White tigers are heavily inbred. All descend from a single individual, and a lot of them are born with deformities-- like this poor cat.
Christopher Landauer has taken on various myths about the virtues of inbreeding in a series of five posts.
The are pretty good, so check them out.
These are all refutations of some of the memes that are passing in the dog blogosphere.
Dog culture does not reward diversity.
And while we can agree that diversity should exist for diversity’s sake, it does not mean that it should be ignored in our discussions about the long-term viability of Canis lupus familiaris.
It should be noted that a wide variety of animal keepers are much more concerned with genetic diversity than dog people are.
VMS Professional Herpetoculture is a major producer of reptiles for the pet market. It has a very well-written and extensive learning center on its website that includes several lessons in genetics, including a discussion on inbreeding and a discussion on hybridization. These discussions are very applicable to dogs, but unlike dogs, there is no strong cultural sense that one must maintain purity at all costs. Crossbreeding different subspecies and even different species is fun and entirely acceptable in the pet reptile business. The inbreeding discussion even suggests that certain strains and color phases that are produced in captivity might be suffering from an inbreeding depression.
All of it is worth checking out, if for no reason than the attitude of the herp culture is the exact opposite of the dog culture. It is true that everyone wants to breed in the neatest new color mutation, but at the same time, captive reptile gene pools are much more finite. People are concerned that inbreeding could hurt the long term viability of their chosen species.
Of course, we dog people have been spoiled. Our species is relatively genetically diverse, and until persecution pushed them to the far reaches of the northern continents, we always had a chance to bring in “wild blood” from wolves. We can get away with things that would never be tolerated in most species.
However, even other widespread domestic animals are being crossbreed. Cattle breeders have long understood the importance of heterosis. These traits have had a real effect in terms of market price:
When all factors are weighed, the crossbred cow gives you the most benefit. By contrast, the stockman who is merely trying to take advantage of hybrid vigor in the calves (using straightbred cows and bulls of another breed) gains less impact on profitability. Calf weaning weights for crossbred calves are five percent more (and yearling weights four percent more) than straightbred calves. The research study in the 1990’s that came up with these figures showed that a straightbred cow with a crossbred calf earned an average of $23.37 more than if she had a straightbred calf. But a crossbred cow with a crossbred calf netted $116.88 more than a straightbred cow with a straightbred calf. This is one reason a number of producers went to crossbred cow herds.
The market says crossbreed!
Of course, the demand for marbled Angus beef has meant that the market is now demanding animals that are close pure black (Aberdeen) Angus cattle.
But many of those have Hereford crossed in somewhere close in their pedigrees.
It is instructive to read the two links I provided with the literature that Christopher is critiquing.
The attitudes are entirely different.
That’s because dogs have a greater immunity to market forces than beef cattle do. People will spend a fortune buying unhealthy dogs that are of very little real economic utility, simply because the “pureness” of their breeding confers upon the animals a higher status. A cattle strain that doesn’t produce marketable beef isn’t going to be bred from. But we can breed dogs that die at age 5 and can’t whelp naturally. That’s because people will continue to buy those dogs, regardless of health. The novelty of the breed confers upon its owners status.
(Of course, we can have breeds without having a closed registry or a Potemkin open registry system. But that’s a different discussion.)
Dogs also are derived from a widespread, genetically diverse ancestor that also backcrossed into the population at least several times in the history of its domestication. There are only so many opportunities to bring in new blood for exotic snake species– especially if it is Australian. (Australia banned the export of its native wildlife to private owners.)
So many herp breeders are always looking for new blood. New blood is scarce in relative terms, and the long-term viability of the captive strains depends upon it.
That’s something dogs haven’t yet faced, but their long-term viability is threatened so long as we think that purity is always a virtue unto itself.
It is less of a self-defining virtue than diversity is, for diversity has several important qualities.
Not the least of which is how important it is for the immune system.
But that’s very hard to explain to people who think you can inbreed for health.
Maybe in the short run, but in the long run, it’s a killer.
Great photoshopping? A morph between a mastiff and a white tiger? Because, suffering mutation or not, if this tiger were real, some big cat breeder would be impressed with it’s unique features and big head, and would start a new breed of pug headed tigers.
Unfortunately, that tiger is real.
People who want white tigers only want the pretty ones.
Google “white tiger inbred” and then come back.
I am NOT suggesting breeding white tigers or pug-tigers!
I look at that photo of the pug-tiger and it reminds me of some types of dogs, and that makes me curious about where mutations in dogs came from, why they are bred, and if these have hidden effects in dogs like they do in tigers?
Cat shows usually have “breeds” of cats, not regular cats, like barn cats. Where do “breeds” of cats come from? Are they from a mutation?
Look at dog shows and dog “breeds”, where did some of the odd breeds of dogs start? Did they start from a mutation? Isn’t that where the modern show type bulldog started? a mutation in a litter of pit bulls?
Why be upset about breeding odd tigers, but not be upset about breeding odd dogs? The majority of dog breeders still think it is fine to breed dogs with unhealthy mutations, and the public still flocks to buy dogs that have problems like this pug-tiger, and they pay top dollar for them too.
Why believe that it is wrong for tigers, but okay for dogs?
Retrieverman….. I tend to see the Dog world trending more towards the hybrid nowadays. This is not from my own experience but via the observations that we see around us daily….Petsmart shoppers coming in to show off their unique dog, The Pet Stores with the Puggles in the window among other odd mixes with insane price tags, The various commercial breeders who churn out hybrids of anything on a regular basis. People seem to prefer the hybrid more and more over the purebred. However, there are now lines of hybrids that are no better off genetically than the purebred lines….
One the one hand you have outdated ideologies and a strong belief in the spun fiction over the decades or centuries depending on the pure breed.
On the other hand you have a mindset driven by greed and a Market that drives a demand for something supposedly better than the pure breed.
Both perspectives share a large common area in between.
All of it is damaging.
A true hybrid breed would be one where the breed standard calls for continual fresh blood. The benefits of outcrossing can be undone in a few generations of inbreeding.
That is what we see with hybrid dogs. They aren’t really a hybrid if the only cross happened 3 or 4 generations ago and all the rest are sibling matings, etc.
A first generation cross hybrid dog has a better chance at avoiding recessive diseases than does an F2 or F3, again, especially if F2 and F3 are inbred.
A model more like a “lurcher” is necessary for continued benefits from outcrossing. That is to say, defining a breed as being a hybrid but having a culture against breeding “true” by inbreeding the current population.
If you want a new lurcher, you repeat the outcross.
I’ve yet to hear of a new designer dog that maintains an open registry so to speak, i.e. where the ethic is to continually and forever allow purebred or crosses of various strengths to be bred according to a breeders whim.
That’s a very good point, Christopher.
What I find interesting is that lurchers do tend to be line-bred, even if they are line-bred from a diverse set of sighthound crosses.
What I’m trying to do is to get more the more traditional breed culture to find the notion of an open registry as vital to the long-term health of just about all dogs.
In principle, I oppose inbreedng and linebreeding, but in a lot of cases, you have to recognize that some people want a very homozygous population within a breed. We may have to tolerate some of that, just so we can still have the “escape valve” that allows new blood in.
Of course, we do run a bit of a risk that if we have a totally open registry with a culture that demands high homozygosity, that between outcrosses we will have intense inbreeding in those non-outcross populations.
I’d like to change that culture that demands so much homozygosity, but the purebred registries always talk about things like very high predictability with purebred dogs. You know what you’re going to get.
Personally, I’d like more “anarchist” approach to dogs in which breeders were encouraged to be creative in developing new lines and using creative outcrosses. Like the Alaskan husky people do when they started adding border collie to their lines, which were originally mixtures of husky-types, hounds, and pointing breeds.
However, in order to “repeat the outcross” there must be something resembling a “breed” to use as parents. In order to get repeats of a reasonably predictable F1, the P1 dogs must be a known quantity/quality.
And to breed “according to a breeders whim”….good grief, one would think that the breeding of dogs (of any sort) should take more careful consideration than a “whim”.
Oh I’m not advocating mixing the pot so much and so wide that we get a recreated pariah dog. I’m simply pointing out that there are dog cultures that are radically divergent from the concept of purity.
I’ll take the ability to mix just about any collie of my choice with any sight hound of my choice any day. What a broad and wonderful gene pool that is!
I also reject the notion that we need so much predictability. And I do support breeder whim. I certainly support a registry and organizational structure that doesn’t enshrine predictability and prevent whims.
Inventor whim and market forces work. We get new and wonderful things. The way we breed dogs now, it’s essentially trying to recreate some hot dog from generations back only using that dog’s offspring.
Quality hasn’t been improving.
Some people look at the pug-tiger an say “Yuck, what an ugly mutation”, other people look at him and say “Aw, isn’t he cute!” or “My! That is an impressively huge head; I like that look!”.
Perhaps this is the way we first got some of the various dog breeds: a mutation was born, and people felt sorry for him and so kept him, with time they grew to love him and, in their eyes, they saw him as cute.
Their children were raised with the different looking dog, so to them, the dog was normal, or better than normal, so they bred him to get more cute puppies like him.
Now other people look at the suffering, shorter life spans, and vet costs, and think that maybe somewhere the dog breeders made a mistake, but the dog breeders who were raised surrounded by the canine’s problems are the very people least likely to notice it.
“What? My bulldog has a problem? He always breathes like that! His parents breathed like that, his grandparents all breathed like that. That is normal.”
Scary as you might think it is, that pug-tiger could start a whole breed of pug-tigers, IF tiger breeders were like dog breeders.
They’re not just pug tigers, they also have mental problems (retardation).
Even if pug-tigers have mental problems, why would that stop some people from breeding them?
We don’t breed dogs for their IQs, do we? We don’t even test dog’s IQs before breeding them. I wouldn’t assume that tiger breeders test the IQs of their animals before breeding them.
Why do zoos breed white tigers? Because the public likes to see something different. If all tigers were white, people would flock to see orange tigers.
This is so true of children with litters of kittens and puppies – they love the uniquely colored or uniquely marked animal. This human trait is probably a big factor in why we have current breeds of dogs and cats, instead of barn-cats and street-dogs like they have in many parts of the world.
If this were the 1950s – 1980s that retarded tiger could be a popular sire and a crowd magnet. Think of how many people went to see Fraizure/ Fraiser (don’t know how they spelled his name) the stud lion in California in the 1970s who had a tongue that hung out of his mouth.
That odd cat is a photo op – just for being different. People are tired of perfection. Glamour isn’t as well thought of as it was in it’s heyday (50 to 60 years ago). Before, a tiger missing a leg would be said to “ruin” a display at a zoo, because it “marred” the beauty of the display.
Now? That would be the coolest cat in the zoo. Wow look at his scars! Get a photo, read what it says, pass along his story, he got bit by a crocodile while swimming a moat trying to escape.
Yeah, pug-tigers could have a future, just because they are different. Mental retardation does NOT disqualify tigers anymore than it would show dogs.
(and I still think photo-shop photo, a morph of some type)
Don’t underestimate the public’s ability to be outraged over these kind of mutants. That tiger pic up there isn’t a photo op – that is probably a leaked photo from a zoo’s “back room”. There are more deformed white tigers born than healthy, pretty ones. Most are either culled or spend their lives out of the spot light because the breeders don’t want the public to know they exist. Pug tigers wouldn’t be popular, they’d cause a public backlash.
Think about the public’s response to “Pedigree Dogs Exposed”. Most people really don’t want extreme forms, no matter how interesting, if it means they’re unhealthy and unhappy animals.
There is a difference between zoos that breed white tigers and those that do not: the one’s that do not breed them understand what inbreeding is and do not support it, they are true conservation advocates, they truly care about the animals’ well-being, and lastly they are accredited (and to be accredited you must exceed all instituational expectations on a yearly or 5-year inspection). Zoos that breed these animals do not care for those animals’ well-being, have selfish cravings to have interations with them (they are wild animals!), and are only trying to take your money even when they have a brochure that says they send money to conservation organizations – go ahead, check out T.I.G.E.R.S. …
What everyone seems to have overlooked, is that there is a middle road. That is, using all the means available to bring about better dogs– linebreeding, outcrossing, even (gasp!) inbreeding on occasion, always with intelligent and careful selection based on all applicable criteria.
There definitely are breeders using this approach. And producing excellent, healthy, typical, useful dogs.
That works provided you don’t have problems with most-used sire problems at the breed and don’t have any problem bringing in new blood.
There is nothing wrong with any kind of breeding provided you have some way of getting new blood in every once in a while.
It can work “even if”. In most breeds, there are outcross dogs to be found, even if one has to go outside the “usual” sources. Retriever folks, for instance, have a large resource of performance-bred dogs, hunting dogs, dogs from other countries, even the huge numbers of “pet” or “back-yard” bred dogs, as well as the often-maligned “show dogs”. it just takes some time and effort and knowledge to find ones suitable to be used.
Just as a fer-instance, one of the current top dams of field Goldens, is the result of some 4 generations of “back-yard” breeding. And she and her offspring have many, many excellent qualities.
This is actually a huge fallacy. Unless those ‘outcross’ dogs are indeed outcrossed to another breed, all the dogs in one breed go back to the same founders. In Salukis, I often see people say, “Oh, I’ve imported dogs from here or there, or used dogs from coursing lines” but when you look at the pedigrees, they all go back to the same very small number of founders. Almost every breed that ‘originated’ in Europe or the UK will have undergone a bottleneck during the world wars, as well.
Without actually running the DNA of the MHC, you have no idea whether an outcross is actually an outcross or not. In Salukis, which have the greatest number of DLA genes found in one breed so far, the greatest diversity exists within a small subsection of dogs that have a variety of desert bred dogs (true outcrosses) in their background. The greatest majority of dogs have very little diversity in the MHC, as they all go back to the same founder population.
True story: a Saluki breeder of my acquaintance bred a litter and several of the pups had autoimmune disease. When she checked the DLA genes, the parents, even though these were desert bred dogs, had identical DLA genes. Without checking, you cannot know.
Four generations is nothing. Keep going back. Within a closed system, you can ONLY find the same dogs behind ALL the dogs. Unless, throughout breed history, there has been a special effort to make sure that each healthy dog has an opportunity to contribute to the gene pool, you will lose genes with each generation.
Well, in Golden Retrievers the records show several hundred “founders” or at least dogs of unknown and unrecorded ancestry. The Guisachan dogs were only the best-known (and recorded) ancestors. there were many, many more contributors to the breed well into the 20th century.
There have also been known crosses to other breeds in more recent history — some recorded, others not. I recall an older breeder telling me that a certain well-known Golden retriever field trial winner was sired by a Labrador, rather than the name on the pedigree.
Yes, it would be interesting to test for MHC variation. How does one avail themselves of this test?
There is a lab in Finland that has done many studies and offers testing, also for breed clubs:
http://www.genoscoper.com/in_english2/gene_tests/gene_tests/dla_diversity/
The problem with just looking at numbers of founders is that they don’t all get used with the same frequency, some get overused, some get underused. Some lines die out due to death of the breeder or unpopular dogs, war, etc. So each founder is not contributing equally to the breed as a whole, plus, due to selective breeding for type, you don’t get all the early dogs contributing, so there’s gene loss from the very beginning.
“Selection” that’s a key word in breeding. Should we be selecting (choosing WHICH puppies to keep for breeding, and WHICH dogs to let produce puppies) based on how well the dogs work at their ancestral task (like herding, sled pulling, guarding)?
Or should a breeder select/ choose dogs based on hip scores, eye scores, and health tests? Or should dogs with rarer DNA be bred to save those genes and lessen inbreeding in the puppies?
Or is temperment a key virtue? And if it is,then what is a desired temperment? Fiesty and snappy? Stoic, hard, flat emotionally, and a bit sour for guard work? Hyper-active, busy, and clever? Couch potato and love muffin? Kid’s pal? Or vain, show off, and aloof?
Even IF we could all agree that temperment is important to a breeding program, WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO AGREE ON WHAT IS A “GOOD TEMPERMENT”.
Perhaps, part of the answer is to breed healthy dogs that are geared to the type of homes to which they will be sold.
Know your ‘clients’ – I mean, like “know your audience” (meaning to tell different jokes to different types of people), think about what type of people you will choose to sell your puppies to.
If you will be selling your puppies to sheep ranchers who live in the snow, then breed good sheepdogs who do well in the snow.
If you are selling puppies to hunters who will use the puppies to run jackrabbits across the summer desert – then select which dogs to reproduce based on their ability to tolerate heat, and to run jackrabbits across the desert.
THINK about your clients (the home that your puppies will be placed into). What type of dog will make that family happy? Because a puppy who is a good match for the family who buys him, has a much better chance for love and long life, than a puppy placed into a home that he is not geared for.
Are you selling foo foo dogs for families with little girls who want to style the dog’s hair? Then you want a playful but prissy dog who like to have his hair done, and who loves little girls fussing over him, and buying dog clothes for him to wear.
Selling you puppies into homes with lots of children, and lots of their friends coming over and playing? Then breed those dogs who a tolerant, tolerant, tolerant. Dogs that don’t care if they are carried upside down, rough housed with, prissied up, and played with as children do. And choose a dog who doesn’t require a lot of grooming or shedding clean-up, parents of large families have enough work to do.
Selling your puppies to nervous women who live alone? Choose your breeding stock form those one-person dogs who don’t warm up to strangers. Choose dogs who pair-bond and who wont greet peeping Toms like a new buddy.
Selling puppies to hunters who will chain the dog to a dog house? Then don’t choose dogs that suffer without human attention – choose indepenant dogs who don’t much care if you like them or not, but who love to hunt.
If your show dogs are so good at dog shows, that show breeders are on a waiting list to buy from your litters, then select dogs based on what will please the puppies new owners – the ability to win at shows!
Ah, but there is that little problem. Some of us produce litters from breeding stock not good enough so that all, or even most, of the puppies can find good homes with the type of people the litter was bred to please. What of those puppies?
What of a show litter, with 4 puppies who will never win in the ring? What of the pit bull litter with only two fight potential puppies, and 6 puppies who just don’t have what the breeder (and his target clients) want?
What of those mis-bred puppies from a hunting litter who wont be good hunters? What about all those litters who produce one or two puppies who are good at what they were bred for – but the litter has 6 other ‘good for nothing’ puppies?
These puppies use to be called “culls” and the were put ‘put down’ (killed). But some people started selling these puppies. If one is going to lie, all sorts of labels could be used, sell them as “hunting dogs”, “show dogs”, whatever, but mostly they are sold as pets, but if you know pet dogs, then you know the world of difference between a cast-off puppy from a fight litter, a flunker puppy from a field litter, a slow sled dog puppy, a sheepdog pup who kills lambs, a show bred pup that wont win, and a true pet dog puppy – a dog bred to be an exellent pet, a dog who is naturally well behaved.
If you think all puppies are the same – then you don’t know puppies.
And if you think that it is important to carefully select breeding stock to produce dogs for your sport, hobby, work, or whatever, but that all dogs are equally good at becoming a great pet – then maybe you are lying to me or to yourself. Because some puppies do have better potential to become a good pet. some are joy to own, some are difficult, and some end up un-loved, their purchase viewed as a mistake.
Some puppies are house-trained at 6 weeks, some varieties of dogs are often into puberty at 8 to 10 MONTHS before they are house-trained!
One of the biggest issues is producing litters of puppies, where the majority of puppies are unfit for what they will be sold for – they were not bred to go into the environment which they will be sold into.
http://www.canine-genetics.com/Price.htm
For your entertainment, an inbreeding coefficient calculator, for up to ten generations:
http://www.czerwonytrop.com/inb/index.php?full=ok&lng=en
Enjoy.
Selection is not a matter of “this” vs “that”. Nor should it be based on any single factor. It can be quite complex.
Good breeders consider all those aspects mentioned, and more as well in many cases. Each breeder will give somewhat different weight to certain factors, depending on their goals, what’s appropriate to the breed, and far more.
“One of the biggest issues is producing litters of puppies, where the majority of puppies are unfit for what they will be sold for – they were not bred to go into the environment which they will be sold into.”
hdp, if a breeder is _genuinely_ interested in the future well-being of his/her “products” it means that finding forever, good and suitable homes is the first priority.
On the other hand, too often breeding sadly is just money making means… :(
I’m not just writing about finding puppies good homes, I am writing about making deliberate choices in selecting breeding stock based on the goal of producing puppies who will best fit into the envirionment they will be sold into.
More clearly said: If you are selling puppies to weekend hunters who also want a family pet who will live in the house, then you should be choosing which dogs to mate based on their ability to hunt well, and their abilities in the home – good with children, easily house-trained, not too hyper indoors, and not barking too much.
If your own dogs live in a kennel then you have no idea if they would be easily house-trained, or if they go nuts when left alone in the house, or if they would grow possessive and snap at guests.
It is one thing to breed dogs to get a winning puppy to enter into your sport – but it is another issue when a person lies about the litter to sell them. Like breeding dogs to win at field trials, keeping one puppy to enter, selling one puppy to another field trial fan, and then advertising the remaining 6 puppies as “great pets” or “pet quality” without telling the regular families (who know little about dogs) that your puppies were bred for competition, and have NOT been selected for good pet qualities.
The same thing happens in show litters – not just sometimes, but very very very often. A breeder selects which dogs to mate based on show wins. After 40 years of selecting for show wins, many of the not-selected-for traits are now missing in her line of dogs. Lost traits might include being good with children, house-breaking ease, not barking all the time, etc.
But what do these breeders do with the culls? (culls = those puppies not fit for what they were bred to be, in this case, not good show dog potential).
The puppies are NOT advertised as “from a show litter” or “from show lines”, they are advertised as “pet quality” to lure in people who want a good family pet to live in their home and be part of their family.
Yes, these families will give a puppy a good home – and that is good for the cull puppy, but it is NOT good for the family who deserves a well bred puppy bred from dogs selected for being a good pet.
I am writing about honesty in advertising litters of puppies.
If you select which dogs to mate, based on their ability to win at a competition, then the cull puppies should be advertised as “from a competition bred litter” or something like that, not as “pet quality”. This practise of lieing about litters is hurting the future of keeping dogs as pets.
(On the plus side, it is a huge factor in destroying the thing which is perpetuating it.)
Look at it from the point of view of the family who gets a pet puppy for the children. The parents haven’t had a dog since they were young children, all they have is some vague memories of playing with a dog that their own parents did the care of – the feeding, watering, grooming, letting outside, vaccinations, etc.
They see bunches of ads that say “pet quality”, they choose and ad, buy a pup. And it grows up to be hyper-active, yaps all the times, tears up the furniture, sheds all the times, grows up to kill the neighbor’s pet cat, and then bites their children due to no other outlet for it’s high prey drive.
When the family gets rid of this ‘pet’, will they want another dog?
Some families may believe they just “got a bad one” and will try again with another puppy. If that puppy is not a good pet, then they may say “I like puppies, but I hate dogs”, and so they keep getting a new puppy, and getting rid of it when it is grown.
They never realize that some puppies improve with age, all they know are the many non-pet puppies that their friends bought as pets, and what a bother those dogs grew to be, even though their owners kept them.
Most families who get a puppy who they have to get rid of, are so discussed by the dog’s behavior, that by the time they finally get rid of the problem dog, they never want another dog again, and they not longer like dogs. And their relatives and friends who have watched the cute little puppy grow into a problem, are also put off of ALL dogs.
Just as you can breed dogs to be good at herding sheep, pointing birds, killing varmints under-ground, or whatever, so you can breed dogs who produce puppies that just simply grow up nice. Those are truely “pet quality”.
Most puppies sold as “pet quality” have NOT been bred to be quality pets. They have been bred to win at a competition, or have been bred to live in cages and crank out lots of puppies and to be good milk producers for those puppies.
I am just saying that I believe that it is dishonest to advertise culls as “pet quality”.
Either breed dogs well enough that the whole litter is useful at what they were bred to be, or advertise the culls honestly.
Thank you for this, HDP. You have articulated my feelings on this issue better than I could have! :)
“Either breed dogs well enough that the whole litter is useful at what they were bred to be, or advertise the culls honestly.”
This is an interesting assertion and it goes to the heart of the matter, that is gene loss due to over-selection. Breed dogs that are ‘good enough’, or good for what you are looking for, and more dogs will get to contribute to the gene pool. Breed only the ‘best to the best’ and you restrict the gene pool. Breeding specifically for competition is big contributor to this.
Jess, (I say this in a good way) you remind me of a dog I once had that figured out how to turn doorknobs – quick and bright, but an extra effort – when I wrote that comment, I thought “somebody is going to figure out that angle, so I might as well respond now” but I didn’t want to type ten pages on how I think it pertains to population genetics in dogs, so I hoped that I could get by without addressing that controversy.
Competition, all tyes of competition, does cause dog breeders to over-select to get more #1 dogs – I think we can all agree on that?
Breeding without competition but for just usefulness at a task (like: sheep herding) or a lifestyle (like: kid’s pet) allows for breeders to incorporate more genetic variability, while still producing a type of dog geared to a specific type of owner.
But there is another aspect to my comment too: one group of dog breeders taking over and monopolizing areas of breeding which properly belong to a different type of dog breeders.
For example: hunting dogs were once bred by hunters.
Who was it that just recently complained about some more coon hound breeds being recognised by a show group?
I think the emotion expressed was due the well founded belief that this would cause a decline in the coon hound breeds’ hunting ability. That is what happens when one type of dog is now being bred by a different type of dog breeder than the type of dog breeders who used to be breeding that breed, isn’t it?
Remember the Border Collie thing? Something about BCs are sheepdogs, not show dogs. And same thing with the Jack Russel Terriers. I think many of the breeds went down the show dog route the same way. One breed at a time, show breeders simply outnumbered the working dog breeders in a particular breed, and the show breeders just took over by numerical strength.
I watched this happen in the city where I grew up. It was NOT random. It was a plan, which dog breeders explained to me, about how they were getting together, and thru propaganda, pressure, and a bit of the color of law, got families to spay and neuter their pet dogs, so that the conspirators could charge more money for their own dog’s puppies.
They flat out told me that it was NOT to reduce pet overpopulation, but to get rid of the competition in selling puppies so that they could charge more money for their own purebred puppies.
But, as is often the case with turf wars, the “purebred breeders” who edged out the pet breeders, were then edged out by (or convert to) the show breeders.
So completely were the nasty “purebred breeders” edged out, that most people do not know the difference between the old “purebred breeders”and the show breeders, and so they use both terms interchangeably. (Today’s equivalent of the old “purebred breeders” often have my sympathy, if not my trust.)
Just as ranchers should be in charge of breeding sheep and cattle dogs, hunters should be the ones producing and selling puppies to other hunters, so should pet puppies be produced and sold by families with a pet dog.
It is stupid to say: “If you want a good pet dog, buy a puppy from a working Border Collie” – so stupid that nobody would actually say that.
But people do say: “If you want a good pet puppy, don’t buy your puppy from a “backyard breeder” (pet breeder), buy your pet puppy from a show dog breeder” – but isn’t that just as stupid as advising people wanting a pet to buy from trial winning dogs?
(Hey the parent dogs are best at something, so they must also be best a being a pet”?????????)
Really! If you want to make an apple pie for your boss who loves apple pie , you are better off using lesser quality apples, than using best quality oranges.
That is what the lie was like. Instead of getting a regular pet puppy, buy a first rate show dog puppy. And it seems to have worked out about as well as substituting regular apples for first class oranges in an apple pie recipe.
And, of course, having people who wanted a pet puppy (the numerically largest purchasers of puppies) quit getting their puppies from other pets, and instead buying them from purebred/ show dog breeders, led to the over production of puppies from popular show winning sires, and the decline of canine genetic diversity.
I believe that a major need is to get pet puppies back to being produced by families in their own homes. People should buy puppies from the type of families like themsleves.
For example: If you have a large noisy family, you want a dog that is geared to YOUR home – not a dog best at chasing raccoon, dock diving, dog shows, or living with a couple of 80 year olds. You would want a puppy from a line of dogs, bred for generations where the sole criterion for mate selection has been for dogs that are good pets for a large noisy family.
Ditto, if you are 80 years old and want a dog for an apartment companion – you want a dog from a line of dogs bred solely to be gentle good apartment dogs for an older person.
It is the lack of public understanding of this fact which has caused so much trouble, and is partially responsible for the loss of unique genes in dogs – after all, if the public had refused to buy show dog puppies as pets, we would still have pet-bred dogs, and the show dog breeders would have reached their state all the quicker.
I firmly believe that the evidence points out that, on the whole, using competitions for mate selction in dogs, is NOT good for the species – at least not at the point where so many dog breeders all flock to get puppies from the same winning dogs.
P.S. – I think it is OK to breed Golden Retrievers (and other breeds too) as pets and sell them as pets.
I also think it is OK to breed Godlen Retrievers as bird dogs, and sell them as bird dogs.
What I think causes problems is when a line of pet-bred Goldies are advertised and sold as “hunting dogs” and when a line of trial Goldies are sold as “pet quality”, and, of course, I believe that all show dog breeds, including show Goldies, should be advertised as “from show lines” NOT advertised as hunting or pet quality.
HDP, (I say this in an annoyed way), you remind me of a cat I once had: he talked all day but never had anything to say.
I think HDP is saying plenty, but most of the people reading this blog already think that way. Really, in this day and age, with tons of books out about specific breeds, and magazines devoted to the subject, oh yeah, AND THE INTERNET, there is absolutely, positively ZERO excuse for people NOT doing their research and realistically choosing a breed or type suited to their lifestyle. But of course, this ain’t a perfect world, Dr Pangloss, so these deadly(for the wretched dogs, that is; although also sometimes deadly for the “owners”!) mistakes will continue, alas. One thing NOT mentioned so far in this extremely species’selfish discussion, is how humans SHOULD not just constantly consider how well a particular dog fits into their lifestyle, but be ready and willing to adapt one’s own lifestyle to better accomodate the dogs’! Having kept wolf-hybrids, sighthounds, and various husky-types and other more natural feral type dogs over the years, I was rarely concerned so much with what those dogs could do for me, but focused more on what I could do for those dogs! And this has nothing to do with JFK! And yet, in the end, by adapting my life to the dogs’–what lessons I learned, what wonderful new perspectives I gained! Yes, how great the partnership would be(and more of a TRUE partnership!) if more people did their research with how well they could adapt THEMSELVES to the dog, instead of the other way around! I have aquired specific dogs for working purposes that ended up being USELESS for the purpose I had in mind, but with time and patience and an open mind, and by trying to be as faithful to the dogs as they were to me, we always managed to make things work out splendidly, and learned things I never would have if I had selfishly discarded such dogs because they didn’t fit my original ideas……..
Lane, thanks for the reply. You are right about people adapting to their dogs.
When I got my first puppy, my parents insisted that I train the puppy. They had bought me a book on how to do so.
The first book had very rough ideas, and I didn’t want to do them, but my father said that if I did not train the dog to his satisfaction, he would take her to the pound and have her killed. I loved my dog, and so was in the difficult spot of having to be harsh with her to save her life.
Also, my relatives caused many behavioral problems in my puppy, and since it was me who wanted the puppy, I was expected (ordered) to remedy those behaviors.
Since I had started with just a book for teaching dogs for CDX and UT degrees (not CD), this was a problem, as it did not cover the basics nor behavioral problems.
My next dog training book was ancient, and dealt more with the philosophy of the mind of dogs. But it was more helpful, and I managed to train the dog enough to save her. Or maybe my father just softened towards her – he started out hating dogs, just like some people hate cats (his sister was a dog hater too).
When I got old enough for a car, I took my dog with me to the lake, where she showed nature to me. At the lake, she led and I followed, at home I led and she followed. I enjoyed times at the lake more. I learned more by adapting to her, than what I ever could have learned from teaching her to adapt to civilization.
That is the beauty of having different types of dogs – each different type of dog teaches you something else. But most people who buy a puppy are not like you or me.
I once had a neighbor who worked for a computor company (I think he programmed them), when he wanted a puppy, he got what people he knew recommended. When that didn’t work out, he went with the most popular breed, figuring the knowledge of the majority shouldn’t be too wrong. And he stayed with looking for hints from real people over stuff written on the internet, even though, even his children had computers and the whole family used them.
Also, I know of two people who are dyslexic, and can’t read. I know of a person, who is very observant, especially about other people, and who has good people skills, but simply went through school, graduated from high school, yet can’t read well enough to read Dr. Suess books to her children. You have to have something really good going on in your head to be able to fake it that well all through 12 years of school.
I know of another person who does wonderful pencil sketches and art drawing, but can’t read at all. He say he knows lots of people who can’t read. His father only spoke English, but his mother only spoke Spanish (when he was a baby – she speaks English well now). His father worked all day, and his mother spoke to her baby in the only language she knew -Spanish. So he learned Spanish.
When his father was home from work, the father spoke to the mother in English, but he (the young son) could not understand it. So the son started school knowing no English. At that time, there was no program to teach English as a second language to children starting school, so by the time, he and his mother learned to speak English, he had missed the basic reading lessons, and was trying to learn to read from a 4th grade book, in a language he barely knew. After about that age, his mother switched to English, and, since they lived among English speakers, he forgot much of his Spanish, leaving him to grow to be an adult who spoke English well, but could not write it, and whose Spanish was at a half rememberred childish level on the few occasions he tried to use it.
That sort of thing was once common for little children who started school not knowing any English – I don’t know what happens to them now.
All these people buy puppies. They do the best they can, but they will never read anything you or I write. It is up to those dog breeders who sell puppies as pets, to create the sort of puppies who will fit into the families who adopt them.
In some cases, it is the dogs who adapt better, not the people. WE are the more stubborn species. Dogs, especially mutts, are the more adaptable species.
Also, many people are too educated to be very smart. I mean that they have learned a fixed, inflexable store-house of knowledge (propaganda) which inhibits them from thinking outside the box. they can only think of new things, if those new ideas don’t clash with the propaganda they already know about a subject.
I would guess that many people who use the internet start, and end, their search for information, by typing “AKC” into the search engine, or going right to that kennel club’s address. So it is the responsibility of that place to educate them. Such people will not find what you or I write, will they?
And many people will not look for anything controversial. They don’t like controversy, or they usually try to side with the winning side, especially if that side seems to have already won.
Do you know people who will not ever say who they are going to vote for, but after the election, they immediately start to claim who they voted for, and it is always whoever won? That sort of person wont go looking for a splinter group – they would rather risk buying a doomed puppy from “the right sort of breeder”, than to get a nice healthy puppy from an independent breeder (who they sometimes call “pariahs -as if the kennel club kicked them out, instead of them leaving the club).
While, you are very right, we need to have more information out about people adapting to their dogs, and the joys of learning from dogs, of dogs awakening that woodsy knowledge within us, people who sell puppies as pet still need to focus on making sure that the puppies they create are geared to be good healthy pets who will fit in with the persons who buy them.
“Either breed dogs well enough that the whole litter is useful at what they were bred to be, or advertise the culls honestly.”
Well, hdp! That’s so easy to say, and obviously by a person who never has bred a single litter.
No matter how well and meticulously any breeding is planned it always is the Mother Nature holding the winning hand.
To predict how a pup of seven, eight weeks of age will develop is impossible! If the pup is lovingly reared in home environment its future development is in the hands of the new owner.
I have bred dogs, I don’t do so now. There are a huge number of people who did (past tense) breed dogs but who got out of it. Some of them are all the wiser for it, and are my kind.
I love nature, dogs, and many other animals too. I also like books, writing, and the internet. I often combine these interests.
If you don’t like what I write then you don’t have to read it; I am NOT going to change my writing to please you, and I don’t ask you to change your writing to please me. See the name at the top of the comment? You don’t have to read the commentors who you don’t like. Guess who is going to be on my skip-over list?
Most of what I write about dogs isn’t about “my puppy is cute”, or “guess what my dog did”; I tend to write from the point of view of “What changes could we make which would improve the dog clubs” or “What change of direction would help people and dogs?”. I do mention personal things as an example of why I have reached certain conclusions, and to make my ideas easier to read and understand.
I very seldom think about or write about one particular dog breeder – I tend to aggregate my memories of dog breeders and think about where dog breeders (as a flock) are going, and what is herding them/ luring them towards any direction/ destination. Then I think about what might be a better destination for the future of dogs, and the future of dog owning families.
I think about what changes might be helpful. I never said that it would be easy, especially if you look at it from the point of view of a breeder trying to make changes without the dog clubs first making those changes.
If the dog clubs changed first, and implemented those changes, it would be easy for the dog breeders to follow the updated guidelines, and the dog breeders would not have to feel that they were doing it alone or going against the established order, since it would be the established order who changed direction, not the dog breeder going off on a self led new path.
Very little of anything that I write is personally about anyone in particular, except occasionally as an unnamed example. If you are seeing yourself in my writing, you are hallucinating yourself into my comments.
I think in the abstract, but force myself to be more detailed and write more from the first person view point.
Does anyone really think that asking dog breeders to advertise their puppies honestly is asking too much of them?
I ask that dog breeders not use the term “pet quality” for puppies who were not bred to be pets, just as I would ask people who breed dogs for pets, to not advertise those nasty or unhealthy puppies who would not make good pets, as “show quality” or “hunting quality”.
A puppy who flunks out at being a pet, is NOT automatically a “show quality” puppy.
And just the same, a puppy who flunks out at being sorted into the “show dog potential” group, is not automatically “pet quality” or “herding quality” or “hunting quality” or any other quality.
Puppies who are not good enough to be sold for whatever they were bred to be, are not automatically going to be good at something else!
Dog breeders can advertise their puppies honestly with terms like “from show lines” or “from herding lines” or “both parents hunt” or “from champion lines” or “from field trial lines” instead of “pet quality” which very much seems to be a term used to lure in people wanting to buy a puppy who has been bred to easily fit into a life as a pet.
Just as it is easier to train a Border Collie puppy to herd sheep, instead of training a bloodhound puppy to herd sheep, it is easier to raise a puppy to be a good house dog if it is from a line of good house dogs.
Is it too much to ask that dog breeders be honest in their advertisng?
If I may speak for “the other side”….as an aficianado of purebred dogs for more years than I care to mention, and as one who has participated in many aspects of activity with dogs (including breeding), I do not consider any of the dogs I’ve sold as “culls”. My intent has always been that ALL my dogs have the soundness and personality and temperament to be good companions (“pets”, if you prefer), to have good basic working aptitudes, and to be good representatives of the breed in every way. Some of them may go on to be “show dogs” for a part of their lives, and/or hunting dogs, or assistance dogs,guide dogs, or some other career– but all are “best friends” in some way, to someone. Some of them may be chosen to be parent to a next generation; some not.
And I’m not going to feel guilty about any of it.
If one is breeding dogs just for a certain “look”, it is possible to tell, in a very broad sort of way, if young pups are going to “fit the standard”, as opposed to pups that very obviously have conformation “faults”. But when it comes to pups bred specifically for PURPOSE(i. e. work), that’s another ball-of-wax entirely, and I have yet to meet anyone that can really accurately predict that in young puppies. Really obvious stuff like bird dog pups pointing at 6 weeks, or coon hounds showing a tendency to trail other animals at such a tender age, or sled dog pups being outgoing and accepting harnessing and pulling a small object around without shying are all good indications that they will likely be good workers/hunters, but I have seen the shyest, most retiring, least enthusiastic pup eventually, with time and patience, end up outperforming all it’s more promising litter mates–its like something just “clicks” one day–but that day could be 2 or 3 years down the road! And most people just don’t have the patience to wait or be tolerant that long, alas(even for just basic recreational purposes). And it also depends A LOT on WHO gets and trains a pup–I knew of 2 brothers who raised and hunted coon hounds–one paid enormous amounts of money for top pedigrees, but spent little time and effort training them, and his dogs were always mediocre or useless as hunters. His brother would then take the SAME DOGS, given to him as culls, and make Night Hunt Champions out of them! The old “nature vs. nuture” again, and it really is BOTH!