99% likely it was this. Fox fur-farming in the United States is still a thing, though granted not a huge thing. But a real thing. It’s continued existence, much like the lingering existence of dog-racing, has also enabled the non-profit “counter-industry” of fox/greyhound rescues to exist.
At our local renfaire there are two greyhound track rescue groups. The last track in Arizona closed over a decade ago and when I asked, the person said there is only one state (West Virginia?) left where they race.
Yep and it’s hanging on by a thread even there - two functioning tracks. Though the sport has been in decline for decades, even ten-fifteen years ago there were still lots of tracks operating in multiple states. But 2019-2021 was the real watershed collapse. Florida was the great stronghold but even there it was losing money and voters killed it in 2018 with a phase-out, knocking out around a dozen tracks by 2021. There have been attempts kill it in WV as well. I doubt it survives another decade.
Years ago I talked with somebody who had adopted three ex-racers over the years and he said it would be simultaneously a great and sad day when dog-racing finally died out. Rescued greyhounds often made for great pets, even apartment compatible ones (because they are basically giant slugs when indoors). But the cruelty of the industry just wasn’t worth it.
With no money to be made racing them, who’s going to breed greyhounds? Maybe a handful of folks who love the breed, but greyhounds will become at best a niche dog.
There are people who breed greyhounds but not for racing. As mentioned above once they are socialized they are big couch potatoes. Someone who knows the breed can instantly tell whether one was racing stock just by looking at it.
Why do we need dog breeds, anyway? Dogs are perfectly happy even when their ancestry isn’t pure.
Probably happier. The “purer” breeds are the ones with inbred genetic problems. Be they bad hips or a gross anatomy that works badly as a basic non-working dog. And I daresay that across at least the USA, pet dogs outnumber actual working dogs maybe 50 to 1.
It’s common knowledge that mutts are healthier than purebreds.
But that knowledge is commonly wrong. Mixed breeds seem to be just as prone to medical conditions.
That study doesn’t seem to distinguish between longterm mixed breeds and mixed breeds which have only been mixed for a single generation.
I don’t see a specific definition of “mixed breed” in the study protocol.
If it’s your contention that dogs coming from many generations of random breeding are healthier than purebreds, where’s the data to back that up?
My contention is that this study does a less-than-stellar job of presenting relevant data. Particularly when the top ten health conditions include dental calculus, dog bite, extracted teeth, and Giardia.
The most common ORMC in mixed-breed dogs were dental calculus, extracted teeth, dog bite, seasonal allergies, fractured teeth, giardia, osteoarthritis, ear infection, torn or broken toenail, and chocolate toxicity
They cited the 10 most commonly reported medical problems - out of 53 total conditions which included deafness, seizures, cardiac murmur, cataracts, pancreatitis, vertebral disc abnormalities etc., which seem pretty important to know about.
I get that you don’t like the study, but what data convinces you that its conclusions should be ignored?
Overall, research conducted on this issue doesn’t consistently reveal meaningful health differences between mutts and purebreds.
I think it’s fine that people want to adopt shelter dogs, many/most of which are mixed breed. But the assumption that they’re healthier and live longer is bound to lead to disappointment much of the time.
I don’t disagree. But having had German Shepherds with severe hip dysplasia and, most recently, fatal hemangiosarcomas, or looking around at pugs with breathing problems, I think that’s the kind of thing people are thinking about when they assume mutts may be a safer choice - the types of conditions even your study mentioned at the end.
Interesting that you mentioned hip dysplasia, which can occur in any dog, especially larger canines. Research shows that condition is equally common in purebreds and mixed breeds.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-8261.2002.tb01010.x
It’s important to note that some genetic conditions associated with particular breeds have become more common due to overbreeding in response to popular demand. At the same time, efforts by responsible breeders have a role in weeding out genetic conditions through exclusion of certain dogs from the breeding pool.
I don’t think that there’s any reason to assume that the rate of dog bites or chocolate toxicity or whatever would vary between breeds, and so by including those, they’re masking the real breed-dependent effects.
Like, if we’re in an area where purebreed dogs and mixed-breed dogs are equally common, and every year, the vet sees 100 purebred dog bites, 100 mixed-breed dog bites, 50 purebred chocolate poisonings, 50 mixed-breed chocolate poisonings, 3 purebred hip dysplasias, and 2 purebreeds with obstructed airways, well, that’s a total of 155 cases for the purebreeds and 150 for the mutts, hardly statistically significant. But if you exclude the non-genetic conditions, suddenly it’s a huge difference.
'Zactly. the article / study sounds filled with agenda.
Having said that, humans have been fucking with dog’s genetics for so long that it might take 1000 years of humans having no hand in dog breeding before the dogs happily homogenize all the human-driven stupidity out of their collective genetics.
Pugs exist because we created them in a misguided desire to create a dog that (almost) cannot breathe. That was a dumb decision. Let them breed freely with any all other dogs and soon enough that aberation will be gone. I don’t mean to pick on pugs specifically, they’re just a good poster child for breed specificity gone stupidly wild. Many other highly bred breeds have problems for the same reason: human desire to promote extreme morphological similarity upon animals.
Argument from incredulity?
Again, posters seem to be fixated on a) one particular paper and b) the ten most common owner-reported problems cited in that article, while ignoring the other 43 medical conditions covered in the survey and the literature as a whole (which does not support definitive overall health/longevity differences between mixed and pure breeds.
A guy tossed a molotov cocktail at the home of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. The man then went to the San Francisco headquarters of OpenAI and tried to smash in a window, apparently to try to set fire to that place, too. He has a beef with AI and wants to encourage others to cause mayhem as well, according to writings the FBI found at his home.
Probably written by AI.
In my mind the only ethical justification would be working breeds. Seeing Eye/Guide dogs, for example, are the product of controlled breeding for both intelligence and good health (they are screened as puppies for problems and again if a dog is selected for breeding stock). Dogs are still used for helping with herding animals. The military and police what certain characteristics. And so on.
It should, however, be noted that genuine working breed dogs are not the distorted, genetic wrecks of “show dogs”. German shepherds, for example, now exist as two distinct lineages, one still capable of actual work (guide dogs, police/military, etc.) and one that is a sorry shadow of what used to be, dogs that don’t walk normally, are doomed to hip problems, and so on.
I wouldn’t object to modern dog breeding so much if the goals were primarily healthy dogs but too often it isn’t - you have some breeders seeking a certain appearance at the cost of everything else. Which is a shame for other breeders who genuinely do try to aim for healthy dogs.