[Inga]

Shelters in my area aren't busting at the seams. They actually import dogs from other states and from Mexico. They actually kill local dogs to make room for imported dogs.

You should really read Nathan Winograd's "Redemption: The Myth of Pet Overpopulation."
.

The myth huh? I wonder if the poor people that have to euthanize hundreds even thousands of perfectly good dogs each year would enjoy that read? Sorry pal but I have seen first hand the down side of shelters. We had a wack job Executive Director at our local shelter here for awhile that killed off a bunch of the local dogs to make room for cute little puppies from other states as well. I guess the dogs that died were not good enough. Some of them were only 6 months old, many were pure breeds. How much time have you spent at your local shelter to know that they are not busting at the seams? All of the rescues and shelters around here are right now. Especially now with the economy. People are dumping their dogs as they are losing their homes and houses. What we don't need is more dogs to fill them up even more.

 

[Willowy]

It's been said a zillion times that "only" 5% of dogs in the U.S. are killed in shelters every year. What about those that die, but not in shelters? I have known SO many dogs who were shot, hit in the head, starved, etc. by their owners because they weren't wanted. Way more than ended up in shelters.

I'd say the animals in shelters are the lucky ones. You can't go by shelter statistics to tell you how many unwanted pets ther are in any given area. You can only see how many had owners who cared enough to actually take them to the shelter. I guarantee you that there are far more unwanted dogs than the shelter statistics would indicate.

 

[deege39]

You make a good point Willowy. My step-mother lives next to neighbors that had a pit-bull that gave birth to a litter of puppies. Word has it that most of the puppies died, and a couple that were left weren't worth anything, and they "mysteriously disappeared". No joke. There are tons of animals, starved, abused, beaten, poisoned, shot, or used as "feeders" in dog-fights. It's terrible, but it's so hard to rescue animals like that; It's easy to get one from the shelter, but you can't just walk over to your neighbor and say, Hey, since you're not taking care of your mutts, can I have'em?"...

 

[Laurelin]

* BC Boards *

The working folks (many on those boards are just jock sniffer wannabes who play at "work" (they hate it when you call it herding) and aren't really workers, but retirees or gentlemen farmers) HATE to be reminded that their trial obsessed culture has harmed the Border Collie gene pool just as much as anyone who inbreeds for show.

Popular sire effect and inbreeding are just as prevalent in the "working" BC world as in the "show" BC world.

The sheeple believe that breeding for trial success instead of for show success makes them immune to health disorders.

While Border Collies do not have issues like Pugs do with their noses, mostly white dogs do with their hearing, GSDs do with their roached backs, or CKCSs have with their small skulls, (i.e. the intentionally bred diseases caused by conformation fads) we do have unintentionally inbred diseases caused by small gene pools and inbreeding.

Sheeple believe that showing in conformation will be the doom of the breed, but they have already done so much damage chasing after a few hot trial dogs. It's like the Commies vs. the Fascists. They are both authoritarian and harmful.

So... what do you do with your dogs? Are you a 'real' worker? what makes what you do different than everyone you condemn (which seems to be well.... everyone)

I think it says a lot that no one on either side of the show or working split tends to agree with you.

 

[Moonshadow]

The only thing that freaked me so out far is BorderWars' blog. I mean... really, it looks like someone who's about to go to war. Border collies and rifle guns? Holy cow.

That was interesting but I really got a kick out of the naked men....one with things written on his butt and another riding a bike. You need to click on all of the links in the yellow area....it's a hoot. Maybe I would have been ok if the guys were hot....oh, but they were FAR from it!

 

[BorderWars]

pugmom -

While we're talking about dogs that NEED to be bred versus dogs people WANT... why do we need to breed Pugs?

They aren't useful dogs, no one "works" them. The serve no purpose other than being pets.

And they're incredibly deformed. They have fragile little bones, their noses are so smushed up that they can't breathe and easily overheat. Their teeth are a mess. Their curled tails are prone to infections and they have spine problems from those tails too. They also need to have excess bone and skin removed from their mouths so they can eat and breathe properly. Their eyes bug out because their skulls are too small to hold them and they damage them because they bulge so much.

And all of that is just in their conformation.

Can you ethically breed even a single Pug? Is it ethical to produce an animal that has so many problems?

 

[trumpetjock]

I can't really give an opinion on pugs either way but....

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/dog_breeders_issue_massive_recall


....is worth reading.

 

[MyRescueCrew]

Willow, good point. I have 12 rescues, only ONE came from a shelter, that would be Audubon. My mom's Pom mix was pulled from the pound by me, when I was there pulling other dogs for the rescues. Out of 12 rescues, 11 didn't even come from a shelter. So I agree with the percentage being off if only including shelters.

 

[pugmom]

pugmom -

While we're talking about dogs that NEED to be bred versus dogs people WANT... why do we need to breed Pugs?

They aren't useful dogs, no one "works" them. The serve no purpose other than being pets.

And they're incredibly deformed. They have fragile little bones, their noses are so smushed up that they can't breathe and easily overheat. Their teeth are a mess. Their curled tails are prone to infections and they have spine problems from those tails too. They also need to have excess bone and skin removed from their mouths so they can eat and breathe properly. Their eyes bug out because their skulls are too small to hold them and they damage them because they bulge so much.

And all of that is just in their conformation.

Can you ethically breed even a single Pug? Is it ethical to produce an animal that has so many problems?

ahhh....here come the personal attacks

yes along w/most of the toy breeds ...the pug is a companion animal....

i have 2 right now....with no tail problems, teeth problems, or abnormal bone growth....and I would say of all the toy breeds the pug is one of the least fragile

 

[MyRescueCrew]

OMG Trumpet, that link was hilarious.

Moon, I'll have to check out the other links, LOL!

 

[BorderWars]

So... what do you do with your dogs? Are you a 'real' worker? what makes what you do different than everyone you condemn (which seems to be well.... everyone)

I think it says a lot that no one on either side of the show or working split tends to agree with you.

It does say a lot. I think they're both ruining the breed with highly selective breeding practices. Just like the Commies and the Fascists, I think they're both wrong.

Inbreeding in the name of good looks and inbreeding in the name of a top trialing dog are both destructive IMO.

And no, I'm not a "real" worker, there are only a very few of those. Many are hobby people who own a few sheep. Even many of the top trialers in the country don't really "work" their dogs. They train them on sheep for trials.

They like to call it "work" instead of "herding" but they are really no different than people who put AKC herding titles on their pet dogs and who have no connection to any real working ranch. They don't think so, but there's no industry push to keep sheep trials going.

In fact, there's a pretty good debate between people who actually work their dogs and people who just trial. It's eclipsed by the hatred for the show community (and with it the sport community), but it's there.

I'm perfectly happy being hated for pointing out that both of these groups are harming the breed.

 

[Laurelin]

It does say a lot. I think they're both ruining the breed with highly selective breeding practices. Just like the Commies and the Fascists, I think they're both wrong.

Inbreeding in the name of good looks and inbreeding in the name of a top trialing dog are both destructive IMO.

And no, I'm not a "real" worker, there are only a very few of those. Many are hobby people who own a few sheep. Even many of the top trialers in the country don't really "work" their dogs. They train them on sheep for trials.

They like to call it "work" instead of "herding" but they are really no different than people who put AKC herding titles on their pet dogs and who have no connection to any real working ranch. They don't think so, but there's no industry push to keep sheep trials going.

In fact, there's a pretty good debate between people who actually work their dogs and people who just trial. It's eclipsed by the hatred for the show community (and with it the sport community), but it's there.

I'm perfectly happy being hated for pointing out that both of these groups are harming the breed.

And you breed for....?

 

[trumpetjock]

It does say a lot. I think they're both ruining the breed with highly selective breeding practices. Just like the Commies and the Fascists, I think they're both wrong.

Inbreeding in the name of good looks and inbreeding in the name of a top trialing dog are both destructive IMO.

And no, I'm not a "real" worker, there are only a very few of those. Many are hobby people who own a few sheep. Even many of the top trialers in the country don't really "work" their dogs. They train them on sheep for trials.

They like to call it "work" instead of "herding" but they are really no different than people who put AKC herding titles on their pet dogs and who have no connection to any real working ranch. They don't think so, but there's no industry push to keep sheep trials going.

In fact, there's a pretty good debate between people who actually work their dogs and people who just trial. It's eclipsed by the hatred for the show community (and with it the sport community), but it's there.

I'm perfectly happy being hated for pointing out that both of these groups are harming the breed.

The first mistake a working owner can do is consider the AKC a working dogs registry. I think pretty much everyone around here knows it's nothing of the sort. I like the akc for their dog sports like agility, but for actual working trials, it's bogus.

 

[BorderWars]

The myth huh? I wonder if the poor people that have to euthanize hundreds even thousands of perfectly good dogs each year would enjoy that read?

Those are exactly the people who SHOULD read the book.

Here are some choice bits:

New York City offered Bergh's ASPCA money to run the dog pound... Henry Bergh [Founder of the ASPCA] refused.

He believed that the ASPCA was a tool to champion and protect life, not to end it. He believed that its role to protect animals from people was fundamentally at odds with that of a pound. Bergh understood implicitly that animal welfare and animal control were two separate and distinct movements, each opposing the other on fundamental issues of life and death.

- Redemption, p.11

Each SPCA and humane society was a unique entity with its own funding, leadership, staff, set of rules, policies, and governing structure. In other words, no SPCA was (nor to this day is) affiliated with or gets funding from any other SPCA or humane society.

- p.12

Following his death--and contrary to Bergh's wishes--the ASPCA capitulated and accepted a contract from New York City to run the dog pound. It was a tragic mistake. In little more than a decade, animal sheltering became the ASPCA's primary role. By 1910, the ASPCA was doing little more than impounding dogs and cats on behalf of the city, with all but a small percentage put to death. Other SPCAs around the nation fell in line. The guaranteed source of income provided by contracts helped sway many SPCAs and humane societies to abandon their traditional platforms for advocacy and cruelty prosecutions in favor of administering dog control for cities and counties.
...
Within a decade or two, most mainstream humane societies and SPCAs did little more than kill dogs and cats.

- p.13

From the ASPCA in New York City to humane societies throughout California, the twentieth century saw killing become the centerpiece of shelter strategy. It is the paradigm we live with to this very day. And while many of these organizations became very large and influential, they also became bureaucratic, with none of the zeal for reform that characterized the movement's early founders.

- p.14

Historically, SPCAs made the tragic mistake of moving from compassionate oversight of animal control agancies to operating the majority of kill shelters. The consequences in terms of resource allocation and sacrificing a coherent moral foundation have been devastating.

- Ed Duvin, Redemption, p.15

The first mistake a working owner can do is consider the AKC a working dogs registry. I think pretty much everyone around here knows it's nothing of the sort. I like the akc for their dog sports like agility, but for actual working trials, it's bogus.

The second mistake you can do is to consider the ABCA a working dogs registry. They register 20,000 puppies per year and there are only a small handful of people who really work their dogs.

They have no working standard, no dog is ever kicked out of the registry for not being able to work. They don't have any health standards or inbreeding standards or really any standards at all except "no AKC dogs."

The post I link to above, AKC Vs. ABCA, says it all.

Registries are just paper pushers. Everything else is just a lot of hot air.

And you breed for....?

(1) Myself. I don't breed just to breed and sell puppies. And I breed very rarely.
(2) Temperament, Genetic Diversity, Health
(3) Intelligence and Agility (in the broad sense)
(4) Looks and Stock Sense

There are other breeders who flip that list, and they're welcome to. But I don't believe that everyone should be clones of the show and trialing folks.

 

[cshellenberger]

pugmom -

While we're talking about dogs that NEED to be bred versus dogs people WANT... why do we need to breed Pugs?

They aren't useful dogs, no one "works" them. The serve no purpose other than being pets.

And they're incredibly deformed. They have fragile little bones, their noses are so smushed up that they can't breathe and easily overheat. Their teeth are a mess. Their curled tails are prone to infections and they have spine problems from those tails too. They also need to have excess bone and skin removed from their mouths so they can eat and breathe properly. Their eyes bug out because their skulls are too small to hold them and they damage them because they bulge so much.

And all of that is just in their conformation.

Can you ethically breed even a single Pug? Is it ethical to produce an animal that has so many problems?

Fragile Bones? HA HA HA, my pug pulls my 120 lb daughter in a skateboard he's ANYTHING but 'fragile'. No they may not work in the sense you speak of but many are therapy dogs and health alert dogs. My Pug is as healthy as any other dog I've seen and wrestles with Mastiffs, Bulldogs and Dobes. The eyes do NOT bug out if properly bred though they are prominent and a pug with eye damage due to their set is rare. I'm a member of my local Pug club and go to meet ups regularly often there are 100-200 pugs at he meets and nearly all are healthy, hearty and sweet tempered. The pugs existance and that of many other breeds you've disparaged in this thread and your blog are JUST as justified as any other breed or mix.

You've clearly bought into the tripe in you blog about purebred dogs, the things I see there are insulting and scary.

 

[Laurelin]

(1) Myself. I don't breed just to breed and sell puppies. And I breed very rarely.
(2) Temperament, Genetic Diversity, Health
(3) Intelligence and Agility (in the broad sense)
(4) Looks and Stock Sense

There are other breeders who flip that list, and they're welcome to. But I don't believe that everyone should be clones of the show and trialing folks.

And how do you go about testing that? If you don't really work your dogs (which you said you don't) then what do you need to breed them for? Obviously you don't show or trial and you don't sound like you do sports.

How do you go about increasing genetic diversity? Is that the idea about crossing show lines and working lines that I've heard mentioned?

 

[PugChick]

Their teeth are a mess. Their curled tails are prone to infections and they have spine problems from those tails too. They also need to have excess bone and skin removed from their mouths so they can eat and breathe properly.

Thank God no one ever let my pug read anything like this.

The only thing that sort of applies is the overheating, but when it's 110F out I can't really point to that as a massive flaw. Everything is overheating at that point.

 

[pugmom]

Thank God no one ever let my pug read anything like this.

The only thing that sort of applies is the overheating, but when it's 110F out I can't really point to that as a massive flaw. Everything is overheating at that point.

yeah mine too ...I don't get the tail infection thing?

 

[cshellenberger]

Thank God no one ever let my pug read anything like this.

The only thing that sort of applies is the overheating, but when it's 110F out I can't really point to that as a massive flaw. Everything is overheating at that point.

LOL, same here, my boy has NEVER had an infection in his tail, I don't know of any pugs that have spine problems other that from old age or abuse. We've never had any kind of eye problem and I know of few that have had to have any surgery on their palates.

Trust me, if you want to talk about health problems, I've owned the #1 breed for them (English Bulldogs). However it's mostly from poor breeding practices, especially here in San Diego where the EB is the #3 breed owned and we have a guy that imports poorly bred EBs from Eastern European puppymills, he also breeds Labradoodles and Mastweilers.

 

[Great Dane]

I've only read this thread quickly and skimmed through it because the same thing is being said ad nausea and it's giving me a headache.

That said,

You've presented a very well thought out opinion BorderWars but at the same time no more or less qualified than anyone here. That said, there is one thing I'd like to address.

Hybrid Vigor.

It does not exist, health problems can not be avoided by mixing breeds. On the same token, Purebreds aren't unhealthy on the basis of being inbred although I know a lot of people like to use that as a staple to their arguments. Purebreds are widely being bred with poor structure and the dams and sires shouldn't even be bred in the first place. In terms of responsible/irresponsible breeders, I'd wager to say that irresponsible breeders outnumber responsible breeders 95% to 5%. So really, how many does that leave who are constantly refining their lines, improving the breed and generally putting out healthier and longer lived dogs? This so-called hybrid vigor is nothing but a marketing ploy to the unsuspecting public who think that they're getting a dog whom is not susceptible to the diseases that a purebred is exposed to. Many of these 'hybrid' breeders are simply outcrossing two unhealthy gene pools, but really many of the hereditary diseases are asymptomatic. All these breeders who are breeding mutts, or hybrid dogs as you like to call them can not get proper health checks done on their dogs, they don't know the pedigree. When the puppies pop out these people don't have a clue as to what genes they inherited from their parents so if the dam or sire had unhealthy genes guess what the puppies will have? Purebred dogs are not the problem, it's irresponsible breeders of purebred dogs whom are the problem here and it's only a matter of time until the same thing happens with these so-called designer breed mixes, hybrid dogs or mutts.

A dog is a dog; it is one species whether it's a Great Dane or a Chihuahua, they have certain genes bred to exhibit certain traits. Hybrid vigor is scientifically proven in other species of animal, but yet nothing has been proven with Canis lupus familiaris. Anyway, back to this supposed hybrid vigor, many of these breeds crossed have similar health issues so a cross could actually pose more problems than that of a purebred from reputable lines. Do these people do testing on Thyroids, Willebrand's, Luxating Patellas, Hip and Elbow dysplasia, eye problems? I'd easily and confidently wager that these things a mere afterthought to most of these people who breed these 'hybrid' dogs. I'll take my chances health wise with a purebred dog from strong lines and a reputable breeder over a hybrid dog any day of the week.

Here is an excellent link for you: http://www.bulldoginformation.com/breeding-myths.html

Hybrid vigor is nothing more than a ploy.