dog poll

I'm not against dog showing as such, but I do strongly oppose breeding practices that promote unhealthy, unnatural dogs. When a dog is physically unable to perform natural canine behaviour, or is born with a near certainty of requiring medical intervention to rectify health problems resulting from its "breed standard" then in my book that's nothing short of abuse. Even in the working groups the show dogs are so far removed from any type of working ability. Could that 10 stone lab that won crufts a few years back manage a day on the Moor?
 
While i agree with all of the above, i'd say no gundog breeeds are really bred to un healthy extremes (possibly the clumber being only exception, droopy eyes) and if u buy a working strain then its not really an issue anyway.

While those 'big' labs would not be fit for a genuine day working it's surprising how some aren't actually fat but just bloody massivly built.

As for mongerals? When u cross a BMH and a lab do they actually look into the characters/strengths/weakness's of both sire and dam before mating or is it just the 1st dog of the correct breed?
Seen some very good lab/spaniel crosses over the years but both parents were decent working dogs anyway, buut breeding 2 **** dogs together is only going to produce **** no matter which random breeds u cross. Seen some truely horrendous lab/wire crosses too, would fight with themselves if no other dogs around to figh with


The biggest problem facing working strain dogs is in-breeding, which is a ridiculas thing to say for a population the size it is.
But far too many folk are breeding **** bitches to fashionable FTCH stud dogs so they can charge £££££ for the pups to folk that don't know the bitch.
Far too few stud dogs lining too many bitches, very hard to find a yellow/fox red pup in my area that is not out of 1 cracking dog within last 2 gens.

We seem to have lost the stocksmans eye for breeding dogs in this country which has been used for generations.
Really could go with going down a more german route where all dogs need to be health tested and pass working test before they are allowed to be bred with and someone plans the breedings so 1 stud cannot be use excessively.
But that will never happen as cost some folk a lot of money
 
I'm all for the pedigree system and health screening of all breeding dogs (pedigree or mongrel) - at least it enables folks to see what the pedigree blood lines are & the results of any testing. - You sadly can't do that with a mongrel.
I know that mongrels have a bigger gene pool, but they are not all free from defects & unfortunately can't be independantly assessed as there is no record keeping.
The pedigree / testing information is easily available online FOC for many breeds.
I have Golden Retrievers & there is an organization called Standfastdata that has it all for this breed. It helped me pick a great sire for Maxie my bitch without resorting to hearsay, hyped advertizing etc etc - the pups are fantastic dogs. ( I would say that, wouldn't I !)
If one intends to put years of training into a dog it really makes sense to go for one that is the result of proper pairing. Get the wrong one & it could easily get very very expensive due to remedial surgery etc.

Ian
 
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