More proof that dog show people are crazy

PapSett – I have removed your two calls to action, which are against our rules.

From the registration agreement:

And, more specifically, from our rules on forbidden topics:

Please don’t do this again.

twickster, for the SDMB

DSG?

Most like they meant GSD German Shepheard Dog

Yep. :smack:

A dyslexic German Shepherd.

Huh, I’d heard about hip problems, but that’s a new one.

Yes, it’s quite tragic.
Fortunately the dog is not required to read anything at shows.

If you pray to a dyslexic German Shepherd, are you a god-botherer?

Regards,
Shodan

I’ll have to get back to you on taht.

PapSett, I understand where you’re coming from. I have spoken to three breeders, all three of which would say the same thing. I researched them thoroughly (or so I thought) and they absolutely believed they were the “good guys” who were trying to improve the breed and not just breeding for “looks”.

All three dogs I got had congenital problems. One has seizures; the other one simply deteriorated to where he couldn’t walk because all of his muscles went away leg by leg, one inherited EPI.

So maybe you can understand where I’m coming from.

I’m getting a mutt rescue next time.

I caught part of the Westminster last night and saw the GSD win, and thought of this thread. That dog looked messed right the fuck up. Watching his gait, and comparing it to the gait of, say, the wiszla or the Irish setter, was just … sad.

Not everything about dog shows and dog breeders is “crazy” as the OP titled the thread. There’s a lot that’s true in what PapSett is saying. With that, though, I have an enormous problem with how Germans are bred to have fucked-up back legs, or Bostons and pugs are bred to have popped-out bug eyes that don’t even point the right direction, or, well, pretty much everything about how English bulldogs are bred.

(Except their personality. For such a physically unfit animal, English bulldogs are very whozzagooddog.)

Please clarify. This seems to say that you are against the deliberate or accidental of different breeds of dog, ie. mating a poodle with a lab. If this is a correct understanding of your statements, it follows that you believe that dogs should only be allowed to reproduce within their breed. Do I grok you properly?

Yes, you grok me properly. Responsible breeders have spent hundreds of years developing breeds to do specific jobs. There is no reason to undo all that hard work to create a designer dog.

I agree that some breeds such as the GSD have vallen victim to poor breeding practices. But there are still WORKING lines out there that do not have the genetic infirmaties.

Both of my breeds of choice, Papillons and Gordon Setters, are fairly natural breeds, with no bred-in defomrities. The Gordons are still able to leave the show ring and go out and hunt in the field. I am a bit unhappy with the amount of coat they are encouraging in the ring now- a Gordon Setter with excessive coat cannot do the job they were bred for in the field.

Breeding mutts purposely does nothing but put more dogs in shelters to die at the business end of a needle.

People who breed Labradoodles do it for sale like any other breeder, ISTM. People accidentally letting their dog hump the neighbor’s is where I think more shelter dogs come from.

I don’t have any pets, so I’m a bit lost with the jargon. What is a designer dog? It sounds like it means any purposely created non-purebred dog. So, if my friend and I both have mutt dogs that are great pets and we let them breed because we both want some puppies that would also be great pets, we are creating a litter of designer dogs? How is this different from some guys a thousand years ago pairing up their best herding or rat-catching dogs? Isn’t that how we got all these different breeds to begin with?

With the “designer dog” thing, she’s talking about the trend where people will market a mixed-breed mutt as if it were a new breed, like the “labradoodle” (lab x poodle ) , “cockapoo” (cocker spaniel x poodle) , “schnoodle” (schnauzer x poodle), “puggle” (pug x beagle).
I do agree with her that it is really dumb how people are paying premium prices for backyard breeder’s mixed breed mutts just because the mutts are named something that sounds like a real breed.
Now, I love mutts. I have a “cockapoo” myself (adopted from a shelter - we strongly suspect she came from a puppy mill or some other unhappy situation since when we got her she behaved as if she had never lived in a normal family before). However, I would never pretend she’s anything other than a mutt, and I do think that it’s irresponsible for people to breed more mutts when there are enough mutts in the shelters (though many purebreds also end up in shelters too unfortunately).

So then you would extend the censure to ALL breeders?

It seems heterosis is a dirty word.

Yeah, it seems pretty silly to pretend that you are producing “working dogs” but still require them to end up looking a certain way. Usually, a breeder doesn’t cross a Gordon Setter with an Irish or an Icelandic Sheepdog with an Old English because he can’t charge as much and he would be limiting his sales to actual hunters and farmers.

“Designer dog” is typically used to refer to crossing two (or more) purebred strains to produce a marketable dog. Sometimes it seems to me people cross specific breeds just because they come up with a cute name for the result (for example, “Bodacion,” a Border Collie/Dalmatian mix) or perhaps a not-so-cute name…we have acquaintances who have a Shih-Tzu/Poodle mix they affectionately call a “Shit-Poo.”)

People “breeding” their non-papered dogs just because they want puppies is usually called “backyard breeding.” Backyard breeding has a bad reputation for a variety of reasons, largely well-earned.

Regardless, there’s entirely too much breeding of dogs going on; tens of thousands of “surplus” dogs are put to death every year. Since the breeding doesn’t stop, it’s effectively “to make room for more to be bred.”