Puppies - enforceability of spay/neuter contract

In My Humble Opinion
21

Why would this be any different than when animal shelters insist a new adopter spay or neuter their new pet?

The animal shelters exist because there are so many unwanted dogs that are in need of homes. Most of those dogs exist because the parents weren’t spayed and neutered, and “accidents” happen, leading to more unwanted dogs.

So the animal shelters, in a position to do something which will prevent more unwanted dogs, insist that you fix your new pet. Do you think they are wrong to have that policy?

I would think most good breeders also realize there are too many dogs in need of homes as it is. So with the the dogs they don’t feel are good enough to show or breed, they want to make sure those dogs find good homes, but won’t be adding to the problem of dog overpopulation.

They are in a position to pick and choose who gets to have the dogs they breed. So I think they are being responsible by only selling to people who agree to spay and neuter their dogs. In the long run, that policy does reduce the number of unwanted dogs. And that is a good policy considering how many unwanted dogs there are.

I might agree with you if there was a dog shortage. But that isn’t a problem. So I see nothing wrong with them doing what animal shelters do, and wanting to be sure they aren’t adding to the problem.

Going another direction, take your artist example. It sounds like you feel the artist is justified in selling you something, on the condition that you don’t reproduce it. I think it is well understood that the artist could suffer financially if he was not able to retain the reproduction rights. So the breeders of dogs could make a similar case. They have invested time and energy to produce what they hope will be the perfect dog. If someone else was to take the sibling of a champion and breed them, advertising the great bloodlines and success of the sibling, trying to capitalize on all that went into to produce that champion, I can understand why the breeder would not feel that was fair. I think they have a right to not let that happen.

I work with a charity that takes retired race horses off the track, and transitions them into new careers. When an owner or trainer donates a horse to our program, they want us to promise that we won’t resell the horse to someone that will race the horse. Well technically, once they give us the papers on the horse, we could turn around and sell the horse to race. Nothing stops us from doing that. Nothing except that it would be unethical to agree to something, then not follow through, just because the other side has no recourse if we break our word.

So I see what the guy you bought your dog from as doing doing something similar. Just because the contract couldn’t be enforced, doesn’t mean he is not wrong to not abide by it. The breeders had their reasons for only intending to sell their dogs to someone who would agree to the conditions. The breeders might feel that by insisting the dog be fixed, that they are not contributing to the problem of too many unwanted dogs. They may feel that by insisting the dog be fixed that they are protecting their own investment, not wanting others to have “copies” of their champions, that could be reproduced for a profit.

So to me it doesn’t matter why a breeder will only sell to people who are willing to meet certain conditions. And it doesn’t matter whether those conditions can technically be enforced. What matters is what the two parties agree to, and whether or not both parties live up to their agreement.

22

That’s not a good analogy for a pet owner.

I have five retrievers. to say any one is less of an animal construed by it’s breeding is laughable. My dogs are not itunes. to wit, they are all fixed, and cannot be replicated. Oops, I guess they are Itunes, bred or shelter obtained.

Feh.

23

Doesn’t this sort of contract further reduce the gene pool for purebreds and therefore isn’t it actually a negative for the genetic stability of the stock?

24

First, I don’t think for many breeds there is a lot of problem (yet) with serious inbreeding, they still have plenty of stock.

Second, by some of those things, they’re trying to breed out (by not letting offspring be registered) some abnormalities (at least those that are noted early on). Another thing is that many breeds require OFA radiographs for establishing good breeding lines. That occurs when the animal is 2 years, and is trying to prevent animals that already show signs for hip dysplasia from passing that trait on. Like I mentioned before, it is the owner’s responsability of passing on information about any genetic problem the animal has down the line to the breeder, so that he/she can make adjustments to the breeding lines. If the breeding stock that remains is relatively free of problems, that helps the line, not affect it.

Third, like I said above, it may be the case that good animals originally sold as “pet-quality” and therefore shouldn’t be bred, but end up being good at shows (and unfixed) may end up with their own offspring recognized. It may just take slightly more paperwork.

25

I am not a breeder, but I do pay a fair amount of attention to the dog world. It’s not at all “curious” that breeders in a given breed know each other; you bump into them regularly at shows, you read about them in breed magazines, you may have bought breeding stock from each other or used each other’s males at stud, you may be on the same committees or regulatory boards, and for most breeds (not Goldens) there aren’t all that many professional breeders anyway (I am casually acquainted with maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the owners of the major US Saluki kennels despite never showing or breeding, and not attending that many shows).

Officially, and, as far as I’ve seen, in the minds of most breeders (if not necessarily all), neuter requirements and limited registration (a relatively recent development) are not intended to be a “restraint of trade” or a deterrent to people who wish to become (respectable) breeders, but to curb two types of behavior:

  1. The pet owner who doesn’t intend to breed the dog at the time of purchase but later decides (or, as in your puppy’s daddy, randomly happens) to have a litter or two. These people usually don’t educate themselves about breeding, screen for diseases, know how to select a mate whose genes will combine well with their dog, or have any plans for placing the puppies beyond putting an ad in the paper. Result, as often as not: unhealthy, non-conforming, temperamentally unsound dogs that clog the nation’s animal shelters.

  2. The person who wants a dog with a well-known kennel name or an impressive pedigree so they can sell the puppies for a good price, but is either too ignorant to understand, or sufficiently dishonest not to care, about that individual dog’s qualities and how they will affect the offspring’s health, temperament or conformation. Result: see above.

Limited registration was intended to help breeders enforce “no breeding” contracts, since most pups are sold at an age when vets are reluctant to neuter them.

The problem, in part, is that most non-breeders fail to understand that when you pay $1200 for an Examplehound puppy, you are not paying $1200 for any random Examplehound puppy, but for that specific breeder’s knowledge and experience, the (considerable) expenditures they have made to raise, train and show (or course, trial, whatever) the puppy’s parents and ancestors, the health testing and certification (having your dog certified clear of hip dysplasia costs around $2000), and (not least) the time, energy and work required to become known to and accepted by other breeders, judges and club officials as a respected peer who produces sound, healthy and successful dogs. A backyard breeder has none of this, and a person who is trying to trade on the kennel name or pedigree of a dog that they bought at a discount because it wasn’t breeding quality is actively undermining the market value of the “real” breeder from whom that dog was purchased by associating their name with an inferior product.

Anyway, Dinsdale, if you do decide you want to breed a litter (not, I hope, from your current puppy), do the dogs of the world a favor and ask a professional breeder (in your breed) for advice. If you don’t want to buy and raise a breeding-quality dog, you may be able to set up a lease agreement where you “rent” a dam, pick out the sire (within limits), and take responsibility for the puppies (the owner(s) of the parent dogs may want one or more puppies as part of the deal - that should be specified in the contract); this won’t be cheap but it’s still a lot cheaper than raising a breeding-quality bitch from puppyhood and getting her certified and titled.

Incidentally, the way to make money off of dog breeding (nearly the only way, if you are a responsible breeder), is to breed or buy a really outstanding male, show him to death, get as many titles as possible, make him famous, and then charge big bucks for stud fees. For all but the best-known kennels, puppies are mainly a loss leader.

JRB

26

I was thinking that, too. If someone wants to be a backyard breeder, it isn’t hard to get a fully pedigreed puppy mill dog and do just that, only with inferior breeding. I do see where the reputable breeders are coming from, but I’m not sure it really improves the overall quality of the breed in the long run.

My friend was looking at getting a great dane puppy from a breeder who was considered very good. In addition to the limited registration and spay/neuter contracts, she also would only sell certain males to people who would keep them intact but allow only her the breeding rights. Interesting, I thought.

27

If some of the pet puppy’s siblings or half-siblings are used for breeding, then no, or at least not necessarily. Inbreeding and the Popular Sires Syndrome are much bigger problems. Also, many dog breeds already have a pretty much irreducibly small gene pool to start with (Dobermanns, for example, are all descended from one female and her two sons, IIRC).

In any case, remember that the puppies are being sold as pet quality because they have one or more defects, which range from trivial (coat too thin, a white spot where there shouldn’t be one), to the catastrophic (epilepsy, hip dysplasia, severe timidity). Maybe for some rare breeds every individual is needed even if you have to have a tortuous breeding program to avoid transmitting the defects along with the diversity, but there are plenty enough Golden Retrievers so that you don’t need to breed the rejects.

JRB

28

Now I’m confused. I thought the point of your OP was that you regarded the professional breeders’ terms as arbitrary.

29

Without knowing the breeder or her customers, I’d say that this is a method to keep non-show-eligible animals available for breeding without letting a possibly uneducated or careless pet owner litter the place with poorly-planned puppies.

This is particularly likely if the breeder specializes in Harlequin Great Danes, which require a significant number of breeding animals which cannot be sold as show dogs because they have disqualified colors (merle, mantled blacks) that nonetheless need to be kept around in order to perpetuate the Harlequin color, which has very complicated genetics. I personally think it is the height of stupidity, now that we understand what goes into a Harlequin (well, mostly, anyway), that merle, which is a necessary component thereof, is still disqualified by the Great Dane standard, but it’s the breed club’s decision to make and they have shown no sign of rectifying the situation.

JRB

30

This makes perfect sense to me. Say I was breeding Examplehounds (;)) and had a kennel full. I have my eye on three promising male pups out of my new litter, but keeping them all around on the potential that they will turn out to be spectacular isn’t the best option–any of the three may turn out to be the best, but by the time you decide #1 is a little too light of bone and #2’s bite is slightly off after his skull finishes developing, they’re a year or more old and won’t make such good pets as if they’d been placed as puppies.
Meanwhile, she wants to keep his genetics in her breeding program for specific reasons, and doesn’t want you to go studding the dog around to anything that’ll stand still for a little extra spending cash, or for a competing kennel to cash in on her hard work by offering you a substantial stud fee.
Also, what JR Brown said re: Harlequin danes and the associated disqualified colors.

31

The way I’m interpreting the OP is that this is not really about breeding at all. This is about acquiring papers that will theoretically increase the market value of your dog.

Did I miss something? Does the contract flat out state you will NOT breed the dog at all, or that SHOULD you breed the dog the offspring cannot be AKC registered?

32

Yeah, it makes sense from the breeders perspective, but for some reason it would annoy me as the owner of the dog. Of course, it’s easy enough to just not buy the puppy, but I thought it was an interesting data point for the thread.

33

This kinda gets at one basic aspect of how lawyers are able to view things differently that many other people. Whether or not you, I, or any other individual considers a particular action right or wrong has no bearing on whether or not it is legally binding. I’m not saying that such a legal analysis is the only way to view all situations and relationships, but it is distinct from a simple value judgment.

Not “arbitrary” - unenforceable. If I enter into a contract, there are certain legal ramifications. As every sentient being ought, I carefully read every contract I enter into, and attempt to assess the implications should any number of foreseeable events occur.

I am free to break any and all terms of the contract. However, I should expect to be held liable for my breach to the extent the terms of the contract and the law provide. As a practical manner, I may choose to agree to a contract with terms I have no intention of keeping if I have good reason to believe there are no meaningful penalties for breach.

Not that it matters, but I have fixed all of the several dogs I have had, have never bred a dog, and have no intention to change my practices.