I have to say that much of what I wrote in the early days of this blog came from ignorance. I had never been exposed to serious hobbyist breeders of purebred dogs, and much of what I thought I knew came from reading some books and reading blogs.
Over the past year, I have developed really good friendships with several breeders, including a few I used to have rows with on social media.
I must say that much of what I used to believe is utter rubbish. If you see these blog posts and ask me about them, I will instantly apologize and laugh at my own stupidity. I suppose that is what happens to all of us, especially if we are capable of being objective and are always striving to keep an open mind.
Recently, a Facebook page shared a graphic that compared purebred dog breeders to used car salesmen. In my past life, I would have shared such a graphic without hesitation, but now I know better.
This page encouraged people to adopt a dog from a shelter or rescue, especially if the dog happened to be crossbred.
Having spent enough time dealing with dogs of various types, I’ve come to the controversial view that first time dog owners should avoid rescuing a dog from the shelter. First time dog owners are better off going to a show breeder.
Why?
Well, dog show people are breeding dogs, but they aren’t doing so haphazardly. No dog of any breed can do well as a show dog, even if it has stellar type and movement, if its temperament is terrible. I know breeders who place temperament above all when they make their breeding selections.
And although there are breeders of working strains, especially of the breeds I’m most familiar with (German shepherds and retrievers), who are thinking carefully about their dog breeding decisions, these working strain dogs are often too much dog for the typical first time dog owner.
So my initial contention that people should always go for the working dog type was unbelievably stupid.
Now, ten years ago, I might have suggested rescuing a dog from the local shelter, but the shelters now don’t have that many dogs that would be great for novices. The breed rescues and the shelters themselves have done a much better job finding homes for adoptable animals, and in 2017, it is estimated that only 780,000 dogs were euthanized in shelters. That same year, there were an estimated 89.7 million dogs in the entire country.
So the shelters now are filled with lots of dogs, usually pit bull type dogs, that might be great companions for the right owner. That right owner, though, is almost never a novice. Yeah, there are mild ones that easy as a typical Labrador, but there are also really hot ones that need careful management and skilled dog handling and training.
The reason these dogs are now so common in shelters is that virtually every other breed or type now either winds up in a breed rescue or is transported to another part of the country where the shelters can easily adopt them out. Dog aggressive pit bull-type dogs are not among the desirables for these rescues.
So the pet overpopulation issue that tends to behind the nonsensical mantra of “adopt don’t shop” is now obsolete. You can buy whatever breed you want, guilt free. A show bred GSD with health clearances and strong selection for a good temperament is not equivalent to a shelter bully breed mix. The person who can handle the former might get lucky and be able to handle a mild specimen of the latter, but the same person will not be able to handle a particularly hot one.
A purebred dog from a serious hobbyist breeder offers you some consistency and knowledge that the breeding that produced your puppy came was one that was fully thought out. These dogs cost a lot of money, because it took a lot of money to prove these dogs worthy of breeding, through the shows, any working tests, and the health testing.
The people who shame those of us who buy purebred dogs because we’re killing shelter dogs are simply ignorant. They don’t know what is going on with shelters and dog populations right now. They know only what the world was like 20 years ago, when dogs were roaming the streets and mating all over the place. They don’t know that some people might want a dog that has more utility than being a pet, and they don’t know that breed actually does matter when it comes to proper dog management and husbandry.
So the purebred dog and its fanciers, though under attack by various lynch mobs, are ultimately the choice for better future for our species and theirs.
I don’t hate crossbreeds. I don’t hate mutts. I don’t even hate those who cross purebred dogs, and some of those breeders really do care about what they are producing. I don’t think dog people of any stripe should hate on other breeders, because dog breeders must stick together if we are to deal with the various lynch mobs and legislative fiats heading this way.
I only write these words in defense of the purebred dog and its fanciers and to offer encouragement for the public to support serious hobby breeders.
If I’m not mistaken, it’s actually not uncommon for Germans (as well as Poles, Austrians, French, Swiss and Austrian) to own mongrels but because of things like dog taxes and wanting a dog that’s easier on their money.
Not always the case but understandable if they don’t want to be put up with a sickly inbred dog (there’s a reason why historically richer people owned breed dogs as they’re the ones who can afford to regulate dog breeding and be put up with a sick dog, economically/financially speaking).
So it’s not really those Europeans’ fault why they opted for a cheaper dog, especially when it comes to dog taxes.
The great difficulty here is that we are still at the mercy of the closed stud book, scientifically unsound traditional breeding practices, and a number of breed standards (and/or breed authorities, show judges, and their interpretations of those standards) which are either reducing genetic diversity over the most inconsequential of traits, or are actively harmful to the dog. Ignoring extreme brachycephalics for a second, this morning I was thinking about Dachshunds. Historical accuracy aside, wouldn’t breeders *want* a dog that throws out his back less often? Surgery is expensive and the constant worry over jumping on couches seems a drag. Not that the Teckel design is immune, but it just seems much more practical to go in that direction. To me, at least. Doxie pet owners would probably agree.
I have, of course, just summed up the original driving concerns behind the Pedigree Dogs Exposed ‘movement’. Nothing new.
That there are (many!) show breeders running every health test available and making the best decisions they can under the selection pressures they face – whether those pressures are internal in origin, external, or both – does not eliminate the fact.
I know plenty of, and could find many more, rock solid show breeders producing lovely, healthy (for their respective breed) animals, and, indeed, the requirements of the show environment frequently do select for very nice pet temperaments.
But they are fighting an uphill battle, and one could even accurately say, a losing one. A very slowly losing one. Genetic diversity simply cannot be maintained under the current model. It cannot stay at the same level nor increase; it can only decrease. The common belief among breeders, even many of the working sort dealing in pure breeds, seems to be that you can health-test your way out of unhealthy or short-lived animals and that repeated linebreeding of even very closely related animals is not a problem provided you know the stock involved front to back. Genuine understanding of inbreeding depression and its effects, namely in its more subdued chronic form, appears rare. Health outside of those few conditions which can be tested for or seen very explicitly throughout a breeder’s line, and especially lifespan, are chalked up to being more or less entirely a throw of the dice by breeders and owners alike. Brand of kibble and veterinary drug conspiracy get far more credit than genetics. I have been hard-pressed to find GSD breeders who research ages of death in their pedigrees, let alone cause. The count is at 2. One is in another country.
It is an unfortunate fact that today GSDs of any line are not particularly long-lived, with dogs making it into their teens being the exception rather than the rule. 10 to 12 max is typical for what I would consider to be a true “old age” death. 7 to 9 is a common range. WLs seem to regularly live the longest but, still, not often past 10-12. ASLs seem shorter-lived than WGSLs (maybe something to do with Lance of Fran-Jo appearing no fewer than 4 dozen times on any ASL pedigree?), though there are a fair number of Sieger studs dying in middle age, it seems. A major cause of death is hemangiosarcoma, for which there is no genetic test nor young-age signs. Hemangiosarcoma comes on lightning fast with most owners not noticing a thing until the dog collapses. Sometimes you’ll get a sign and start treating a few weeks before but by then it’s too late.
GDV is a notable one especially in the show lines; getting Quest and Dare’s stomachs tacked is a solid idea. My family lost one WGSL cross to bloat at 2, though his brother lived to 13.5. Bony, opaque-eyed, hardly mobile, and half-incontinent, but sharp as a tack upstairs. Knew all the comings and goings around the property, quietly educated the young Lab puppy who saw him as the Messiah, and was utterly devoted to us to his last day. Folks couldn’t believe how long he lived when I told them – “I’ve never heard of a shepherd living that long”… not great news. Makes you gaze wistfully at the English Shepherd people. Even their 100-pound Maremma x Pyrs seem to beat us out.
I’m surely not anti-purebred dog, and I don’t think show breeders are evil or unethical, for the most part. But the current system is not serving the dogs or the owners well. Something has to give. Whether it’s understanding the flawed belief of “pure blood” and allowing careful, thoughtful outcrosses rather than burning breeders like Gammonwood Mastiffs at the stake and shunning them forevermore, loosening show standards to allow for just a little more natural genetic variance, restricting overuse of sires and excessive linebreeding, only allowing healthy studs over [insert mature age] to be bred, radically altering the show structure to replace singular champions with groups of equally ranked selects, encouraging responsible “pet breeders” and not viewing breeding as a sport or competition to be won at the silent expense of other things, or just providing greater genetic education for breeders… something. Something.
With the thriving market for $3000 puppy mill Doodles and the way “Laboxer” and “German Shepsky” puppies fly off the shelves on Craigslist, it’s obvious that most of the modern puppy-buying population is not too hung up on “purity of blood”. Aside from attractive novelty and a misunderstanding of trait inheritance, there is a belief that these dogs are healthier, and while not necessarily true, not necessarily false either! As Average Joe whose beloved purebred Boxers all seemed to die around 9 of cancer, while your neighbor’s mongrels seemed bulletproof to 14, why would you not try to avoid the heartbreak this time and get yourself a cute little Laboxer? You also like Labs, and these pups are much cheaper than the Boxers too. Nobody is offering you education about responsible breeders doing health screening, and you & I know the responsible breeders’ dogs are not living much longer anyway. Maybe even shorter, per that Scottish Terrier survey that found BYB Scotties typically lived one year longer than the high-bred dogs.
If there is a desire to increase popularity of purebred and specifically conformation-bred dogs, it must be proven to the public that the dogs are worth their price tags, which must include greater or equivalent health and lifespan than Craigslist crossbreeds and rescue dogs – who often happen to make acceptable family pets, if not precision-matched and Puppy Culture raised. I don’t think PDE or any other media/movement is to blame here either, it didn’t air in the US and the ‘movement’ is rather self-contained. Teeny-tiny, really. Specialty doggy corners of the internet and dog event crowds don’t give you a good picture. It’s peoples’ personal experiences with dogs they owned or knew, corroborated by others with the same experiences. Often the high-bred pups are worth their price tags – I wouldn’t take an unscreened Craigslist GSD puppy if you paid me to – but there are other breeds where I would actually prefer to chance it with some farmer’s three-quarters litter.
I don’t think there are any statistically significant “lynch mobs” either. PETA people are far and few between. Rescue-only people and those with mistaken beliefs about dog overpopulation* are fairly easy to find, if only because they so readily identify themselves on their car bumpers and social media profiles, but they lack much power and, if my own observations in the pet services field are any measure, they do not outnumber those who instead buy Craigslist Labradors or Aussiedoodles from AmishPuppies dot-com. You get into a weird “huddled together in a cave” thing in isolated dog fancy communities. Rare individuals with no actual power, statistically insignificant social media posts, and unproven deeply troubling happenings (recently saw “animal rights people are posing as puppy buyers to assault breeders” with no source from an otherwise very sharp working breeder!!) get a silly amount of attention. “Us vs. them / they’re out to destroy us” themes. A few moms with neurotic issues probably are. Not enough to actually do anything.
*There is no dog overpopulation problem in the US, maybe save for some select low-spay rural pockets whose shelters are actually getting in pregnant bitches and litters regularly. Very few at this point. Overpopulation = too many born, not enough want for them. See kitten season. Puppies go like hotcakes, kittens do not. There is, however, an owner retention problem. This is why you mostly see untrained adolescents and young adults of high-energy breeds. They wanted the puppy. Got the puppy. No resources on training him. Ruins the house. No community outreach. Shelter by 18 months. Maybe older if they put him in the backyard, shelter after he escapes or they have to move. Probably get another puppy after that, small breed this time.
I often do recommend rescue dogs over puppies to novice owners, but *specifically* those in rescues, not shelters, who have been in a foster home for some time, and at least 4 years old with no temperament issues. Breed-specific rescues are often pretty neat, lots of support and counseling for adopters. Behavior in the shelter gives you such a poor idea of anything, and the return policy is terrible. And, yeah, breed selection is lacking in most of them, along with volunteers who have little idea of pit bull background nudging people who also lack the knowledge. Not that they all end up being hot or dangerous towards other dogs, not by a long shot, but the consequences are so serious if they are and the owner doesn’t know what to watch for and what to do, that it is irresponsible to adopt them out without providing at least a pamphlet or something. Some nice little “intro to the breed”. “Lovely human companion, not a dog park dog, avoid same size housemates, watch for lunging and staring, crates and muzzles are good, spring poles are fun, here’s how to break up a fight”. Of course, that would probably get somebody crucified by the “nanny dog” crowd.
I wish the dog world would actually work together to help dogs, against things which are undebatably problems. Education on identifying puppy mills and brokers, responsible ownership, getting dogs off chains, providing various resources like socialization and training info, medical info, IDs, supplies, rehoming a dog, dog bite prevention, spaying, what have you. “Bipartisan” issues, if you will. But, no, the rescue-only types will assert the hobby breeders are the problem and probably refuse to work with them while not acknowledging where most puppies actually come from and the truth on dog “overpopulation”, which stares them in the face every time they walk the shelter row – but I have to be fair to them, I didn’t recognize either of these things until they were calmly and compassionately explained to me in detail, and of course, it clicked immediately. And the rather large sect of breeders who suffer from echo chamber hysteria will assert that “AR crazies” are trying to bring an end to all dogdom (the few irrelevant PETA freaks are, but they are not equitable to rescue people, nor to those concerned about health and welfare issues in pure breeds). Muddying the waters for the general population, the two major and largely trusted animal orgs, ASPCA and HSUS put out some bullshit from time to time that is patently false (bait dogs, euthanasia statistics) or punishes good breeders (overreaching “puppy mill bills” which could have been good, painting breeders in a poor light with “adopt don’t shop” etc, “meet both parents” sentiments), and the remaining “dog’s champion”, the AKC, refuses to recognize any problems in anything from puppy mills to breed health, nor support hobby breeders over mass producers or do much of anything to help buyers identify where to go. The Average Joe dog owner is left in the middle and will probably never get engaged in any of it. If he does, he will almost undoubtedly end up buying into some untrue but convincing garbage from one “side” or the other. No real educational outreach is made to him; his dog came from a puppy mill or someone’s garage; maybe his dog ends up on the path to the shelter or to biting somebody because nobody talked to him and told him how to train it. Everybody was too busy browbeating “bad owners” with no resources, moaning and groaning about “bad breeders” while not reaching out to them or their potential buyers, taking a “not my problem” stance or handwringing about apocalypse scenarios against their breeding kennel. And everybody suffers. Mostly the dogs.
It’s hard to find nuance anywhere. I love breeds of dog, a select few especially. I love what breeding can do. But I don’t love unscientific breeding, I don’t think sacred “pure breeding” or a laundry list of too many intense conformational desires is the best thing for our dogs. So I’m not welcome in that community. I love dog rescue and community outreach. But I also appreciate solid breeding and wanting a puppy of a certain breed, I don’t think hobby breeders or mostly-broke “bad owners” are the problem, and I don’t think Bull-and-Terriers are genetically the same as Golden Retrievers. So I’m also the enemy over there. And never mention that population dynamics dictate castration of male animals has no impact on number of litters born. That bit will actually get you castrated, even though it could save doggy orgs some serious funds. “Either you’re with us or you’re against us” reigns supreme in any group. And as with many portions of society, science and logic must be left at the door.
On your “I just want to hate anyone with a better dog than me” comic – I really don’t think this sort of thing helps anyone. To somebody who genuinely thinks the show GSDs must have a painful problem with their hips, is worried about them and would never want to own one (or perhaps did own one who happened to have HD!), it just makes a person sound like they’re off their rocker and perhaps teen-aged. I see it too much. The only way to get any sort of change in attitude with this kind of thing is calm and compassionate dialogue with your sources cited. Be understanding. You know what they think they’re seeing, you know the correlation = causation assumptions, you were there once, and it’s deeply troubling.
Came to leave a comment, saw that it was already written up, much more magnificently than I could have managed. Kudos.
“No dog of any breed can do well as a show dog, even if it has stellar type and movement, if its temperament is terrible.”
Dog shows are one specific context, and dogs can learn to behave in that context but still not be good pets for John Q Public. And sadly I know of breeders who show dogs successfully, but still produce shit puppies that are nightmares for their buyers. My own two purebred dogs, both from show breeders, have temperament faults that would have made them difficult for novice owners. I’m not saying that show breeders don’t ever produce lovely puppies, but I’m skeptical of it being presented as the simple answer to the problem.
“And sadly I know of breeders who show dogs successfully, but still produce shit puppies that are nightmares for their buyers.”
100%. Too many, especially in select breeds – herding and working/guarding are common offenders. Can’t always stave off nature with nurture, well raised pups still end up nightmares, but I’m now unwilling to recommend any breeder who isn’t doing stimulation work in the nest and introducing a few dozen people before 8 weeks. There are some breeds where I will actually uphold the usually silly “meet both parents” because seeing temperament from the stud is so crucial. Thinking about all your foreign mastiff types.
I appreciate the “general impact” though – I had a woman who was absolutely dead set on a Great Pyrenees for her family. No amount of education on LGDs and presenting alternative breeds would convince her otherwise. I was grateful to be able to direct her to a long-running show line of the breed that the breeders weren’t using for farm work.