Halfghan hound.
Jess has a wonderful post at DesertWindHounds.
She shows how the dog fancy’s inability to adapt to scientific facts and its desire to tarnish and harass those who don’t tow the party line on dog shows/trials/blood purity are ultimately going to be its destruction.
The animal rights fascists are pushing any number of draconian laws at both the state and federal level. They are using ideas that have currency among the pet owning populace, but because the dog fancy stubbornly holds onto its various traditions and shibboleths, it cannot effectively answer these people. Instead, it goes tars anyone who wants to fix with the label “animal rights activist,” which means that no one listens.
Not listening is perfect fodder for the AR’s, who then feed off it all.
The extreme AR’s want to ban all pets ownership and all domestic animals– and if they can’t do that, they can stop people from breeding animals for a purpose.
They know they can’t do it by passing a law that has that objective at the top of the list.
Instead, they Trojan horse it with laws that are supposed to “ban puppy mills” or “stop bad breeders.”
Everyone hates puppy mills.
No one is going to write a defense of puppy mills.
But we need to find ways to effectively fight animal cruelty, but in trying to stomp out puppy mills with laws that use sledgehammers against all breeders, we ultimately come up with another problem.
As you know from reading this blog, the domestic dog has a lot of problems.
These problems are only going to be solved if dog breeders are given the freedom to use the tools they have, and they need to have freedom to operate outside of official breed registries.
You start legislating dog breeding in this fashion, and you could wind up with a situation in which only dogs from approved registries and of clearly defined and recognized breeds can be kept for breeding purposes. You think that can’t happen?
Well, it’s happened in many continental European countries.
They don’t have as many issues with puppy mills, but they have closed dog registries that will remain closed forever.
Closed registries and the dog competition system, which rewards breeding from “elite” sires, will ultimately result in very depauperate gene pools– which means more issues with diseases that result from an inbreeding depression and those that are inherited via deleterious genetic mutations.
We want to stop puppy mills but not at the expense of shutting every door that could lead to genetic rescue for so many dogs.
Most “fancy” folk don’t have a background in science or genetics. Many have very little education in those areas. so they don’t necessarily understand the ideas (although that’s changing) and certainly are more likely to “circle the wagons” when attacked. Add to that the issue that humans are by nature competitive. You are NOT going to eliminate “AKC/KC” or even ISDS/USBCHA type competions just by saying they are bad. What has to happen is someone coming up with a “better mousetrap”. Germany tried this with their GSDS — you are “supposed” to have to have an HGH or SCH title, a minimum level of quality for hips, conformation to get “breeding papers”. But you still get “bananna back” dogs and other problems. A lot of people with registered dogs do “get” the issue of health, COI, etc. What they don’t have is unification about “what to do” or how to do it. In fact, I’m still looking for what is a useful program one could promote. It’s not always as easy to fix things as it is to know that there are things that need fixing.
And of course, what’s a “puppy mill”? is it inherently “wrong” to make money breeding dogs? (it is the view of some folk but why?). Or is it when someone mistreats animals (which doesn’t require any significant numbers of animals)? Is Guide dogs a “mill”? (they are high volume, farm out puppies to others to raise, discard dogs that don’t meet a very exacting criteria.) Is the only reason we don’t consider them a “mill” the purpose the dogs are intended to fill and the non profit status? It’s easy to decry bad treatment of animals — but IIRC, there weren’t even 40 such set ups requiring shutdown by Government entities in the last year.
They don’t have as many issues with puppy mills
Actually, that’s changing too. There are more puppy mills springing up in Eastern European nations, and Western European buyers who want a particular “purebred” are buying from them — and getting burned.
I agree that outcrossing is a very good thing, and that the small hobby breeder (i.e. not a mill churning out hundreds of dogs, but not the folks who just make puppies for the sake of puppies that they think they can make a lot of money off of, without carefully choosing the parents or vetting them, etc.) is the best possible model for producing healthy animals. The problem is how to find a balance, but then legislators are notorious for looking for “the easy way out” (which is what Breed Specific Legislation is — it doesn’t fix anything, and costs money and dog’s lives). The AR types of course exploit that.
Yeah, but in the European core of nations, they don’t.
The issue is growing in places like Germany and France and Spain, where people are buying dogs which were milled in Romania, or Bulgaria, etc. That’s one of the insidious things about mills — where the mill is (and the abuse is happening) often is a place that doesn’t have the rules or the ability to provide oversight for basic humane needs. And in the mean time people elsewhere also suffer because they innocently (and ignorantly, granted) bought a dog that they wanted.
My apologies by the way, as I wanted to provide you a link so you’re not just going of my retelling. I can’t seem to find one in English, however. I do believe where I read about the problem was in the German language version of der Spiegel, but I can’t seem to turn up the article either there or via Google search. They did indicate that the problem was a growing one, with more an more people buying these foreign dogs without checking into the source first.
Breed-specific legislation is another example of the fact that we humans (especially politicians) are most comfortable dealing with reality in binary terms, black or white, good or evil, friend or foe, but unfortunately for us, reality is seldom, if ever, binary–its Boolean.
Here is the English language article, though I’m having no luck turning up the original German one, which had more information and more links. Sadly, the quality of the reporting in the Spiegel has gone down of late, so if anyone has any additional information (pro or con) I would be grateful to hear of it.
Yes. you get them from Mexico or elsewhere as well. Rules made in the US don’t affect how an animal is bred elsewhere. UKC is a private run registry. The owners could, if they wanted, put in some SV type requirements. One could “require” that a bird dog be able to retrieve (even a bumper) and be steady to shot to get a CH, but the problem is that the performance folk would never accept it as “enough” and the conformation folk would start insisting on why shouldn’t the field dogs have to look like theirs (I hear this all the time in the herding world). Then you get purists on the other side (ABIC and ASCA) who won’t register dogs whatever their looks or working merit if they have the “wrong” papers. http://www.americanbordercollie.org/registration.html. ISDS recently altered their rules to eliminate anything without ISDS parentage.
Everyone wants to protect their little piece of the pie. And in the interium, you get anti dog legislation that requires spay/neuter of anything that isn’t registered with one of the “big” registries (AKC, sometimes UKC and ASCA. Sometimes AIBC) AND is competed. So that pushes even more for the dogs that are there to conform with whatever is the current status quo. In CA you have shelters that insist there’s a dog overpopulation problem and at the same time they are importing dogs from elsewhere becasue what people want is NOT what is in the shelters.
I’d love to see something like an “EUKANUBA” invitational where the dogs were evaluated on three factors: health certificates (AKC does put the OFA on registrations now), function (if it no longer has an original role, it can do agility, obedience or something else), and looks. Yeah, looks. Some people do like the dogs to look a certain way, and as long as that look isn’t clearly detrimental to the health of a dog, they should have the right to breed that.
AKC lost most of the large-scale commercial breeders when they went with the DNA for sires used more than 10 times (or AI dogs) and other rules. And while I don’t want to see anyone just churning out dogs for the market place, I also don’t see that being large scale necessarily means that’s what they are doing. (are large scale horse operations doing that? There’s a bunch of money in some horse breeding operations, but most serious livestock breeders large or small do care about what they are producing and having it fit enough for the buyers to want it.). I think one can be large scale and do it acceptably and one can have 2 dogs and do it very wrong.
Peggy Richter
I remember back in the 90’s when an NBC report ran an episode where they successfully registered a Hamster with the AKC. That was also back when they were allowing cross registration between the AKC and the ACA.
Times have changed. ;-)
Ha; been awhile since I’ve been called a fascist!
A better term would be cultural imperialists.
Pet stores were importing Eastern European Bull Terrier puppies (I’m sure other breeds too but I’m not involved with them) and selling them for big bucks, way more than a puppy from a breeder with health tested dogs who care about the breed. The buyers then figured to make their money back. Occasionally we get pedigrees from welfare dogs, and frequently they go back to these original Eastern European sounding names. Try and educate the public about how to pick a breeder – I can’t tell you how many people will NOT buy a dog from a caring breeder who has several generations of health tested animals and sells puppies who have been BAER tested. They go to a nice internet breeder (and sometimes they are nice Christian breeders to boot!) and then call us back when something goes wrong with the puppy.
That should tell us that if they really tighten the screws here, that Mexican puppy mills will be providing these dogs.
It would be much more effective to pull the ability for pet stores to actually supply and sell pet dogs. It would force the interested buyer to actually do homework and source their puppy from a breeder, in turn placing pressure on breeders to raise their standards to meet the demands of the larger demographic that actually keeps the “want” not the “need” for these breeds ongoing.
Puppy Mills would then have to actually reconfigure their business model since the only way to sell dogs at this point would be to actually meet the prospective clientele, in turn opening the eyes of those clients to what they are actually paying for. If the shipping of these animal is also prevented then it would force the buyer to actually make an effort to visit the breeder and make an assessment for themselves.
I’ve had eye witness account from families interested in certain breeds actually going to visit the breeder listed via the AKC breeder listing only to find an abysmal and disgusting living condition on location for the dogs, their puppies and the humans that breed them.
If you nip the main source of the problem by severing the biggest link to the public demand and force the public to be better educated prior to this purchase… you would find many veteran breeders suddenly without business based on their way of doing things. First impression being everything… there are breeders with champion status dogs that who after opening their operations to the eyes of the public… would lose any further interest in the dogs they produce, champion bloodlines or not.
Yup I said it.
Sengimage wrote: It would be much more effective to pull the ability for pet stores to actually supply and sell pet dogs.
=This would will not prevent selling dogs via internet from locations in Mexico, China, Germany, etc. You might hike up the cost of a pet and the total pet numbers might go down, but you won’t achieve better quality. Many states (like CA) have a “puppy lemon law” that provides some quality guarantees for commercially purchased animals as opposed to those obtained from shelters (as an example) or even the guy next door. –What kind of quality does the local shelter guarantee? In CA at least, none of the city/county shelters are required to provide ANY guarantee. None of these ads pushing shelter animals (including imports from places like Puerto Rico and Iraq) say one word about finding out if the shelter animal has health problems of any kind. Nor are many kept long enough to establish if they do/don’t have proper inoculations (distemper has been common) or issues like Hip dysplasia, epilepsy or PRA. Many places have gone to providing shelter or “rescue” dogs in lieu of commercially bred dogs in shops like PetSmart, mall shops, etc. I don’t see that the quality is thereby improved. (The issue of saving a shelter dog is seperate from that dog’s health and other qualities).
“It would force the interested buyer to actually do homework and source their puppy from a breeder.” == if people won’t do it for a car, a house or even for the person they may marry and have kids with, I don’t see how you can force anyone to do it for dogs. In the US, you can’t even get people to learn to read and do math utilizing free public education. If the intent is to force “small scale home breeders only” – these folk cannot possibly keep up with the demand, especially with limit laws and other restrictions on having more than a very few dogs and intermittently breeding.
“If the shipping of these animal is also prevented then it would force the buyer to actually make an effort to visit the breeder and make an assessment for themselves.”
== so make it illegal to obtain a Briard from a working line in France (some professional shepherds do still herd with them there) unless you go to France? That would probably make it prohibitive for many who might have every intention of using such a dog in a quality breeding program. I’ve obtained dogs from halfway across the US. I’ve usually gone to get the dog, but not every time. I spent the time to know the sellers and their dogs, but could not always make a road trip at the applicable times.
As for assessments, the average person doesn’t know about the innards and other major aspects of a car they buy – why think they would bother to learn more regarding their pets? – other than asking for paperwork that could be provided electronically (OFA, CERF records etc) do you honestly think the average person will know “good structure” from “bad”? correct bite? Even correct temperament? When I got a horse, I had someone who KNEW horses well help me pick. I certainly didn’t have the knowledge to pick a good one from an average or even “not so good” one.
AKC breeders aren’t any better (or worse) than UKC breeders, ASCA breeders or labradoodle breeders. There are those who are quality and those who live (and raise their animals) in a dump. There are those who do health checks and care and those that don’t. I’m all for educating people about what to look for or even to take someone who knows what to look for with them when looking for a dog. I don’t think that forcing people to buy locally or to travel cross country to get one is going to do as you think it will. Having a “checklist” to ask about would probably do more and might be something people would actually employ.
Peggy Richter
Reblogged this on The Retriever, Dog, & Wildlife Blog.