Dog breeding... is anyone doing it right???

shinners007

Peasant i agree with your post, how ever where can you find find with those who do carry out the test ive mentioned above who are trying to improve things, surely there doing more than those who simply just start breeding or are they not.

Alot of people want PB's thus the over breeding scenario im simply trting to point out that people (very few) are trying to improve things, it is hard as genetically alot of inbreeding and over breeeding has occured over the years that has resulted in all these abnormalities and disorders occuring.

What do you recommend try improve it... or for PB's to become extinct (eventually obviously).. I dont seem to know what else to do to try improve things as a breeder being honest i do my best medically and emotional and have had no problems with my boxers or puppies thankfully. Also these tests do reduce the problems occuring surely that is a good thing is it not, espically in this situation which makes it so hard as Pb's were over breed and in breed.

peasant

Shinners

Of course doing something is a lot better than doing nothing.

Ultimately it will not solve the problem though and if you look at a lot of breeds, the problem still hasn't been understood by those in charge of it.

Breed standards still put outward appearance way over general health, very much to the detriment of the breed.

Look at a lot of the breeds that have made it from working dogs int showdogs recently. They are only shadows of their former selves anymore.

A case in point is the Berner Sennhund. Once only a medium sized but strongly built worker it has now degenerated into an overweight, oversized blob with heart trouble, joint trouble, eye trouble and the total inability to do any work whatsoever for fear it would have a heart attack and keel over.

Breed orginisations keep pointing out that they test their stock for this that and the other before breeding ...yet at the same time they exclude perfectly healthy animals form breeding because they have the wrong colour or because they are a bit too short or whatever and instead continue to breed with a very limited number of "champions" over and over and over again. These days even by artificial insemination.

In my opinion the end of purebred dogs is coming ...one way or another.

Either we keep on breeding (and buying) "champion bloodlines" until those lines finally collapse and die out

or

We make a positive decision to do away with a lot of breed standards and concentrate on breeding healthy and sound animals, regardless of looks.

Remember ...only as little as 100 - 150 years ago people did NOT know in advance what their new pup would look like when it was fully grown ...but they usually knew that it was of sound and healthy parents.

shinners007

Peasant please state how to improve things?? other than obviously changing this opinion of what breeds should look like in shows etc and in breeding. Surely these tests are a start they should be mandatory.

As stated i dont sell champion bloodlines or show dogs, i dont buy dogs of a particular colour, build etc.. My dogs are healthy i had numerous tests carried out before breeding to ensure no problems were underlining. So what is it that im doing wrong?? The dogs are healthy so are the pups and i carried out the neccessary tests to rule out mumours etc..

My male came from scotland and no lines are crossed guaranteed 12 lines on each side but id nearly bet my life the lines are way further out.

As for PB's days being numbered cant see that happening more and more people are creating this demand as they want so called perfect looking puppies etc.

shinners007

Also i forgot to mention i totally agree with what you said re breed orgainisations and breeders choosing only chapion or show material lines for breeding and not using healthy dogs. Im trying to say im breeding healthy dogs not show dogs or champion bloolines i breed my dogs as i love the breed and as there healthy, people see that when they come to view them and ive no problem saying there not champion bloodlines it doesnt matter people are happy knowing there buying a healthy pupy from healthy parents.

The focus should be on the helth of the parents rather than shows or bloodlines.

cloudy day

Hi Fits

Just came across your old post. You were saying what a lot of us knew and agreed with.
I bet you feel vindicated after what's come out in Cruft's.

it does seem though that now genuine dog lovers / breeders are afraid to talk about dog breeding as they are jumped on as being in it only for money, or nearly accused of being puppy farmers. Which makes it difficult for genuine people to get together and discusss things relevent to breeding.

Morganna

I breed dogs and my dogs are all health tested hip scored etc.One of my dogs a champion has one of the best hip scores in the country.I would never ever breed from any dog with a defect.

looserock

Morganna wrote: »

I breed dogs and my dogs are all health tested hip scored etc.One of my dogs a champion has one of the best hip scores in the country.I would never ever breed from any dog with a defect.

Ditto, not much point unless you're trying to improve you're breed.

marlin vs

iguana wrote: »

Will you not get the dog's family tree? When I got mine I got a KC assured family tree, which had all the dogs that mine were descended from going back 5 generations. If I had wanted to breed mine I would have been able to add this information to their offspring's papers.

Paper never refused ink.You'd be better off if you knew the breeder personally.

cloudy day

What breed of dogs do you keep / show Morganna.

I know there is a lot of work involved that people just don't see.

It's great to be able to chat to others about breeding issues.

getz

fits wrote: »

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml;jsessionid=ABBJFJFZBJ5N5QFIQMFCFFOAVCBQYIV0?xml=/health/2007/03/07/ftcrufts107.xml&page=1

I was shocked at the state of some (but not all) dogs I saw at a dog show recently.... admittedly my first ever dog show. I was so surprised that judges seemed to actually encourage breeding of exaggerated traits into a dog... an example being the daschund and his back. Looks seem to be the primary concern, rather than health or movement.

Anyway, I'd like to hear some opinions on this.

Heres the article

Dirty tricks and eccentric topiary are one thing. But on the eve of Britain's biggest dog show, Beverley Cuddy asks whether we are endangering man's best friend
# News: cruelty row on eve of Crufts

We're all suckers for puppy dog eyes. Maybe that's why the BBC has, for the second year running, allowed Ben Fogle to present its Crufts coverage, which begins again tomorrow. It obviously doesn't matter that he can't tell his Affenpinschers from his Estrelas; most of his audience will drool in any case.

A dog at crufts
Pampered pooch: Coco, Crufts 2005 Supreme Champion

Unfortunately, for the excessively jowled breeds like the St Bernard, Newfoundland and Bloodhound, the drooling will continue long after the credits stop rolling.

I'm far from immune to canine charms, but increasingly I find myself wondering whether it would not be better if Crufts were banned. After all, what good does it do? For me, showing dogs must have some higher purpose than simply accumulating rosettes. I'm no killjoy - the exhibitors can all have their bit of fun with the silly walks and eccentric topiary - but surely someone has to look after our best friend's best interests.

We've all had a snigger over the past few years at the bizarre goings-on in the show world: the poison pen letters that led to the Best in Show judge resigning in 2004; the drugging of rivals' dogs; even the case of the terrier that had three testicles - the owner had implanted a fake one (just one of the dog's testicles had descended into the scrotum and the judges require two on display), only to have the retained testicle drop during the show. As a result, the owner was banned from showing dogs for several years.

But behind the outward eccentricities of the owners and trainers, real dogs' lives are being increasingly affected by this seemingly mad and ferociously competitive world.

Sadly, health concerns seem to be close to the bottom of the show dog agenda for the canine governing bodies in Britain and America. There are just over 200 pedigree breeds in Britain and, shockingly, more than 150 of them have significant hereditary diseases.

At the moment in the UK, testing dogs for health issues is purely a matter of personal conscience. Most people believe all the beautiful dogs at Crufts are perfectly healthy. I'm afraid many are anything but.

Let's put Crufts into a historical context. Dog and man have been best friends for 100,000 years or so. Dogs helped us catch our dinner; they protected us while we slept. In return they shared our food and homes. Over time, the genetically elastic dog was changed into different shapes to help us more. Thankfully, our dabbling with eugenics didn't harm the dog, as we selected for function not fashion.

With industrialisation, the dog's employment opportunities started to dry up. It was around this time that Britain invented the dog show and Kennel Clubs. The face of British dogs was to change as the concept of human beauty became the reason to breed. In an era where bearded ladies were considered interesting, many oddities were prized when they should have been avoided. Physical traits such as hairlessness and squashed faces were encouraged.

When the first Kennel Club was formed in 1873, the gene pools for hundreds of pedigree dogs were soon to be sealed. It wouldn't have taken a genius to predict that there would be trouble ahead as relatively small numbers of dogs were then mated together for the next 150 years.

There are now more than 30,000 genetic defects identified in pedigree dogs, with a new one being discovered every month. As well as the inevitable in-breeding caused by the cult of pedigree, dogs' health has been further challenged by the peculiar fashions and foibles of the show world, which has kept "improving" the appearance of breeds.

The Bulldog is the obvious example of a breed changed almost beyond recognition. Show judges began to favour a massive head, so it grew ever larger, unchecked. However, the pelvis remained the same size, meaning Caesarean births became the norm. Almost every breed has been changed to a degree - the Chow used to have fairly normal eyes, but the judges took to favouring tiny eyes, with devastating results.

Many Chows now have to have their painful in-growing eyelashes removed. The judges liked the Dachshund to have a longer back and shorter legs - unsurprisingly, spinal problems resulted. It has not taken long for 100,000 years of breeding for function to be undone.

If you wanted to breed from a dog that's deaf, blind, crippled with hip dysplasia or suffering from a heart condition, you'd probably expect the Kennel Club to refuse to take your money. Sadly, you'd be wrong. At the moment - I think shamefully - KC registration is no mark of quality. It'll proudly compare itself to Debrett's. It'll say it is paid to record lineage, not intelligence or health. But it doesn't have to be this way.

wenty or more years ago the Swedish Kennel Club decided to reform its practices and made health tests mandatory. It also ensured that breeders took notice of the results by simplifying the complex systems of testing for hereditary diseases, so people had clear guidelines on what to breed with what.

It even came up with ways of ensuring the breadth of the gene pool was preserved by establishing quotas so that no stud dog could be overused - unlike in Britain and America, where a top winning stud dog can sire an unlimited number of litters, meaning that almost every dog in the breed can end up a half brother or sister.

The Kennel Club (as the British KC likes to be known), however, has left it to the breeders to police themselves. It has softened a few words in the breed standards that constitute the blueprint which the judges are meant to aim for - but hasn't disciplined any judges for continuing to favour the unhealthy exaggerations that make even breathing hard work for many breeds.
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Over the past 50 years, our pedigree breeds have been growing increasingly unhealthy, life expectancies have fallen drastically and some breed characteristics have become exaggerated almost beyond recognition. For example, the Bernese Mountain Dog, a breed that increasingly suffers from cancer, is now lucky to reach the age of seven. The Irish wolfhound, selectively bred for its massive size, has been left susceptible to bone cancer and has a similar life expectancy. Your average mongrel will live two or three times as long.

Those who sport the hallowed KC members' badge at dog shows radiate pride. But while everyone wants to wear the badge, few seem to want to reform the system. Maybe history has taught them to keep their heads down. About 20 years ago, the Kennel Club decided to expel one of its members for publicly saying it should do more to prevent health problems in dogs.

That member was Dr Malcolm Willis, probably the world's leading expert on hip dysplasia in dogs. The club has taken him back now, but sadly no one listens to his demands for mandatory health testing in dogs that will be bred from and are disposed to hip dysplasia.

Similarly, no one at the KC seems interested in the British government ratifying the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals. To date, 21 countries have signed this, including Turkey.

As well as laying down minimum requirements for good animal welfare, the convention highlights a list of breed characteristics that need to be modified for the dogs' best interests. The KC argues that we don't need Europe telling us what to do - the breeds are safe in its hands, it says; it has got it all under control.

The KC's expensive Clarges Street offices in London are hung with beautiful canine art from an era before the show world distorted the shape of so many of our wonderful breeds. The dogs in those pictures left the destiny of their pups to the KC - and it has let them down very badly.

I'll still watch Crufts. After all, I'm an optimist. I'm just hoping someone will soon stand up and start making Crufts not just the biggest dog show in the world, but the best.

why just have ago at dogs-if you love animals think about that cow /chicken /horse /sheep / pig all are deformed from what thy are suposed to look like -now lets look at humans