sandgrubber

Amazing to hear a dog has run the Iditarod at 12 yrs!

Based on experience elsewhere, it's hard to win. RSPCA is likely to have top legal advice who know the ropes and love the RSPCA. If you can find someone who hates the RSPCA and has prior knowledge, you have a good chance. Otherwise, expect to pay through the nose.

No experience with the situation, but it might help to describe "bleeding".

It is reasonable to approach the breeder (politely). If she does testing and follows health guidelines, and if there was no health guarantee, it's unlikely you have a legal case, but many breeders will do something to compensate above and beyond legal obligation. Bottle feeding is irrelevant.

This stuff bothers me a lot, in the same way it bothers me that some company had the gall to name a not-especially-good dog food 'Science'. This is one badly executed commercial use of some tiny portion of the genome. The error rate is high. Sucks that it can be called a DNA test.

What an awful product name. I shudder at the thought of faith healing.

I'd say commercial DNA testing is the problem. Thoughtful analysis might give useful insight.

Did you read the pinned post on diabetes? Sorry if the question is intrusive. I'm just frustrated with wading through all the pinned posts on this site to get to the recent posts.

Get what you want. In my experience, setters are unlikely to fight. Nor is a Springer.

I've seen many Huntaways since moving to NZ. I'm impressed with how laid-back they are compared to other herding breeds. The ones I've seen in suburbia have been good with both cats and chooks.

Puppies, kids, the world in general... don't always behave according to your/my ideas. Sometimes it's easier to forget trying to control and let it be.

Problems vary by breed, and I agree with Diva, for some breeds narrow gene pools and line/in- breeding are a bigger concern than extreme conformation: especially if you look at COIs going out 12 or 15 generations. I'm not so optimistic that the decline is slowing....but I've not been around shows or breeders for awhile. Does anyone think breeders are backing away from use of popular sires? Or making more use of dogs that are healthy, but not stellar in the ring?

IMO it's a bigger problem that brachy dogs with tiny nares or spinal deformaties can win show points and get titled. Also hard to forgive a system that makes it hard, in some breeds, to title a dog with sufficient nose length to ensure healthy breathing. At one point I considered breeding Boston terriers. I was in the US at the time, planning to return to Oz or NZ. I found that many of the healthier dogs in the US were outside the system, and there would be no way to get them registered. A purebred may be rejected because its tailset is wrong or its ears flop instead of standing erect or it has a scissor bite when the standard calls for undershot, or it's coloring is wrong...or its too tall or too short. BFD. The KC's are in decline. My guess is that they will continue to decline until they, along with the breed clubs, look seriously at breed standards and what goes on in judging. There are reasons people are shifting to DDs, bybs, and rescues (legit and corrupt).

As I'm approaching 70 myself and feeling a few aches and pains... EMPATHY! In my childhood we used to sing a song "The old grey mare she ain't what she used to be. .... Many long years ago". It happens to all who survive their younger years

Disregard of health in DDd is bad, but intentionally breeding for traits that are antithetical to health ...as in the bulldogs shown in the OP video...is worse. And the genetic diseases that plague some genetically undiverse breeds are tragic, and relatively uncommon where gene pool aren't restricted, and haven't been further narrowed by historical events and/or the popular sire syndrome.

Btw, it's misleading to call it a purebred crisis. Some breeds have not been bred for extreme traits remain quite healthy.

Beg to differ. Breeding FOR unhealthy traits, such as very very short muzzles or excessive coat length and thickness, is rare outside purebred circles. Also, bottlenecks that have resulted in low genetic diversity, eg in the Doberman or flatcoat retriever, only happens with purebreds.

Guarantee, no. Improve the odds, most certainly. Not smoking doesn't guarantee you will be cancer free, either. The one advantage I could see to a non-pedigree Dobe, is perhaps it is a cross breed, and thus less subject to the serious lack of genetic diversity in Doberman populations. https://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/dog/GeneticDiversityInDoberman.php and thus less susceptible to the breed's health problems. Note in looking for a breeder, particularly with Dobes, steer clear of anyone that practices line breeding.

I disagree. Looks and temperament, maybe, but NOT health. Dobies health problems are most likely to set in at 5+ years. It's important to know what if any testing has been done, and to know the health history of the sire, dam and any other close relatives.

Dobies are lovely dogs, but there are some serious health problems in the breed. If I remember correctly, life expectancy is 8 yrs or so, heart problems are common, as is cancer. https://jalostus.kennelliitto.fi/frmTerveystilastot.aspx?R=143&Lang=en gives 7 yr 3 mo. Apart from the question of 'ok with kids' I think $900 is high for a 3 yr old without pedigree, and presumably from parents who were not health tested.

Pet health is full of cons. I think it's more productive to try to avoid arthritis by looking for lines that are healthy in old age, and have been tested for hip/elbow problems for a few generations. It's worth paying a bit more for a pup who is likely to avoid this problem. Sorry, this doesn't help much with your present problem. I'd say, talk to your vet to work out what is best.

Commemorate https://www.facebook.com/wilhelm.chang.5/posts/10156092974173249

Chinese New Year begins.

I suspect salmonella is a greater risk than APN... especially for young pups and dogs with immunity problems... especially if the source is a little iffy, or whiffy.

What a sad and awful story. So sorry. You might have a legal stance IF you can document that the breeder in question does not test sire and dam for hip problems or uses breeding dogs with bad scores and has sold other pups who developed HD. If the breeder is doing recommend health tests, I think you should cross it off as bad luck. I hope you have contacted the breeder. If they are working to produce healthy dogs they need to know when things go wrong.