[Quincy]

The controversial TV documentary which aired in the UK is now going to air on Monday December 8 at 10 pm ET on CBC Newsworld, see via this link.
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/passionateeyemonday/
.

[Great Dane]

This should be interesting.

I'll have to tune in.

[Joker]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Donovan]

Here's what Terrierman had to say:

"Judging from last night's Pedigree Dogs Exposed, the very worst thing you can have stirred into your genetic mix – far more debilitating than a disease-bearing gene – is human self-regard and vanity."

You can read the rest of this post HERE.

[Anandel]

this must be the 'expose' on the Kennel Club aired on the BBC not too long ago...biased, judgmental, extremist stuff...PETA thinks it was great; that should give you a clue what it's like

[Pai]

Not sure how science is biased.

It's fact that inbreeding, no health standards, and breeding for extreme body shapes is bad for dogs, that's not extremist at all. The people in that show were longtime members of the show world, vets, and people who do NOT want to 'ban' pets like PETA does... they just want the purebred world to be better than it is right now in many ways. To claim there is no problem at all is just denying what many breeders and vets and scientists have been saying for years now.

People bashing this series cannot argue against the facts presented in it... the best they can do is try to smear the intentions of the people making it as being AR nuts, which is not true in any way if you actually watched the program and listened to them.

Anyway, most of us expressed our opinions of this already in the first thread ("Pedigree Dogs Exposed" full documentary now available) made about this show... I won't go into it all over again here. I'll simply say dismissing the show as AR propaganda is just plain wrong -- just because it's criticising kennel clubs and purebred breeders doesn't mean they're anti-pet or anti-breed. The purebred world is FAR from perfect and morally pure, and ignoring criticism is just closed minded. If dirt is there, it SHOULD be brought out for all to see and to be fixed. And the dirt shown in this show? Is not deniable by any honest person. It's NOT claiming all purebred breeders and kennel clubs are evil, but it's saying there are real problems with a lot of things going on with some breeds that have been ignored for far too long.

[Anandel]

Originally Posted by Pai

Not sure how science is biased.

It's fact that inbreeding, no health standards, and breeding for extreme body shapes is bad for dogs, that's not extremist at all. The people in that show were longtime members of the show world, vets, and people who do NOT want to 'ban' pets like PETA does... they just want the purebred world to be better than it is right now in many ways. To claim there is no problem at all is just denying what many breeders and vets and scientists have been saying for years now.

People bashing this series cannot argue against the facts presented in it... the best they can do is try to smear the intentions of the people making it as being AR nuts, which is not true in any way if you actually watched the program and listened to them.

Anyway, most of us expressed our opinions of this already in the first thread ("Pedigree Dogs Exposed" full documentary now available) made about this show... I won't go into it all over again here. I'll simply say dismissing the show as AR propaganda is just plain wrong -- just because it's criticising kennel clubs and purebred breeders doesn't mean they're anti-pet or anti-breed. The purebred world is FAR from perfect and morally pure, and ignoring criticism is just closed minded. If dirt is there, it SHOULD be brought out for all to see and to be fixed.

yeah, ok...my mistake.

[Great Dane]

Originally Posted by Anandel

this must be the 'expose' on the Kennel Club aired on the BBC not too long ago...biased, judgmental, extremist stuff...PETA thinks it was great; that should give you a clue what it's like

Oh, well if the PETA crazies think that it was great I'm definitely skipping it.

[Dogstar]

There's a very interesting rebuttal here:
http://rufflyspeaking.wordpress.com/...-dogs-exposed/

[Pai]

Originally Posted by Great Dane

Oh, well if the PETA crazies think that it was great I'm definitely skipping it.

Plenty of show people and breed lovers think it was great too. You should watch it and make your own decision.

That rebuttal was interesting... apparently, they claim soft palate surgery is no big deal, so it shouldn't be considered that horrible if many Pekes need it to breathe properly. After reading that line, and the one laughing at the statement that inbreeding and limited gene pools are bad things for longterm health (which is a scientific fact), defended culling for cosmetic reasons, and said how if some breeds require C-sections because they have such high miscarry rates (lets not question why that would be) then it's totally is justifiable "otherwise they would lose even more puppies!" then I really was convinced the people who wrote it are anything other than in denial about dog health issues. Claiming the show was saying the CKCS people 'enjoyed causing their dogs pain' was also a lie, the show did no such thing. It just showed that a champion conformation dog was being given more importance over being a healthy dog in many cases.

The people are obviously heavily invested in the show world as it has been for many years, and resent any claims there are serious problems with many breeds. They repeated the same old arguments and justifications that have been used by folks in the show world for years. Unfortunately, the facts and science are not on their side. When crippled dogs are being shown and winning ribbons and being hailed as prime examples of their breeds, then there IS something wrong going on here, sorry!

The rebuttal also makes a lot of exaggerated, unfounded claims as to what will happen to all breeds if genetic health and soundness is put before 'breed type' in value. There CAN be a balance, if people are willing to work at it rather than leaping at every criticism as an assault on their breeds and on dog ownership itself, which is ridiculous. You want to know how we can keep AR nuts from taking over and passing laws hurtful to our dogs? If WE step up and show we are doing a responsible, humane job ourselves -- by holding registries, shows, breeders and show judges to a higher standard than they have been so far.

[Anandel]

Originally Posted by Dogstar

There's a very interesting rebuttal here:
http://rufflyspeaking.wordpress.com/...-dogs-exposed/

what a fantastic post! she could be the spokesperson for the responsible breeders of this world

[zimandtakandgrrandmimi]

Originally Posted by Anandel

what a fantastic post! she could be the spokesperson for the responsible breeders of this world

I dunno...there was one off thing in there...it doesn't directly afftect the content of the article per say for me but it doesn sort of make me want to take the whole thing with a grain of salt.

Both the show and the article err on the Bulldog thing. That painting that the show refers to as an orginal bulldog and the article refers to as a pit bull...is neither according to my research. That painting is extremely old. That dog is an ancestor of BOTH the Bulldog and the Pit Bull.

Makes me want to question the rest of both presentations of the issue just a little bit. Perhaps Im being nitpicky but there it is..

[animalcraker]

Zim when she was talking about the bull dog picture she wasn't saying thats a "pitbull" she was saying thats the type of bull dog that would fight in pits. Which is different then the type of bulldog that was used for bull baiting, and the bull baiting type was the ancestor to todays bulldog. At least that's what I got from it.

[Quincy]

I don’t recall “Pit Bull” being mentioned anywhere in the documentary, and where the English Bull Dog was mentioned it went into their skulls being bred enormous and the need for a caesarean when giving birth. Last I heard the UK Kennel Club agreed and was in the process of changing the Breed Standard not only for the Bull Dog but for quite a number of breeds and for various reasons, plus other things mentioned in the documentary are also in the process to being addressed by the Kennel Club and Breed Clubs. The producer of the documentary intended it to be a “wakeup call” and looks like it succeeded. Also I heard there is a Sequel being made and a release date has not been mentioned yet.

There is a copy of the documentary available on the internet and originally put on Youtube, but keep in mind it periodically moves around to new locations. It currently is available to view via this link, it’s an hour long and done in 6 Parts of 10 minutes each part.
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance...Dogs%2BExposed

Also it's on this Monday as mentioned in the original post, The controversial TV documentary which aired in the UK is now going to air on Monday December 8 at 10 pm ET on CBC Newsworld, see via this link.
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/passionateeyemonday/
.

[blacksheepcardigans]

Hi!

I saw my visited-post count go way up on my Pedigree Dogs Exposed post, so I thought I'd come check out what you all were talking about. I wanted to quickly clarify some stuff:

1) My objection to PDE as regards short faces and palate issues is that PDE made the following assertions: That the short faces were a new (or relatively new) innovation on the part of ribbon-obsessed show breeders in the UK, and that the "new" shorter faces were causing palate issues that rendered the dogs unfit as pets.

What I tried to show is that neither of those are true. Short faces, as short as are seen in any UK or US show ring, are hundreds of years old if not thousands. The move toward the extreme face took place in China or its surrounding countries millennia ago.

Also, the short face does not render dogs unfit to live as happy pets. Danny the Peke is now nine and happy and healthy. Pekes are one of the longest-lived breeds that exist, and the vast majority of owners will never see a Peke die of anything but advanced old age. Some of the dogs will need palate surgery, yes. Did a "new" obsession with a deformation create that situation? No. Is palate surgery the worst thing that can happen to a dog? No.

As a concurrent point: Would changing the standard to call for a more defined muzzle solve this? Sorry, no. Plenty of Boxers have palate issues; you could push the Peke face out as far as a Boxer's and you'd still have some that needed palate surgery.

The implications of the program were quite clear: no dog can exist who is shaped in any way differently from a wolf. Because short faces can have palate problems. Short legs can have spinal problems. Coats can mat. Do you see where this is going? Every breed has some sort of weakness. Mixed breeds do too, often in much greater abundance, but because data isn't kept on mixed breeds everybody blames the purebreds. You can't look at these dogs and say "Because some percentage of your individuals have XX, we have to change you." You have to look at them and say "Is this breed in good shape; are the majority of the dogs happy and healthy, are they living out their existences in good quality of life."

The breeds for which the answer to the quality of life issue is closer to a "no" are not the ones with weird body shapes or short legs or flat faces. They're the ones with the endemic cancers, which means Goldens and Flatcoats and Boxers and some others. But I almost never see anyone saying we should destroy the Golden breed. The funny-looking dogs are a broad target, but it's a false conclusion.

2) I never said that inbreeding was not bad for the long-term health of the population. I have very strong words for inbreeding here:

http://rufflyspeaking.wordpress.com/...-dogs-exposed/

http://rufflyspeaking.wordpress.com/...ch-of-bolding/

What I said (and is true) is that you can't generalize from the incest taboo in humans and the famous hemophiliac cases in the European royal families to dogs. The European royal families interbred with no "standards" except that they happened to be related to powerful people. That's the exact opposite of the way inbreeding is done in dogs. In dogs it is done to select for health, longevity, soundness, and appearance.

Inbreeding is a powerful method of forced selection that has (for example) produced every single vegetable and fruit and grain product you're going to eat for supper tonight or breakfast tomorrow; inbreeding is wholly responsible for the fact that we have wheat that makes a loaf of bread instead of wheat that makes a grainy lump. It's why we have elms that don't die of Dutch Elm Disease. It's why we are able to feed billions more people than we could 300 years ago. It's something that we have to be very, very careful with, and I have argued very strongly that it should not be the default way we breed dogs, but it's not automatically deleterious in every way to individual dogs or strains of living things.

3) I still say that euthanizing some puppies is not always the worst thing that could happen. I've seen too many dogs fall through the cracks to ever want to make blanket statements about it being a sign of a bad breeder. The Ridgeback people know their rescue situation, far better than you or I. They know that ridgeless dogs are the ones most at risk if and when they hit rescue. They are making the VERY difficult and agonizing decision of whether a longer life always equals a better life.

4) Breeds whose breeders often choose c-sections don't have higher miscarry rates. Dogs "miscarry" in an entirely different way than we do; if their puppies die in utero they are generally resorbed and you never see anything. The always-sectioned breeds generally have smaller litters and body shapes that are more difficult to whelp. However, as I said in the article I wrote, c-sections in those breeds are part of a general trend toward automatic c-sections in ALL breeds. I know many breeders across the spectrum of the groups, and several repro vets, who recommend always sectioning every bitch.

And the "facts" cited in PDE about c-sections, that the trend is the result of breeders radically changing the shape of these breeds over the last few decades, is just totally incorrect. Bulldogs are not appreciably wider than they were 100 years ago.

What has happened is the juxtaposition of several factors: A total unwillingness on the part of breeders to accept ANY losses (and losses are not because of "pedigree" breeding; wolves lose puppies all the time), a radical change in expectations for the life of a breeding bitch (where she is now expected to produce only a very few, usually 2 or 3, litters in her entire lifetime, so each puppy is genetically precious), and the advent of very safe anesthetics that enable us to do c-sections without killing puppies. All of THESE are indeed "new," in the last few decades, though forgive me if I don't think any of them are signs of bad breeding behavior.

5) The show did say, very clearly, that the CKCS people must like causing their dogs pain. Remember the vet? Who said "If these breeders were beating their dogs over the heads with sticks they'd go to jail"?

6) The community of responsible breeders does NOT, and never has, rejected the idea that our breeds have health problems. Who brought the syringomyelia problem to the attention of the vet community? Cavalier breeders. You know who has financed just about every scrap of research into syringomyelia? Cavalier breeders. Who set up one of the most stringent and expensive health testing protocol in the dog world? Yep, Cav breeders. You know who pays for research on bloat? Great Dane breeders. The Golden community gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to research cancer, as has the Bernese Mountain Dog Club (they're at $110,000 so far, even though they're a much smaller club). The herding group was 100% of the impetus to develop the genetic test for PRA and remains its overwhelming consumer. Responsible breeders and exhibitors and field trialers and agility people and so on are the reason the OFA exists, why Penn Hip exists, why repro vets exist, etc.

I would invite you to join a few breed-specific e-mail listservs, the ones that the show breeders hang out on. See what proportion of all traffic is related to health research, health testing, breakthroughs, and issues; or is related to the ethics of breeding. It's HUGE.

Just to give you an example, on my Cardigan list the current hot topics are IVDD and DM (spinal issues), as well as no little outrage and a lot of sharp criticism of the AKC for deciding to pursue "retail" (i.e., pet store) puppy registrations.

On my Dane list, we were just encouraged to listen to the CHF's podcast on the genetic basis of atopic dermatitis.

On my canine reproduction list, they're hashing out the ethics of re-breeding a bitch who didn't accept her litter immediately (with almost all saying "no, never re-breed under those conditions"), sharing where to order liquid calcium to prevent uterine inertia, and talking about when puppies should go to new homes (someone just got whalloped for letting a litter go too early, which in this case was under 12 weeks).

So no, we're not hiding from our problems or refusing to accept that they exist, and we're rather obsessed with ethics.

Pedigree Dogs Exposed made several assertions that they presented as factual. None are. They said that health issues were the result of dogs radically changing in the recent past (false). They said that purebred dogs have experienced a huge and recent change in body shape, head shape, etc. (false). They said that breeders didn't care about health (false). They said that breeders were out there showing crippled dogs and winning (false--where is this crippled dog and what has he won?).

I want you to question breeding practices. You MUST do so; every good breeder does. But you need to answer the questions yourself. Don't let a TV show with an admitted and obvious anti-breeding-of-any-kind bias do it for you. GO TO A SHOW. GO TO MANY SHOWS. Go to breed club meetings. Go ask corresponding secretaries of breed clubs to get you in touch with breeders in your area. Go sit in their living rooms and ASK them why their dogs look the way they do, or why they made the decision to breed the litter they did, or what they require in a stud dog. If breeders are as bad as PDE tried to show, it will be abundantly clear to you. But until you have gathered evidence yourself, you cannot speak from any position of strength.

Joanna Kimball
Blacksheep Cardigan Welsh Corgis
black-sheep.vze.com
rufflyspeaking.wordpress.com

[Quincy]

blacksheepcardigans that's interesting in what you wrote, and for months I have been reading what the UK Kennel Club have been officially writing and I think that they know very well about pedigree dogs in their country, but before and shortly after the documentry they wrote things somewhat similarly like you did then a while later they seemed to change somewhat. There has now even been the mentioning on things like "health passports" as a requirement before a dog can be shown in the ring, and even on things like the setup of regional inspectors to do unannounced visits to breeder's homes. Yes even on the following and note below the Kennel Club Secretary's comments and where there certainly was "The groundswell of public attention on the very important matters surrounding dog breeding" and also note the mentioning of "asking the government for statutory powers we will be able to take a tougher line with all breeders and breed clubs that fail to abide by our high standards", and the following from this link to the Kennel Club website.
http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/item/2089/23/5/3

The Kennel Club

Date: 07-Oct-08

Kennel Club Announces New Changes to Safeguard Health of Pedigree Dogs

The Kennel Club is launching a complete review of every pedigree dog breed in the UK in a move that will have far-reaching benefits for the health of many breeds. It has also called on the government to clamp down on breeders who fail to make a dog’s health their top priority.

A breed health plan will be coordinated for each of the UK’s 209 pedigree breeds and will benefit from the extensive research that has been funded by the Kennel Club in conjunction with renowned veterinary research centres over the past 40 years. This will include updated breed standards to ensure that no dog is bred for features that might prevent it from seeing, walking and breathing freely. Judges will be fully briefed on the new breed standards so that only the healthiest dogs are rewarded in the show ring.

The Kennel Club is releasing the first of these new breed standards today, for the Pekingese, and has taken a tough line with the breed following extensive and abortive consultations. This is set to radically improve the health of the Pekingese which for nearly a hundred years was bred to have a flat face; a feature which can lead to breathing problems; under the new health plan the breed will be required to have a defined muzzle.

The breed health plans, which are scheduled to be completed by early next year, will also incorporate the results of a thorough, ongoing analysis of the health status and genetic diversity of each breed, drawing on results from the world’s largest dog health survey, conducted by the Animal Health Trust and funded by the Kennel Club Charitable Trust in 2004. This will ensure that breeders and buyers are aware of the health tests that should be carried out for each breed. The final part of the plans will look at ways breeders can expand the gene pool of the breed.

In order to ensure that the plans are effective and reach all dogs, the Kennel Club has called on the government to give it statutory powers to make the principles and standards of its established Accredited Breeder Scheme compulsory throughout the country.

Additionally, breed clubs are now required to adopt the Kennel Club’s Code of Ethics, to ensure that their practices fall in line with Kennel Club policy for putting the health and welfare of puppies first. This includes a clause that explicitly forbids the compulsory culling of healthy puppies.

To complement these steps the Kennel Club is developing plans for a new Canine Genetics Centre. This will be run in conjunction with the Animal Health Trust, confirming the Kennel Club’s commitment to research into inherited diseases and the provision of DNA testing programmes which identify the genes underlying inherited health problems.

Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club Secretary, said: “The groundswell of public attention on the very important matters surrounding dog breeding is a welcomed momentum that will enable us to drive through, with added urgency, new and extended initiatives that will help to safeguard the health of our pedigree dogs. We have been listening and agree with the general public’s view that more needs to be done.

“Steps such as our breed health plans will enable us to ensure that the health of every dog is the number one priority and we are taking a tougher line with breed clubs by adjusting those breed standards that fail to promote good health. By asking the government for statutory powers we will be able to take a tougher line with all breeders and breed clubs that fail to abide by our high standards. This in turn will enable us to extend the reach of our Accredited Breeder Scheme, which is the quality control mechanism within our registration process, so that all dogs will be bred by people who abide by our stringent rules and regulations for the breeding of healthy, happy dogs.

“We have been working hard in recent years to identify and address health problems that exist in dogs, and we are taking advantage of the opportunities that advances in science have given us to improve dog health. We look forward to continuing our work with various institutions and organisations that share the same objective: to protect the health and welfare of all dogs.”
.

[Willowy]

Originally Posted by blacksheepcardigans

3) I still say that euthanizing some puppies is not always the worst thing that could happen. I've seen too many dogs fall through the cracks to ever want to make blanket statements about it being a sign of a bad breeder. The Ridgeback people know their rescue situation, far better than you or I. They know that ridgeless dogs are the ones most at risk if and when they hit rescue. They are making the VERY difficult and agonizing decision of whether a longer life always equals a better life.

I'm sorry but that's just plain wrong. If they can't find homes for their pups, they should not bring them into the world. They are deliberately creating these puppies, to kill them because of something that MIGHT happen in the future is WRONG. Plain and simple.

And I would have to say that most breeder I know who choose to cull puppies do not find it to be a hard decision. Most of them are cold-hearted so-and-sos who are only concerned for their own pocketbooks. I would say that if Ridgeback breeders are killing ridgeless puppies, they're doing so because they can't sell them for as much $$$$.

[Quincy]

Originally Posted by Willowy

I would say that if Ridgeback breeders are killing ridgeless puppies, they're doing so because they can't sell them for as much $$$$.

Prior to the documentary the Breed Club concerned in their “Code of Ethics” did mention culling pups because they did not have the ridge, interesting comment in the TV documentary by a Club member who had difficulty in trying to find a vet that would cull pups because they did not have the ridge, and keep in mind that the ridge is not normally and could lead to the development of a sinus health problem that could be serious to the dog's health and even the dog's life. The UK Kennel Club was even against that Breed Club for having the culling part in the “Code of Ethics” on the dogs that did not have this abnormal ridge, and had been onto that particular Club for a while. Well since the documentary where it was mentioned that Breed Club’s website “Code of Ethics” page then mentioned “Currently under review”, and then later on I noticed new text was uploaded with the relevant section now mentioning “Will agree that no healthy puppy will be culled. Puppies which may not conform to the Breed Standard should be placed in suitable homes” and here is the link.
http://www.rhodesianridgebacks.org/ethics.html
.

[Pai]

Originally Posted by blacksheepcardigans

I want you to question breeding practices. You MUST do so; every good breeder does. But you need to answer the questions yourself. Don't let a TV show with an admitted and obvious anti-breeding-of-any-kind bias do it for you. GO TO A SHOW. GO TO MANY SHOWS. Go to breed club meetings. Go ask corresponding secretaries of breed clubs to get you in touch with breeders in your area. Go sit in their living rooms and ASK them why their dogs look the way they do, or why they made the decision to breed the litter they did, or what they require in a stud dog. If breeders are as bad as PDE tried to show, it will be abundantly clear to you. But until you have gathered evidence yourself, you cannot speak from any position of strength.

You assume people who disagree with you have not, and have built our opinions out of whole cloth based solely on this one tv show, which is not true. Plenty of people who have spent years in the show world have been mentioning this kind of stuff, and have been ignored and waved off. Now things have been forced into the open.

The show never claimed all breeders are bad, or claimed that all breeding and shows should stop. The show was a call from BREED LOVERS THEMSELVES towards real action and reform that has been BADLY NEEDED by many breeds, and hopefully will lead to actual change. The show's real message is breeding for exaggerated features with no regards to health is not acceptable. Breeding dogs according to 'fads' that win ribbons in the ring while not caring about long term health is wrong. There are plenty of examples of this happening with many breeds.

For too long the registry shows, judges, and many clubs have not done enough to police themselves or actually uphold sound type and health in the dogs they put up and create. Some breeds, like Flatcoats and Scotties, have huge mortality rates from cancer before they even hit 10 years old. The AKC Dalmation Club REFUSED to recognize healthy, conformationally wonderful, (outcrossed) Dals which are now the only non-Uric-Acid disease riddled examples of the breed in existence, but apparently, some people care about preserving their own (sick) lines and not the actual 'preservation of the breed as a whole'. And the AKC just nodded and said it was their legtimate decision, and that's that. Those healthier Dals are now in the UKC and their own little club, standing up as the REAL club that values the health of their breed. I hope that now, rejecting sound genetic improvement and standards like that will NOT be seen as valid choices for a breed club or registry to make, because it's yes, cruel, to the breed they claim to love. People have been comfortable with the status quo for too long, and if this harsh show shakes some people awake and into actually doing something, it can only be a positive thing.

We need more outcrossing in breeds with abnormally high rates of disease. They cannot be allowed to be considered acceptable anymore. Stuff like Shar Pei Fever (another breed-universal disease), moleras in Chihuahuas, extreme angulation and dwarfism, breeds with the majority physically unable to mate because of their stunted forms, breeds where the majority is unable to give birth safely without human intervention, etc, is NOT OKAY. Many in the show world have a very warped sense of reality and what constitutes 'acceptable health' in a breed, and it's about time that got challenged. Breeders who are ALREADY doing the right thing have nothing to be afraid of.

[blacksheepcardigans]

Originally Posted by Quincy

Prior to the documentary the Breed Club concerned in their “Code of Ethics” did mention culling pups because they did not have the ridge, interesting comment in the TV documentary by a Club member who had difficulty in trying to find a vet that would cull pups because they did not have the ridge, and keep in mind that the ridge is not normally and could lead to the development of a sinus health problem that could be serious to the dog's health and even the dog's life. The UK Kennel Club was even against that Breed Club for having the culling part in the “Code of Ethics” on the dogs that did not have this abnormal ridge, and had been onto that particular Club for a while. Well since the documentary where it was mentioned that Breed Club’s website “Code of Ethics” page then mentioned “Currently under review”, and then later on I noticed new text was uploaded with the relevant section now mentioning “Will agree that no healthy puppy will be culled. Puppies which may not conform to the Breed Standard should be placed in suitable homes” and here is the link.
http://www.rhodesianridgebacks.org/ethics.html
.

That's another thing about which PDE was completely wrong. Dermoid sinus formation has NOTHING to do with the ridge. ZERO. Their description of what dermoid sinus is was completely wrong too.

The ridge is a cowlick. Nothing more, nothing less. It has never been, nor is it now, a form of spina bifida. That was just completely unfactual and unsupportable. Dermoid sinus, which IS a form of spina bifida, is being actively researched and bred against in the breed. Dermoid sinus also shows up in Boxers, Kerry Blues, and Shih Tzus, showing that it's an ancient disorder that was part and parcel of the dog/wolf genome long before anyone started breeding for specific breed characteristics.

And you are very much misunderstanding the idea of "homes" for ridgeless puppies. Good breeders have NO problem finding homes for these puppies. They don't make money from the sale of any puppies, ridged or not. The issue is after the sale.

In the US and UK, dog sales are, legally, just like refrigerator sales. I can make you sign a contract that says that the dog must be returned to me if you turn out to be a loser and want to get rid of it or if your circumstances change and the dog needs a new home. But, aside from a few areas that allow liquidated damages, the contract is worth the paper it's written on and very little else. You can throw a dog off a cliff (as long as it dies when it hits the bottom, because that's protected by the laws that allow you to shoot your own dog), just like you could throw your fridge off a cliff.

The breeders are worried about the ridgeless puppies that don't stay in the homes the breeder put them in, and whose owners don't return them. Those dogs often end up in non-breed-specific rescue (in pounds and shelters). Once there, very few people recognize them as Ridgebacks because they don't have the ridge. They look like Pit/hound mixes. And you know where Pit/hound mixes end up? Often, used as bait dogs in dog fighting. Or they end up languishing at the shelter, confused and panicked, until they're put down. Or they attract adopters with totally wrong expectations. And each of those puts the dog at great risk of a vastly lowered quality of life, pain and suffering.

That's why SOME (not all) Ridgeback breeders don't let the ridgeless puppies out the door. They choose a shorter, high-quality life for their puppies rather than what they have personally seen to be a risky life.