kill a dog in a shelter," the breeder explains.

"I don't want to kill a dog," their daughter -- we suspect she's named Muffy -- wails, picture-perfectly.

"Too late -- you already paid," the breeder says.

The ad will be making its national debut in the Washington market, chosen to try to reach the capital area's "influentials and policymakers," a group rep said.

"Every purebred dog that's born takes a home away from the animal that's already dying for a home at a local shelter," PETA Director Daphna Nachminovitch told The TV Column late last week.

"This nation is forced to euthanize 3 to 4 million dogs and cats in shelters. And that's only half of those that are abandoned in shelters -- America doesn't want between 6 and 8 million dogs and cats" every year, she said.

"When you have a show like Westminster touting so-called full-blooded dogs and holding them on a pedestal, you're encouraging people to go and purchase one.

"We want to make sure Joe Public knows when you buy from a breeder, you play a part in an animal's death at a shelter. It's really that simple.

"Our hope is that Monday night, people watching the [Westminster] show will see the [ad], and that before tuning back in on Tuesday they will have a different perspective of what it is they're looking at."