Smantha wrote:
 
>I'm not a personal big fan of breeders either.  Inbreeding and whatnot
>has been changing breeds dramatically over the years.  In my personal
>opinion a mixed breed is better, they are usually smarter, more well
>behaved and have less medical issues.
 
Samantha, I agree 100% with your post, except for the above.  I used to
think along these lines, but have learned much over the past few years
about dog breeding and breeders.  In a nutshell, a *responsible*
breeder's main concerns are good health and good temperament in their
puppies - not only conformation.
 
I know of one breeder, for example, who's dogs were consistently in
taking top national honors in the dog show world.  She discovered a
previously undetected genetic defect in her line, and immediately had
all of her dogs neutered!  Imagine what a sacrifice that was: the time
and money invested in building up her line for many years, along with
the reputation of her kennel, only to have it all end tragically.  She
could have kept quiet and kept breeding her dogs to protect her ego and
her pocket book, but what she did instead was in the best interest of
the breed, rather than in her own interest, and it took courage.  This
is what responsible breeding is all about!  It's done for the love of
the breed, not for personal gain, ultimately.
 
Dogs that end up in shelters, OTOH, are often bred by puppy mills
(completely irresponsible breeders who are producing a "product" solely
for their financial gain) to be sold in pet shops.  Or they are puppies
from un-neutered pets, who are likely from puppy mills to begin with.  In
either case, no thought has gone into producing healthy, well-tempered
puppies.  The unsuspecting buyer of "that cute Christmas puppy" from
the pet shop window may be in for years of costly vet treatments and
suffering for the dog because of a genetically caused ailment (or more
than one ailment, often).  Or they end up with behavior problems that can
also result from indiscriminate breeding.  If they even keep the dog -
these are often the very reasons that the puppy who grew up into a sick
or ill-tempered dog ended up in the shelter.  (I do pet sitting - I see
these problems all the time, unfortunately.)
 
A responsible breeder will carefully screen the homes before placing
their puppies.  And they will always take the puppy back if necessary -
even years later, if the owner should die or become incapable of caring
for the dog for some reason, for example.  Puppies from responsible
breeders are much less likely to end up in shelters.
 
Please don't interpret this as advice against adopting from a shelter.
There are hundreds of thousands of wonderful dogs and cats stuck in
shelters who deserve a good home!  (I have adopted many in my lifetime.)
But, the bottom line is this: those hundreds of thousands of unwanted
pets wouldn't be in those shelters to begin with if all breeders were
responsible, and all people spayed and neutered their pets!
 
OK, off my soap box...
 
Nancy
[Posted in FML issue 5098]