In the latest article from The Happy Puppy Site, we look at whether pedigree dogs are inbred and why it matters. The Truth About Purebred Puppies tackles the important issue of how inbreeding dogs is affecting our pets.
I very much enjoyed this article. I've also been reading lots more, from the institute of canine biology. As a result, I'm having a MASSIVE problem committing to buying another pedigree dog. I want to do the right thing, and I also want a dog that has a good chance of being healthy. I cannot find a breeder that is talking about these issues. I can barely find any that seem to have checked what the CoI of the puppies will be.....standard health tests yes, but finding a breeder that is talking about these wider considerations, and how their breeding programme fits with them - I'm struggling. That's not to say I haven't been in contact with some breeders that seem much better than others, and my search goes on...
I don't even know that, @Stacia! I had made up mind my not to get another Labrador, and decided on a cocker spaniel, but then I couldn't live with the high CoIs in cocker spaniels, they are worse in working cockers, and...well....then back to Labradors, and working Labradors - no, I can't find one I like, so back to show Labradors....and on I go....
I agree with most of the things. But back in history, inbreeding was the way to get a ,,breed,, or to mate dogs who have the characteristics people needed. Back in the old days there was no dog that had no purpose. Looking from a breeders point of view, I pretty much agree, because I dont like how the this breeding is happening. We have a lot of breeders but only few are real ones, that tent to have one to two litters per year. And I consider them to really know what to do. Others you can identify them by using the most popular stud, mating their bitches without knowing why they choose him( one thing is he is popular ) When it comes to health... I dont really agree that mix dog are healthier that purebreds. Why? Well I think that in a pure bred, a certain disease has been identified. And in mix dogs, you can not always identify the breeds and thus you cant know what he might get... The fact is that, breeding dogs has become one big business, and I hate it to be honest. I am trying to become a breeders, but I love dogs, and I do not plan to live from the dogs. I am happy that I have a great profession and I tend to live out of it. Working with the dogs is just one of my hobbies.
I hesitate over the argument that we don't know what diseases are in mix breed dogs. Yes, that's true. But the logic in the article is that we are causing many more diseases in pedigree dogs by the closed registers - and this won't occur in randomly mixed dogs (it very might occur in just these single popular whateverapoo dogs (nothing wrong with them, just they may suffer the same was a pedigree dogs). Then we play "whack a mole" by introducing DNA tests, and excluding even more dogs from the gene pool - and we'll need test after test after test as more and more problems arise.
True. . I consider the inbreeding nowadays to be done only on purpose by breeders that dont really care or know anything about genetics. We have labradors on all of the continents and the possibility of getting closely related pedigrees without knowing its a big hard. Plus, there are a lot of breeders that will choose a ,,carrier,, dog as stud for his ,,clear,, bitch because those two are not even closely related. That is why I said, a lot of breeders, but few Breeders.
