Working Towards The Future

[Pjrt]

Breed standards are not the demon in the piece. Breeding and rewarding exaggeration IS.

/End thread haha

Ok, so stop rewarding breeding for exaggeration. It's obviously rewarded somehow for breeders to move in that direction.

Scootaloo that is exactly the sort of response that leaves Jo public to disregard registered breeders.

I'm not here with any particular agenda. I just want to promote deep and thoughtful discussion of pros and cons. I'm not going to dismiss what other people are saying. I may even learn things.

If pedigree breeders know the problems they need to be seen to be working towards rectifying them. Not bitching backstabbing and poking fun at people with other ideas

Have you been to many dog shows? Do you exhibit?

Do you understand a standard and how it relates to the dogs in question?

What makes you believe that pedigree breeders do not know the problems? What makes you think they are not working towards eradicating them?

Eradicating problems is not simply a matter of waving your wand about and crying "expelliamus". It is about identifying the problem, identifying the means of fixing it and implementing that. In the first cross, you may have no success. So - back to the drawing board - it may take 4 tries and 4 different dogs to get any success at all. And while people not involved think nothing is being done quite a lot is being done, but because of the nature of the beast it isn't instaneous.

If breeders breed to the standard, things cannot go very wrong - alas, breeding what you want, and have it actually happen in the whelping box are not quite the same.

I would not be at all interested in breeding dogs without some sort of standard as a blueprint - how easy it would be to go horribly wrong and cause all sorts of disasters - and not know for 10 years.

Bulldogs - in the 70s, they did not whelp normally. In the following decades, things were improved and now most do whelp normally. But non-bulldog breeders don't believe that.

If you mean me, well, 31 yrs ago I started working full time with dogs and I haven't stopped. I have worked for show breeders, boarding kennels, owned showed and bred purebred dogs, even titled a couple.run a rescue service, and trained dogs in obedience clubs, and through all of that have owned and operated dog grooming salons for 28 yrs where I've handled vast amounts of pet dogs, pure and not, pedigree and not, and communicated with their owners.I've observed and immersed myself in the dog world as my life.

I'm not particularly interested in playing pure or cross, pedigree or not, etc against each other. I do not align myself with any camp. I like to see dogs as dogs and discuss dogs generally.

For what it's worth, after seeing dogs from all different perspectives, most especially on my grooming table, I have to say the mutts have won me over. There are a couple of pure breeds that I could see myself owning, but day in day out in the salon, I find the mutts 'designer' and otherwise, infinitely nicer to be around and handle.

So I guess we are never going to see eye to eye.

[Jed]

Different experiences lead to different outcomes and expectations, Gruff. Not everyone has to agree.

:)

[Lhok]

This seems interesting

http://www.dogworld.co.uk/product.php/163018

--Lhok