Do you have a cite for that? As I said in maybe another thread, we need better numbers. Where do all the unwanted, unhealthy, untrainable dogs come from?
I don’t think we have numbers on how many purebreds and cross breeds are in our shelters. I do know we have large numbers of breed specific rescues trying to place what they at least think are purebreds, see Dog Breeds - Types Of Dogs - American Kennel Club
Many BYB’s do produce purebreds that can be registered. Poorer health and behavior than from ‘‘reputable’’ breeders?
Here is the deal. Dogs should be bred like any other domestic animal: for health, temperament, and then vocation, followed lastly for looks. Despite the protestations of the purebred breeders, a person who places two healthy, intelligent, good tempered mutts together is probably producing a higher quality litter than a champion line breeder. The allure comes from the breed history, visual conformation, and status, nothing more. MOST bitches need little to no care during pregnancy and will care for their pups without incident. You can learn pretty much everything you need to know from a 50 page book about breeding dogs. If you get into trouble then you call the vet. It isn’t rocket science.
A responsible breeder is one that carefully chooses a sire based on desired characteristics, understands possible problems with the breed, and does not produce litters without a plan. Additionally, they should not over breed their bitch and allow her to recover between litters. It has nothing to do with breed, conformation, or anything else. It does not require expensive vet trips, obsessive behaviour, or extreme devotion. it just require a responsible mind and some common sense.
Seven dogs & cats are born every day for each person born in the U.S. As long as these birth rates exist, there will never be enough homes for all the animals.
Spay and neuter, it’s the responsible thing to do.
There are a lot of problems that may not show up until past the age where dogs should be bred, hip dysplasia, allergies, cancer, bloat, etc. Some of that stuff can be tested for, and some not. Some of it you can look back at dogs in the pedigree if you have it available. Then there is temperament. Penn State has a huge study in progress going back at least to 2004. I have filled out questioneires
Having accidently hit submit too soon, here is the other half of my post.
on 4-5 puppies. So before long, we should have some good data.
The question is, how much of what we have is being used? So the stud was X-rayed and rated by the OFA. How did it rate, excellent, or only fair? How about its litter mates?
I have no problem with the idea that breeders that carefully select their stock for health and temperament should be able to command higher prices for their puppies. If they want to have silly contests judging dogs by their looks, fine as long as it doesn’t lead to compromising health and temperament.
Now should those that can’t afford a $1000 puppy be forbidden to have a dog?
Do you have a cite for that? That would mean 30 million pets being born each year (the US human birthrate is 4.1 million per year). There 171 million pets in the US, not counting strays, of which 75% are fixed (http://www.petfoodinstitute.org/Index.cfm?Page=USCatandDogPopulation), and (you’d assume) around 50% are male. Even taking strays into account I find that 30 million number pretty unbelievable.
The Humane Society of the United States provided these statistics:
Number of cats and dogs entering shelters each year:
8–10 million (HSUS estimate)
Number of cats and dogs euthanized by shelters each year:
4–5 million (HSUS estimate)
Number of cats and dogs adopted from shelters each year:
3–5 million (HSUS estimate)
Number of cats and dogs reclaimed by owners from shelters each year:
Between 600,000 and 750,000—15–30% of dogs and 2–5% of cats entering shelters (HSUS estimate)
OK, 171,000,000 x.75 x.5 > 20,000,000. So the unfixed females need to average less then 1.5 puppies per year. With many litters of 10 or more, very easy to do.
A small show breeder might breed one litter a year for 3 years keeping one of the females to continue after retiring the mother.
Although there is a regional issue here. Some states have horrible overpopulation problems. In other states its actually difficult to find a puppy because spaying and neutering is done regularly. Rescue puppies in the Twin Cities are usually brought in from out state or even out of state. Older dogs are easy to find, but not everyone wants an older dog - and many older dogs have been surrendered for behavioral issues.
Kittens are different - there are still enough feral and barn cats to keep the Twin Cities over supplied with kittens.
You have the number the wrong way round. 75% are FIXED, so 25% are potentially fertile. So that’s 4.5 puppies per year ON AVERAGE for ALL females pets irregardless of age.
Assuming the starting ratio of dogs to humans was about where we wanted it then that would be exactly the rate needed to maintain it, given that humans live 7 times longer than dogs.
That would seem to indicate that the ratio of dogs to humans is off, given the shelter problems - but would we be honest to say that we, collectively, don’t have the ratio that society as a whole wants? We (collectively) seem to want to have enough doggies out there to only choose the cutest. We seem to want doggies to be disposable when they have “behavioral issues” or our life circumstances, and thus ability to keep pets, change. I read a thread here on the Dope the other day in which the poster described family members attempting to dispose of a dog because its farts were stinky.
Individual dog lovers might find it reprehensible, but it seems society as a whole wants the current level of pet euthanasia - can’t have disposable doggies without the disposal, after all. So I guess the current number of dog breeders - everything from the snootiest show breeder down to the lazy bum who won’t bother to get his pup fixed, is exactly what we need to get what we want.
Oooooh, I’ve been wondering when someone would drag out that statistic! The last time I heard it was coming out of the Doris Day Foundation…is that your source?
Ever hear the term “dog years?” That term is generally held to mean that people live about 7 times longer than dogs. This means that in order to have a stable ratio of people to dogs, then the birth rate of the later needs to be about seven times the human birth rate. Cats live a bit longer than dogs usually, so justify a bit lower birth ratio.
Now the “Dog year = 7 years” ratio is not exact, and the fact that there is no shortage of puppies would indicate that the canine birth rate IS indeed excessive. It is NOT, however, anywhere near the seven fold excess that the quoted statistic is typically used to assert.
It is a real problem. Exaggeration does not help solve it.
Hybrid vigor refers to the dilution of inbred traits. Example: Breed X carries a recessive gene for disorder A. Breed Y carries a recessive gene for disorder B. If you continually breed pure X to pure X, an increasing number of the offspring will carry disorder A, and and increasing number will also suffer from its effects. Ditto for Breed Y. However, if you cross Breed X and Breed Y, NONE of the offspring will suffer from either defect. In a population of mixed breeds the recessive harmful genes will tend to become increasingly diluted over successive generations.
It is possible to try to reduce the harmful genetic maladies by careful screening. For example, a dog who is already known to have hip dysplasia should not breed at all.
IMHO some professional breeders do not act for the overall good of the breed or the individual animal. Pekingese are adorable, sweet animals. But they are SO prone to health issues resulting from the exact traits that make them Pekes. To make the breed healthier you would have to select for longer and more natural faces to reduce the breathing problems many of them have. But then after a while they wouldn’t “really” be Pekingese.
There are some breeds of cats called “folds,” Scottish Folds, for example. They carry a recessive gene for a cartilege defect. If the kitten is heterozygous, it will have cute little folded-up ears. If it’s homozygous, it will have horrid deformities and will probably die IIRC. I find it reprehensible that there are some people who will actually choose to perpetuate this.
I have yet to meet a pet owner (myself included) who doesn’t think their pet is so awesome they’re made out of pure awesomeness and has good traits and wouldn’t it be a better world if everyone had a pet like mine?
But it’s the responsible ones who go ahead and fix their pet and overcome the impulse to fill the world with pets so awesome they’re made out of pure awesomeness. With at least two non-responsible pet owners I know, it was at least partly a matter of ego: I am so superawesome that OF COURSE my pet is superawesome!
(One of them, by the way, eventually fixed his pet without breeding it. Ever smell the spray of an unneutered tomcat? If so, you know why he finally capitulated.)
And for everyone going on about how responsible BYB aren’t adding to the problem, look at it this way: for every dog a responsible BYB finds a home for, a dog in a shelter will die. (Oversimplification, I know, but it illustrates the point some people have been trying to make: there are not enough homes, by who knows how many orders of magnitude, for all the pets on our planet right now.)
Additionally, just because your pet is overflowing with superawesomeness, it does not mean that your pet’s offspring will also have an abundance of awesomeness. Especially with mixed breeds, the very traits that make your pet so awesome may not breed true.
When I was director of a local shelter, we had 4 black lab mix dogs who had been in the shelter in excess of three years each. They were cage crazy - no way those dogs were going to be adoptable without some intensive training - which we did not have the funds for. Since we were a “no kill” shelter, they just stayed in the runs. It made me very sad. I would have to turn away potentially adoptable dogs due to lack of space. I never like putting an animal to sleep (killing it) but I also hated to see those poor dogs in the runs with no hope of a home.
I’m sure whoever bred those dogs thought “wow, labs are awesome!”
I think not breeding your pet animals is the responsible thing to do.
I’m on board with the idea that spaying adult female dogs and cats before age 5, because of the ever-increasing risk of pyometra, endometrial hyperplasisa, and mammary tumors past the early years of their lives, is the mark of a responsible owner.
However, I don’t think it’s more responsible for otherwise responsible pet owners to neuter all their animals as juveniles, or male dogs and indoor cats at all.
Early spay and neuter affects the growth, skeletal structure, and some aspects of the long term health of dogs and cats for the worse, and the latest research recommends against it from a health standpoint. Of course it is better to alter animals at 4-6 months than have them go to careless, clueless, or ‘backyard breeder’ owners who are going to let or encourage them to breed their first heat; I’m not really debating shelter/rescue policies on the matter. But I do think the pervasive prejudice against dogs with balls (which I have encountered plenty, having lived with three dogs with balls who will always have balls and never reproduce themselves) is utterly silly. If you are in control of your male dog, there is no solid reason to cut his balls off IMO. None of the intact dogs I’ve lived with (two long-term fosters, one belonging to a former room mate) have been given the opportunity to get a female dog pregnant, and they never will.
This said, my ‘permanent residents’, two dogs and two cats, are all fixed - my dogs came that way, and I spayed and neutered my cats when they were both around a year and a half old and fully sexually and physically mature.
Cites pleaes? What I have read are weak, statistical studies showing only minor differences.
I have also read case after case of accidental breeding due to an average dog owner being unprepared to fight hormones. We need to see some much better data than I have before we start trusting average dog owners to go through the mess, hassles, and risks of having a female go through a season. A good many females that get loose when in season are never seen again alive.
Just a few. I have more. Lots more.
None of these studies reveal “weak statistical differences.”
That said…I am very active in rescue and will not adopt out an intact dog or cat. Spaying or neutering is not the hallmark of a responsible owner - not allowing your dogs to breed is. It’s not difficult to manage this, but people have bought the “spay neuter” argument hook line and sinker, because apparently most don’t believe they can manage an intact dog. So for all those people - go ahead and spay or neuter, please.
However, I own three dogs - two are intact males. One is a spayed female, spayed months after her first heat, primarily because I wanted to do UKC events with her and UKC mandates that mixed-breed or non-UKC-registerable dogs be spayed or neutered. The fourth dog in my house is a neutered pit bull mix foster dog.
Backyard breeders and puppy mills supply demand: there is big demand for purebred puppies, demand for “designer breed” puppies, demand for “-poo” puppies. The internet is awash with puppy mills, only-for-profit breeders and puppy broker sites. Because there’s demand. It’s the American Way.
If the agenda of the animal-rightists and “no dog should ever produce puppies unless maybe under supervision of a code-of-ethics breeder” ever comes to fruition, mixed breed dogs will become extinct and we’ll all have to undergo home checks and rigorous examination by ethical breeders of pedigreed, show- or working-quality dogs.
Really, the pet overpopulation program isn’t so much to do with over-production, but of retention. Cute puppies are rarely dumped at shelters, or with rescues, advertised on craigslist, or abandoned at the side of the road. Adolescent and adult dogs are dumped or given away by the thousands.
BTW, there have been recent articles, including review articles (as of this March) in major veterinary publications confirming that early spaying in dogs significantly reduces the probabilities of the dogs getting mammary tumors later in life. It seems that it is early in life that the conditions are set for the development of mammary tumors later on. Spaying a dog before her first estrus has been shown, over and over, to statistically decrease the chances of the dog getting a mammary gland tumor later on. Spaying a dog after 4 years… no statistical difference shown.
Second, the main side effect I was taught, and I still see mentioned in talks, is eventual urinary incontinence in females. This is not universal, occurs in a small proportion of spays, and, hey!, veterinary medical breakthrough, they just approved a drug specifically to deal with it.
Thirdly, the debate right now in some veterinary talks (at least like the one I attended just last month) is not whether to spay early or not. It is discussing the risk and benefits of ovariectomy (only ovaries out, commonly done in Europe) versus ovaryhisterectomy (commonly done in the US).
Fourthly, while I’m not as up to date in dog male reproductive as in other areas, I do remember that:
1- Obviously, intact male dogs are at an increased risk of testicular tumors.
2- Intact male dogs are at an increased risk of prostatic diseases (not cancer, just general infections).
Lastly, one very important point regarding mammary tumors in dogs: They are considered mostly a disease of older dogs, but a subset of young female dogs get them. Do you want to know what the risk factor for those dogs is? It’s the administration of exogenous steroid hormones (birth control) to alter their regular cycles, many times given to… precisely prevent breeding without spaying the dog.
