'building Better Dogs' Seminar 11 Feb 2010

[gundoglover]

They may be research suggesting that cross-bred offspring have reduced incidence of HD than their parent breeds, however, this is not zero incidence, so relying on the hybrid vigour argument without health checking the parents, would still be foolish, and promoting such pups as being free of heredity diseases simply because they are cross-bred is highly misleading. There are lines within the pedigreed pure-breeds that consistently produce better hips than their breed averages without having to resort to cross-breeding. They do so by health-testing and breeding from stock with hips better than average. This doesn't mean that they will never produce the occasional pup with poor hips, but then if the claim for improving hips by cross-breeding is that the resultant pups have reduced likelihood of HD, this is no improvement over careful selection from health tested pedigreed lines.

[Sheridan]

The hybrid vigour argument does NOT apply for diseases like PRA, HD, etc, because these are in so many breeds of dog. Unless it can be established that the contributor genes for these diseases have different modes of inheritance in the two breeds to be used for crossing, with no overlapping genes, then relying on the crossing to eliminate the problem is foolish.

One of the presenters (Paul I think it was) stated that research findings found that HD was in fact reduced in cross-breed dogs even if both parent dogs were breeds prone to it.

Did he mention any other issues or doesn't he know about anything else?

[mlc]

Mia's study was great but as far as I could see we werent checking whether their diet had changed when they came into the kennel or maybe something like them being recently vaccinated as a matter of course before they may enter the kennel might impact the results too. Im not knocking Mias study Im simply saying that when it means how you are going to manage your breeding program we cant afford to just do as we are told and hear one study result and not challenge and think hard on what we know too and we need to challenge it all a bit.

Good point Steve - and I'll definitely clarify that nor am I suggesting anyone's breeding programs should be altered based only on my research project!

Most science is about baby steps towards building a bigger picture that informs us. Whilst we can control many variables in our studies, there will always (particularly when studying companion animal in realistic settings [ie. not in a laboratory population]) be things we can't control for. These form the limitations of our studies and should be acknowledged when we draw our conclusions.

Things like gender bias in online surveys (we nearly ALWAYS get 80% females / 20% males) mean we need to acknowledge the survey results are biased, but they do still provide us with SOME information - a baby step toward the bigger picture, more information than we had before, and perhaps enough information to suggest a future study or new direction the research can take in the future.

Science isn't "quick and dirty and here's all your answers", it's a process.

One I really like

[deerhound owner]

Both Helen Bennett and Mike Gollard made comment that perhaps people who breed show dogs shouldnt breed pet dogs and KateS requested that registered breeders should be more open to selling their breeding dogs to commercial breeders.

Kate was there to propose what role a professional association could play in promoting the welfare of companion dogs by helping and registering responsible pet dog breeders.

She spoke of how she felt that the RSPCA and others [including us] had a perception that puppy farmers were people who kept filthy establishments and didnt have the welfare of their dogs as a priority.

In reality it wasnt that far removed from the motives the MDBA had when we started out. Just as we wanted to be able to say our members had agreed to a code of conduct harder than any other and that we would go further to screen and monitor their practices than the CCs do the aim of this group is to say their members keep clean establishments and they take socialisation etc into account in what they do. They are hoping to bring in purebred breeders, cross breeders and breeders developing new breeds - we aimed to bring in purebred breeders and people developing new breeds. Its about legitimising puppy farming and allowing those with higher standards to stand out from those on the lower end of the puppy farm group.Like it or not puppy farmers are here to stay so the theory is to try to lift the bar a bit.

I think its a good idea.

Im not sure how I feel about a commercial breeder being let off the accountability hook by selling to pet shops because obviously that may in fact increase rather than decrease animals going into pet shops but thats not my business.A commercial breeder with 300 breeding dogs can potentially breed a couple of thousand puppies a year and realistically I cant see them putting up their hands for ever to take em back. The work load involved in testing,screening buyers, having to take calls and answer that amount of enquiries and provide that volume of support is huge and it would take employing people just to cover it.That cuts into profits and would have them constantly being watched by the public because of the volume of people coming to their kennel to pick up dogs.Why on earth would they do that and not just drop their price a little and hand em over to a pet shop.?

The MDBA is the only dog group in this country which doesnt allow their members to sell to pet shops and we can legally stay that way without someone screaming breach of trade laws and restriction of trade and that ensures that no matter where our members sell their dogs they never get let off the hook for accountability and thats the way we like it.

I think you are right, handing over all responsibility to a petshop would just make commercial breeders more likely to use this as an avenue for selling pups. What if the breeder had to take the dog back and rehome it through avenues than other than a shelter (no idea how that would be policed - just throwing ideas around) and the pet shop had to deal with all of the transfer responsibility (testing, screening etc) and refunding the purchase price or a proportion thereof? I understand what Kate was saying that part of what the purchase price of a puppy from an ethical breeder includes is the after sales care so selling a dog cheaper to a pet shop to onsell, the pet shop is making alot of the profit and should therefore take some responsibility.

I think the MDBA is taking the most responsible path by refusing to sell to petshops but Kate seemed to suggest that she wasn't flexible on that point.

I suppose I'm just wondering if there is any way to improve the welfare and outcome of dogs sold through petshops? I don't know whether it is good or bad that beagle puppies wouldn't stay in a pet shop for 24 hours but there is a bedlington terrier puppy in the pet shop near me and it has been there for at least 2 weeks. It's breaking my heart

[espinay2]

The idea of passing all responsibility to petshops intrigues me. From a commercial point of view a 'manufacturer' (puppy farmer in this instance, but it could be a manufacturer of a refrigerator, TV or other 'goods') sells to a retailer at a profit (lets be frank - they wouldnt be in the business unless they did). The retailer (in this case the pet shop) then applies their own profit 'markup' to the the product (in this case the puppy). If the person who buys the product needs to return the goods, they take it to the retailer. The retailer however, can only be out of pocket for the amount of their 'markup' (i.e. goods returned represent a 'no profit/no loss'). Goods are generally returned to or 'dealt with' by the manufacturer who is responsible for the 'warranty' on those goods. Responsibility for the product rests with the manufacturer and the retailer only acts as a 'go-between' for the transaction, perhaps returning money to the buyer and getting the money they paid for the goods from the manufacturer. If the goods are to be 'repaired' or 'replaced' it is the manufacturer that actually does the repairing or replacing, even though it is done through the retailer or 'repair agent'. I therefore can't see pet shops agreeing to take over the warranty responsibilities of puppy farmers and wearing the cost that this might impose (while the puppy farmer still records a profit for that sale). That sort of responsibility can't be shifted and IMO I very much doubt it would stand up either commercially or in court.

[Tapferhund]

"This was the one that grabbed my interest the most and it was about testing how stresssed dogs are when they go from a home to a kennel situation.

Obviously the focus for this research was on what happens to guide dog candidates which have been in homes with puppy raisers and then have to come back to a kennel situation for their training etc..."

I worked in the kennels at Guide Dogs many years ago and in the time I was there (two years) the one thing I noticed was Labradors don't care where they are as long as there is food ! LOL

Seriously though........the dogs never stressed or fretted for their puppy walkers and they bonded very quickly to the trainers who trained/handled them...and then to the clients they were finally assigned to.

Guide dogs also had a few other breeds training from time to time.....GSD's , a Boxer and Golden Retrievers........and the three of these breeds, particularly the German Shepherds, stressed and fretted BADLY...as they ALWAYS do when in boarding kennels . I have worked in a fair few of these too and there are certain breeds that should never be boarded because of the stresses it places on them.

[Jed]

I agree with Espinay - the responsibility should be the breeders, not the pet shop. The pet shop is an onseller. This brings us back to my original idea about microchipping with breeders details, all dogs in pounds be given back to the breeder to rehome. If pf were forced to do this, and take back unhealthy dogs, or refund for unhealthy dogs, they would lift their acts, and probably cut production.

But of course, if you are a puppy farm, the ideal would be for the pet shop to be responsible. How on earth could the pet shop be responsible, or rehome the dogs?

Spikes Puppy

I know you & other experienced people wont judge a dog solely on it's show results, but a message I often see here is that correct dogs win, the dogs who win are bred to the standard etc and are therefore perfect examples. While many may be, others are not and for a novice, I think the message can be confusing, ie: go to a few shows and see the same dog winning time and time again. Dog has poor or incorrect temperament but it's winning (winning = to the Standard) so where does the novice go?? To the top dog of course!! Because so much emphasis & faith is being put into Breed Standards by experienced breeders.

Ah, but ask yourself whether the winning dogs are correct according to the breed standards? Or to your vision of the standards?

We need a point of reference, Spikes Puppy, and that is the standard. The standards are the blueprint, understanding them and translating them into living flesh in the whelping box is the difficulty. Some dogs win because they are great showmen, because they have great handlers, or because the judge is fault judging, or has a bit of a thing about some item.

Some dogs win because they are simply great dogs. Shows are fun, winning is fun, but I think anyone who seriously aspires to breeding should not be influenced by winning dogs - without being able to judge themselves whether the dogs are dogs they want to use. The best and most winningest dog in town is not the right dog if he is going to throw some fault we already have in our lines. There are some winningest dogs who deserve it, and who throw good pups.

There are NO perfect examples.

We push the standards here because our audience here often has absolutely no understanding about the standards, what they are, or why they are, or purebred dogs, and why they are so.

Personlly, I put a lot of faith and belief in my breed standards. And the more I understand them, the more faith I have.

When you understand the standards, I think you are a bit more laid back about shows. "Yep, he is a nice dog ... but". Often too, we show what we have, not what we'd like to have!

But we are off to a good start - we have dogs to breed with which are within the standard. It's up to us to do our best with what we have.

That's why we strive to buy better dogs, to import better dogs, to breed better dogs.

The stats show that the winning dogs produce better pups - it's a matter of selecting the right winning dog.

And you keep learning. A breeder/judge said to me last year "and some of them don't have chins."

CHINS?? Bloody hell. I must be hopeless, I'd never thought about CHINS. I had a look at my dogs - all with chins. I went out and looked at other dogs, some didn't have chins. Now, I'd never worried about chins, because I've always had dogs with good chins. When I thought about it, without good chins, they are probably not going to have correct flews, or correct jaws or tooth placement. So I had a sly perve into the mouths of the dogs without chins. Yep, I was right, wrong teefies! And I'd never noticed, I'd simply thought to myself that they didn't have correct heads, and gone no further.

I'd been selecting dogs with good mouths and good flews, never thinking about CHINS, and the ones I'd used and the pups I'd produced did have chins.

And I think mine with chins should beat those without chins

Also, adhering to the standard does produce better pet pups. I've mentioned Cavalier coats before. The cocker standard asks for something like "coat not too profuse". This is so the coat doesn't drag the dog down in the water when he is swimming with game. I have noticed that a cocker with coat not profuse is easier to groom, less inclined to knots, and generally easier for the pet owner to cope with. Judges often prefer profuse coats, and of course, you can work wonders trimming and shaping a profuse coat. One man's opinion on the day.

I've said this before. I know someone I consider a great breeder. Difficult, obsessed with winning, but with the gifts that do make a great breeder.

A very well conformed bitch, although at the bottom of the height standard, began winning. She was winning because of her conformation, but some of the newer breeders decided "small" was the way to go. Soon there were pygmy dogs everywhere. Little fine dwarf things.

This breeder would take her up to height dogs into the ring, and they'd be last. Because they were the only big dogs in the ring, so the judges thought they were incorrect. They'd look up and down the line, 6 dwarves, 1 big one. Hmm, 6 against 1, the 1 must be wrong.

The dogs continued to win under specialist judges, of course.

The choice was to breed small to win, or continue with the standard. The breeder went with the standard, rode out the losses and came back on top after a few years. What the breeder actually said was "be blowed if I'm going to breed those little things which couldn't do what they were bred to do, I'll sit it out"

That was a good lesson for me.

It's not about 1 dog or 1 owner, or 1 kennel, it's about the lines and the breed over 10, 20, 30, 40 years. It's easy to see that with hindsight, but not when you begin.

And the standards have been the same for 100, 150 years. Some have had minor alterations, over that time, but none have had changes which change the dogs to any great degree. Breeders do that, by their interpretation of the standard. Sometimes their interpretation is incorrect, but things seem to balance themselves out over time.

Apologies for raving on so long

[gundoglover]

Guide dogs also had a few other breeds training from time to time.....GSD's , a Boxer and Golden Retrievers........and the three of these breeds, particularly the German Shepherds, stressed and fretted BADLY...as they ALWAYS do when in boarding kennels . I have worked in a fair few of these too and there are certain breeds that should never be boarded because of the stresses it places on them.

The guarding breeds are expected to bond with a family so the response of the GSD's and Boxers fretting for their puppy families makes sense. I am surprised at the Golden Retrievers fretting. Given that retrievers were developed as breeds that could be borrowed by any shooter who wanted a pick-up dog, they were originally selected for the friendliness and willingness to go with anyone to do the work. The response of the Labradors is much more what I would have expected of all the retrievers, and other gundogs, too, for that matter. It's worrying if some lines of Goldens have lost that.

[Jed]

Boxers do fret. Mine are even a nightmare to send out to stud dogs. I have never rehomed one, for that very reason, but others seem to rehome them without problems.

GR's would have been bred to stay close to the owner when working. I wonder if being happy to work for someone else is simply that the dog knows he is doing his job, and is happy to do it. He recognizes a boarding kennel as a non-working environment, and is unhappy because he thinks his owners have left him forever?

1 of my cockers is not good away from home - too bonded. I could walk anywhere wiith her off lead and she would be close to me, it's bred into her. The other will cop a couple of days, and then howls non stop. He was away for a few weeks once, with the other dogs, and was happy.

I think maybe it is because of the way dogs perceive things.

We used to mind a labrador for friends when they went on holidays. He was as happy as could be for about 10 days. Didn't want to escape, a model guest. On the 11th or 12th day, he would go home (about 8ks) to wait for them. We would go and collect him, he'd escape by means unknown, and turn up at home again.

I have always believed that when they go into boarding kennels, they don't think they will see their owners again. I've had a few experiences which reinforce that. Bitch sent to the dog, away for a week, so intent on escaping from proper kennels and runs, they kept her in the house in a trolley, allowed out on lead. Next time, 12 months later, she didn't try to escape at all, and happily played with the kids in the back yard. But - she jumped out and met me down the road when I returned for her.

We understand them so little in some ways.

deerhound lover

We all know there are so many great breeds out there that everyone should be able to find one to suit them but the reality is some people do all their research and decide they want a crossbreed. I know someone who hired a pet search company to find her the exact crossbred puppy she wanted. Do we have the right to say "no you cannot have that because I don't agree with it"? Instead should we not be supportive of something that allows pople who do want a crossbreed to find one that has had all the relevent health tests, has been raised in a good environment, and comes with a the knowledge that the breeder will take responsibility of the dog if for any reason they cannot keep it.

I don't have a problem with people wanting a crossbred. Some do, and for good reasons. But - I don't see that as any concern of mine. I don't have any concerns with people wanting to own beagles, or terriers. Every breeder, of whatever, should assume the same responsibilities to the dog they bred, and the person they sold it to.

At present, the majority of pups sold in this country (ie, dd and x breds) have no health tests, and are bred by people who have no idea what they are doing (accidental crossbreds), and those who seem to have little idea, and don't care much - (dd breeders).

Many of those who sell through pet shops do so because of the volume they produce, and the difficulty of selling all the pups locally, but also because they do not want to assume any responsibility for those dogs they produce. If the pup is sick at the point of sale, they will take it back and refund, but none want to assume responsibility after sale. Many pups are shipped interstate to pet shops.

Edited February 13, 2010 by Jed

[gundoglover]

GR's would have been bred to stay close to the owner when working. I wonder if being happy to work for someone else is simply that the dog knows he is doing his job, and is happy to do it. He recognizes a boarding kennel as a non-working environment, and is unhappy because he thinks his owners have left him forever?

We understand them so little in some ways.

Yes, that makes sense. After all, they may go off for a week's hunting but would then come home. And your last sentence is very true!

[SpikesPuppy]

Jed, I am on the same page as you definitely. I love breed standards, and I love looking at dogs of any breed I am interested in and learning what is & isn't to standard (you are right, we do interpret things differently but some things such as colour, height, spannability , tail length, ear set or shape, proportions etc can not be misinterpreted. Of course, the whole package needs to be taken into account, as well as the dog's performance on the day (the dog's... not that handlers ), but when I mention big winning dogs with certain (large) faults, the owners know about these faults too... some of these dogs aren't bred with and only shown because of these faults, which is good, but on the other hand it can still send novices the wrong impression, as well as less-caring breeders who strive to have a dog that matches World Champion Fido's Frolick, faults and all.

I am casual about shows- I don't own a good enough dog to be otherwise, but I'm workin' on that :mad

Your comment about the chins is very interesting- as well as important. An ugly head may still be fine in a working animal if it's otherwise correct, but if it lacks the strength or bite etc then it's useless another problem in Borders, too much emphasis on an otter-like head has led to more and more incorrect bites. Of course, you CAN have both hand-in-hand (and that is a sight to see!!), but it's not as common as it should be. I guess I am aiming for a dog that is the whole package and conforms to the breed standard. I would rather a plain, correct animal than a flashy, incorrect one (and yes, to my own interpretation of the standard).

Your example of the Cocker coat is another great one where different interpretations of the standard (though honestly, some of the coats cannot be considered "not too profuse" ), and an interpretation which certainly diminishes the animal's suitability as a pet (due to requiring more work to maintain or clipping which destroys the look/texture of the coat and thus the pet owners Cocker Spaniel only resembles a Cocker Spaniel and does not look like one.

And the example about the small (but within standard) bitch is another I appreciate and agree with. So it's not the standards I disagree with (as said, I love them ), but it's the way some people seem to interpret them to the detriment of the breed and pedigree dogs as a whole (The BBC doco, whilst showing a handful of negative dogs instead of the many thousands of healthy ones, did show some dogs that had been bred to the extreme interpretation of the standard, with no benefit except a few ribbons on the wall.

At the end of the day though, regardless of breed standards and even whether the dog is pure bred or not, it is upto the person selling the puppy to ensure to the best of their ability, that the individual puppy they sell is the right puppy temperament wise (ie: do not sell a headstrong, bossy puppy to a quiet family who wants a soft natured lapdog). And whoever you are, whatever you are breeding you need to stand up and be accountable for the animals you sell.

[Jed]

Spikes Puppy

At the end of the day though, regardless of breed standards and even whether the dog is pure bred or not, it is upto the person selling the puppy to ensure to the best of their ability, that the individual puppy they sell is the right puppy temperament wise (ie: do not sell a headstrong, bossy puppy to a quiet family who wants a soft natured lapdog). And whoever you are, whatever you are breeding you need to stand up and be accountable for the animals you sell.

Yep, and how can the breeder do that when the pups have been raised in a shed with heaps of other dogs and rarely handled? How would they know what the individual temepraments were? They wouldn't. I wonder sometimes if that is why dd are dumped.

The corollary is that I have bought a few pups sight unseen - but have heard the breeders assessment of them. Or dogs that have been chosen as pick of the litter rather than specific temperament. They have been fine, and I was and am happy with them.

Conversely, the very best dog I ever owned very definitely chose me. I decided not to buy her (not quite what I wanted) and she went to the fence and howled and cried and carried on when I walked back to my car. That continued when I was out of sight even when the breeder picked her up, and she struggled to follow me. When I retured, she stopped crying, and struggled to come to me. When I put her down, she sat on my foot, and was quiet, when I walked away, the unholy noise began again. I bought her. She wasn't a show dog, but she produced some champions and she was the very best dog I ever owned, or will ever own, I think.

As far as discussing the standards here with non breeders, I sometimes fail to understand why they don't grasp the concept of the standards, and conformation as applied to dog breeds. Yet they appear to understand it as applied to horse breeds.

Draught horses may be cow hocked - the additional leverage is handy when they are pulling, and they wont be going fast - walking or trotting usualy, mostly walking, but they need exceptional pulling power. They have straighter shoulders, thicker necks, thicker gullets and long, powerful quarters.

Cow hocks are not required in riding horses because a horse with cow hocks doesn't go as well in the faster paces, and because the hock is off centre, there are potential problems because of the additional strain.

Draught horses have placid temperaments usually, amd riding horses are not so placid - because the extreme placidity in a draught horse (cold blood) would not be suitable for a riding horse (hot blood).

Can it be so hard to grasp that if horses bred for different jobs have different conformaton and temperaments, dogs bred for different jobs are exactly the same.

You might want a longer neck in a saluki, to balance him, and so he can look around when he is running, (I hope) but you don't want a particularly long neck in a retrieving breed, because he needs strength in his neck to be able to carry game, maybe for long distances, and if his neck is overlong, that strength wont be there.

The Shetland Pony originated in the Shetland Isles, a bare and cold place, without a lot of feed. The ponies were used as general purpose farm animals, pulling logs and rocks, pulling carts, being used to ride from a to b - as transport. So they were multi use. Every feature in the Shetland standard describes a pony which, although small, is strong enough for multi tasking, and placid enough to pull a cart without kicking it to pieces and strong enough to carry a man or a load of firewood, hardy enough to survive the winters, and thifty enough to survive on minimal grass.

[mita]

Kate's presentation was "a model for an association of professional pet dog owners" not "why everybody should buy a crossbreed cause they are so much better". As a pedigree dog owner I don't agree with many of the things she herself does, but I am interested in the development of anything that may improve the health and welfare of crossbred puppies because I care about DOGS, not just the pedigree ones.

Yet this DOL forum has a stated purpose to develop purebred breeding via the registered system. Where there's much work already done to improve the health & welfare of various breeds, is currently being done....& needs to be done. There's also research findings of much interest.

There's also great potential to carry out rigorous research because the registering system allows tracing via both depth & breadth of breeding.

Which has been much lauded by researchers investigating the conditions that humans share with dogs.

But now, matters on this forum have been turned to a commercially inspired supply system of 'pet' dogs.

Implying that this is the one system for breeding & supplying pets, at a 'professional' level. Yet, there is evidence that the purebred system does better than the unregistered one in preparing well socialised puppies to be companion dogs. What is next required is collecting data to see if this translates into a lower dumpage rate. (The earlier research raises a fair hypothesis for testing this.)

You may well care for the welfare of crossbred puppies....& so would any genuine animal lover. But this thread has seen the hijacking of the specific purpose of this forum....the further development & promotion of purebred dogs.

Edited February 13, 2010 by mita

[mita]

Mia's study was great but as far as I could see we werent checking whether their diet had changed when they came into the kennel or maybe something like them being recently vaccinated as a matter of course before they may enter the kennel might impact the results too. Im not knocking Mias study Im simply saying that when it means how you are going to manage your breeding program we cant afford to just do as we are told and hear one study result and not challenge and think hard on what we know too and we need to challenge it all a bit.

Good point Steve - and I'll definitely clarify that nor am I suggesting anyone's breeding programs should be altered based only on my research project!

Which is why every study is placed in a context of a literature review of what's already been published... & which would have significance for the hypothesis being tested.

And it's why peer review of research reports are critical to the process of science.

Scholarly work has significance when it's been opened to that.

What journal was your research published in?

Edited February 13, 2010 by mita

[mita]

They may be research suggesting that cross-bred offspring have reduced incidence of HD than their parent breeds, however, this is not zero incidence, so relying on the hybrid vigour argument without health checking the parents, would still be foolish, and promoting such pups as being free of heredity diseases simply because they are cross-bred is highly misleading. There are lines within the pedigreed pure-breeds that consistently produce better hips than their breed averages without having to resort to cross-breeding. They do so by health-testing and breeding from stock with hips better than average. This doesn't mean that they will never produce the occasional pup with poor hips, but then if the claim for improving hips by cross-breeding is that the resultant pups have reduced likelihood of HD, this is no improvement over careful selection from health tested pedigreed lines.

A spot on comment. Especially given that dealing with any incidence of HD in a bloodline is greatly helped in purebred lines. Because incidence can not only be checked by depth of breeding, but more specifically by breadth (littermates of the parent dogs).

Also heritability is not the only factor in HD. There is also the matter of diet & type of exercise in the young dog at the vulnerable stage when there's a difference in growth between tissue & bone.

[Steve]

I hear you Mita and while Im reluctant to state my personal feelings on how what I heard in that seminar has affected me on a public forum its hard not to say:

Until I heard Kate S read I was drafting a response to the RSPCA puppy farming paper which I was pretty confident about and clear in my thoughts on what I felt would and wouldnt work and what I thought should or should not be considered among the RSPCA proposals.

After attending that seminar with goldchow, my fellow MDBA and MDBA Pacers board member,to say we were disgusted would be an understatement.

I am no longer so sure about what I need to write in response to that paper and its a much more difficult task to bring it together and it will definitely be changed in comparison to how it was going to be.

It is probably not politically correct for me to say as CEO of the MDBA so I will ask you take this next comment from steve as a personal opinion but [in my personal opinion] if this is what commercial farmers are hoping will lift the bar and be used to legitimise puppy farming -if scientists and RSPCA and welfare groups are endorsing this as it is - then God help the dogs. The concept of a regulatory group is good but what was presented didnt make me think that it had a shot at what I had hoped it would.Thats not coming from the fact that I have a bias for purebred dogs but because I love dogs and it breaks my heart to know they suffer at the hands of humans.

Edited February 13, 2010 by Steve

[mita]

Steve, I totally understand where you're coming from, both as the CEO of the MDBA and as a person.

[goldchow]

Thank You Steve, you put that very well.

[deerhound owner]

Kate's presentation was "a model for an association of professional pet dog owners" not "why everybody should buy a crossbreed cause they are so much better". As a pedigree dog owner I don't agree with many of the things she herself does, but I am interested in the development of anything that may improve the health and welfare of crossbred puppies because I care about DOGS, not just the pedigree ones.

Yet this DOL forum has a stated purpose to develop purebred breeding via the registered system. Where there's much work already done to improve the health & welfare of various breeds, is currently being done....& needs to be done. There's also research findings of much interest.

There's also great potential to carry out rigorous research because the registering system allows tracing via both depth & breadth of breeding.

Which has been much lauded by researchers investigating the conditions that humans share with dogs.

But now, matters on this forum have been turned to a commercially inspired supply system of 'pet' dogs.

Implying that this is the one system for breeding & supplying pets, at a 'professional' level. Yet, there is evidence that the purebred system does better than the unregistered one in preparing well socialised puppies to be companiond dogs. What is next required is collecting data to see if this translates into a lower dumpage rate.

You may well care for the welfare of crossbred puppies....& so would any genuine animal lover. But this thread has seen the hijacking of the specific purpose of this forum....the further development & promotion of purebred dogs.

My appologies for the confusion, I used crossbred as an example as that seemed to be the main reason people were shutting down communication on what is a very important topic. A large proportion of commercially bred dogs are purebred so I don't think a discussion on improving the welfare of commercially bred dogs (not a promotion of) can be seen as going against the forum aims.

Steve is also right, the RSPCA and other welfare organisations will look to schemes like the one Kate is proposing for ideas when proposing legislation, yet I very much doubt that the legislation will exclude registered breeders so I think if registered breeders don't take an interest in what is happening in the commercail world they may find them selves suddnely under a whole new load of restrictions.

No one implied that Kate's suggestion was the "one" system, in fact most people have highlighted areas of her proposal that are inadequate or unrealistic, and have offered helpful suggestions of how these might be improved upon. You are right that the registered purebred system (in most cases) does an excellent job of producing great dogs but it is not the piece of registration paper that makes the welfare of these dogs better than their commercial cousins. It's the health testing, after sales care, good socialisation, hygenic living conditions etc that gives them a good standard of welfare. so is there not a way to make these things common practice in the commercial world as well?

Steve, it is fantastic to know someone (as a person and CEO) so level headed and open to discussion has improving the welfare of dogs firmly in their sights.

[deerhound owner]

As far as discussing the standards here with non breeders, I sometimes fail to understand why they don't grasp the concept of the standards, and conformation as applied to dog breeds. Yet they appear to understand it as applied to horse breeds.

The Deerhound also has an illustrated standard available that not only lists the standard but also gives diagramatic examples of good and bad. As a novice to standards I found this really helpful. Do other breeds also have illustrated standards available?