Now This Takes The Cake!

[Oskar & Zsa Zsa]

I am not going to enter into the standards agrument, as I don't know enough about the standard for the breed. However, I will defend the breeder's right to charge whatever the market rate is for the pups. If they advertise them for $2200 each and they sell, then they are WORTH $2200, as things are only ever worth what someone is willing to pay for them. If this breeder had priced themselves out of the market place, they won't get a call. But, if $2200 is the going rate, they will sell like hotcakes!!!

[Greytmate]

There is nothing wrong with people breeding for show, but there is also nothing wrong with people not breeding for show. I think breeding for show or not breeding for show does not automatically reflect the quality of the breeding program.

So how do we measure the quality of the breeding program?

What standard of excellence are they breeding towards, and what assessment or competition is available to verify this?

Showing, dog sport, working or something else?

This particular breeder seems to be going for the bogan standard of excellence. And in that realm of competition, they might be true champions.

I think this will become even more evident in the near future as greater demand and pressure is placed on 'fit for function' (pet being the only current function I can think of for the staffie). Now you could say that blue will come under fire in the fit for function area due to dilution alopecia, but this would affect all breeds that have blue dogs and currently that issues in not being taken up. Other than that, a blue nosed dog is just as suitable for a pet as a black nosed dog, eh.

Maybe. But colour dilution alopecia is rarer in blue dogs of other breeds like whippets and greyhounds that are usually not bred blue x blue. And people experiencing the problem with blue staffies may not be linking it with their dog's colour. The desirability of the colour is influencing some breeders to use blue dogs in preference over other coloured dogs that might be much better conformed and behaved as pets. That isn't good for the breed. Instead it creates a separate genetic branch, where the breeders artificially restrict the gene pool much further than is necessary. This makes it harder for them to breed better dogs.

I think you may have a point about respecting what you pay for. that might include, that when someone spends a lot of money they tend to be more careful in their selection process and less likely to act on whim. Would make a very interesting study.

There has been lots of study done on how much people want things, why they want things, how much they are prepared to pay and how much they value them. The 'blue english staffy' has a symbolic value that really appeals to many people. Unfortunately or fortunately, many other breeds don't have the symbolic cache that 'blue english staffies' do. This raises the price that can be obtained for them.

There are different factors involved with how long people value the things that they buy. Even very expensive things will often be quickly discarded if they lose their symbolic value and a new trend takes over. That hasn't happened for BES yet. The people that tend to buy BES are not totally ignorant about dogs, they have done some 'research' to find out enough to know there are two types of staffies and that most of them are not blue. I would guess that the dogs are generally very well-loved and would be sold privately instead of being impounded if no longer wanted. That doesn't mean that the dogs don't have more problems that they would have if they had been bred for healthy mind and body and not just bred for colour.

[RuralPug]

I think that people who pay $2500 or $4000 for a fashion colour or other single trait in a common breed (dog, cat or pigeon) which has been bred for without regard to all the things that you and I care about such as good health, soundness and good temperament are doing so because

(a) they want it as a trophy "look how much I can afford to spend" or

(b) as an "investment" - they believe that their $4000 can produce $40000 worth of offspring or

(sadly) © they are just dupes who didn't bother to research first. You can't fix stupid.

Remember the llama (or was it alpaca) bubble when they first came to this country? People were getting together as syndicates to spend ludicrous amounts $275,000 etc for a single breeding stud or female, and then reselling them for even more - until the bubble burst, and a lot of eager investors lost a lot of money. Fashions come and go - I agree that it is sad to watch the animals suffer uneccessarily though.

Years ago I was chatting to a greengrocer as he unpacked a new supply of fruit. I asked him why some bananas from the box went into one display at a lower price than the rest?

He said "Some people will always buy the more expensive ones, thinking that they must be better quality. I give them the choice." In my opinion, Blind Freddy could have seen they were identical bananas, so I scoffed, but I hung around, and sure enough, some people, after checking both displays, choose the more expensive ones. I really really still don't understand why some people do that...

All we can do is educate as much as possible, I guess. You really can't fix stupid.