Very desirable, very expensive dog breed

[Justicemom]

See, this is what gets me. If all your dog has achieved in its life is a) surviving to sexual maturity intact and b) being a "nice dog", why exactly do you think that you need to make more of him?

I'm not hung up on conformation titles. Heck, I'm not even hung up on titles from any kennel club - if you have a dog who's out there proving himself every weekend as a useful stockdog, SAR dog, or hunting dog, he's already achieved more than 98% of the dogs in the US ever will, and it's certainly worthwhile to consider breeding him. (You certainly don't have to, and it's still possible that you shouldn't, but having a dog that's done something beyond pooping and not biting the kids is a good start.)

I'll come out and be heretical and say that crossbreeding is not, in and of itself, necessarily evil. If you're breeding dogs for a specific purpose (stockdogs, SAR dogs, police dogs, hunting dogs), the paper doesn't matter. If there's genes over in another breed that could be useful to the purpose that a dog is being bred for, then why not use them? This is how breeds were developed for their "original purposes" way-back-when; as the work of dogs has changed over time, isn't it possible that careful crossbreeding would, instead of "dirtying" the breed, improve the dogs?

Of course, if you're just crossbreeding to make status-symbols for suburbanites (hello, Goldendoodle!), what's the point?

I do think that there's value in preserving certain breeds, even as their purposes change - look at Shelties. Very few people rely on sheepherding for their livelihoods in contemporary America, and sheep-farming in this time and place is vastly different from what it was in 19th-century Shetland. If you want a professional stockdog nowadays, you want a Border Collie-type dog, not a Sheltie. Sure, some people "do herding" with Shelties, and that's great, but how many are actually relying on the work of their herding Shelties for their livelihoods? Today's Sheltie has a very different job - usually as a beloved pet or, less often, as a hobby-competition dog. Is it really a terrible loss that Shelties are now bred more towards companionship than herding? I think not; herding (and the type of herding they were originally bred for) has been eclipsed by a vastly different type of work. We still breed for a healthy, sound dog that will be an active, long-lived family pet, and keeping the breed alive for that purpose is, I think, very worthwhile.

I do happen to agreed with you but I hold anyone who is breeding to the same standard.

Use excellent examples of what ever breed you have. Those with good structure, good temperment for the job and good health.

Have a goal in mind with what you are breeding for so you can chose an approriate mate. Educate yourself minimally about dogs, the breeds you are using and the issues of those breeds

and lastly remove any individuals for the gene pool that does not meet your standard or goals. Be responsible for every pup you produce to the day they die.

Most people who purposely breed crossbreeds do none of the above and care for only one thing making money and leave their puppy buyers to clean up the mess. Unfortunately some purebred breeders do this too. I would call neither of them a good breeder.

 

[ClantyreSheltie]

Its because people think mixed breeds are healthier that designer have so much interest.

It is of course a total myth. Every dog breed on the planet has some type of genetic problem. Combine two breeds with the same problem and you don' get rid of it. Some of the most unhealthy dogs I've known have been mixed breeds.

Well, I might argue that purebred dogs have been bred to the point of all those disorders that we have to test for. High inbreeding coefficients yield fun genetic disorders, then we scramble to find a test for it. High inbreeding coefficients are found in closed registry systems (AKC, CKC).

You are not going to find the high uric acid problem that dalmatians all have in mixed breeds, even in dal mixes. You will probably not find vWD affected dogs in the mixed-breed population. You probably won't find Collie Eye Anomaly in mixed-breed populations.

I think you are right, general illnesses are found across the board, no matter the breed. What I object to is the advertising by mixed breed "breeders" that the dogs are something they aren't (e.g. hypoallergenic, disease free, etc.)

What we are fighting is people like the breeder I know (not Shelties) who did a purebred breeding KNOWING that seizures, bloat, and severe autoimmune issues run close in the line. She decided to inbreed on that line. Two puppies died in the first two days, the other two are now undergoing testing for kidney failure, at 4 months old. She sold one, still has the other.

How about the Dalmatian Parent Club who REFUSES to discuss the cross to an AKC Champion Pointer they did 20 years ago to fix a major problem in Dalmatians. Those now healthier dogs are barred from AKC registration because of the parent club. The AKC is OK with registering the cross.

So it's hard for us to claim purebreds are healthier when people are deliberately doing breedings they know have a good chance of producing defects, and parent clubs would rather produce defective dogs.

/soapbox

 

[Caro]

I agree with what everyone is saying - I dont think the different views are actually that different.

We do have a problem here with BC/Kelpie and BC/Cattle Dog mixes getting Collie eye. And awful lot of farm bred Cattle Dogs are deaf. The RSPCA here is regularly dumped with the offspring of farm cross breeds. I agree that farmers should breed their good stock dogs, but there should be contingencies for the pups they dont plan on keeping. They either get dumped on the rescues or sold on to families who find they have a dog with stock instinct that they cant control and so still end up at the rescues.

With the poodle crosses, I dont know if its happening there but over here the breeders now have 'degrees' or 'pedigree' of poodle-cross breeding. Perhaps it is human nature to want to establish pedigree lines.

One of the biggest problems with indiscriminate breeding is indiscriminate selling. Have you noticed most of the dogs in rescue are not pedigree (well over here anyway).

 

[tofu pup]

I think your arguement is brilliant, though I'm not 100% in agreement.
1) Cross-breeding has a purpose. How else was a Sheltie or any other recognized dog breed developed? As you say, there is a huge difference between cross-breeding to produce a special trait and develop a new and recognized breed, and designer dog breeding (let me see if I can breed a purple cock-adoodle,malti-abrador that will fit in a ladies purse...

I think I'm not expressing myself as efficiently as I ought to... I do agree with you on this. However, a large and notable difference between crossbreeding to improve the breed and crossbreeding to produce "designer hybrids" is that there is no effort to develop labradoodles, maltipoos, etc. as breeds, or (on the part of the designer dog breeders) to breed better poodles and labs. The terminal hybrid is the desired end; the -doodles don't breed true (through theoretically they could, given enough selective breeding), and so the formula remains "buy a poodle + buy a labrador = labradoodle puppies". Why not make an effort to breed a better Poodle (less incidence of epilepsy), or a better Lab (less hip dysplasia, better temperaments) instead of just mixing the two together and touting the result as the ultimate family pet?

2) Personally, I would love Shelties to keep more of their herding aspects like the Borders and Aussies. I hope we don't breed it out of them entirely for the sake of a pretty ear or nice tail set.. It's that intelligence that makes them special.

But in order to keep the herding instincts, we need to 1) test for the instinct (AKC has a herding-instinct test, but I don't know how well it actually reflects a dog's ability - from what I understand, it's not hard to get) and 2) consistently breed for those instincts. Given suburbanization and the inaccessibility (for most) of sheep and herding trainers, this is a tall order.

Something else to think about: the "herding aspects" of the BCs and Aussies are precisely what make them awesome, highly-driven sport dogs but, for the average North American family, rotten pets. If Shelties had BC temperaments, I don't think I could live with them (because I know a BC would be a terrible fit for me). I agree that intelligence and responsiveness is a Sheltie trait to be treasured - there's no reason to dumb our dogs down - but the traits that make a great herding dog don't necessarily make a great companion dog, and I think the "companion dog" aspect of our breed is far more valuable.

 

[tofu pup]

How about the Dalmatian Parent Club who REFUSES to discuss the cross to an AKC Champion Pointer they did 20 years ago to fix a major problem in Dalmatians. Those now healthier dogs are barred from AKC registration because of the parent club. The AKC is OK with registering the cross.

That whole situation is ridiculous. They're actually having "how many angels on the head of a pin?" arguments about "breed impurity" resulting from a single cross done twenty years ago. (Plus it seems the detractors are still concerned that some nasty Pointer-related genetic disease will pop up from the single cross done twenty years ago.) Even to my highly-amateur eye, the "crossed" Dals look, well, like Dals, and the fact that they don't suffer from painful uric acid issues should make them worth registering in and of itself (given that every single non-crossed AKC-registered Dalmatian has the gene for high-uric acid concentrations).

 

[ClantyreSheltie]

This is one of those cases where I think the AKC gives the parent clubs too much control. At some point, I would like to see the AKC man-up and register the dogs, to hell with the DCA. Let them have fits and quit, and then get some reasonable people in there.

 

[tofu pup]

This is one of those cases where I think the AKC gives the parent clubs too much control. At some point, I would like to see the AKC man-up and register the dogs, to hell with the DCA. Let them have fits and quit, and then get some reasonable people in there.

Won't ever happen.

The AKC is too busy embracing a libertarian do-what-you-will politic to save itself. Want to breed Bulldogs that can't breathe? Go for it! GSDs that crawl around like crabs? Be our guest! Flatcoats that keel over from cancer at age five? We'll cheer you on! Stepping in and standing up for canine health* is not an AKC priority.

Meanwhile, the general public scratch their heads and can't figure out who the good guy is, the AKC continues to hemorrhage money, and the whole boat continues to sink.

*Unless you count the big-ticket Canine Health Foundation, which pumps millions of dollars into academic research on cures for the genetic diseases that inevitably crop up when gene-pools are very small. Here's a great example: while the DCA is pretending that normal-uric-acid Dals don't exist, they'd like you to participate in a study that investigates possible "treatment options" for stone-forming dogs. Treatment is great, but wouldn't it be preferable if breeders had the option of breeding away from stone disease?

 

[BarbV]

I think I'm not expressing myself as efficiently as I ought to... I do agree with you on this. However, a large and notable difference between crossbreeding to improve the breed and crossbreeding to produce "designer hybrids" is that there is no effort to develop labradoodles, maltipoos, etc. as breeds, or (on the part of the designer dog breeders) to breed better poodles and labs. The terminal hybrid is the desired end; the -doodles don't breed true (through theoretically they could, given enough selective breeding), and so the formula remains "buy a poodle + buy a labrador = labradoodle puppies". Why not make an effort to breed a better Poodle (less incidence of epilepsy), or a better Lab (less hip dysplasia, better temperaments) instead of just mixing the two together and touting the result as the ultimate family pet?



But in order to keep the herding instincts, we need to 1) test for the instinct (AKC has a herding-instinct test, but I don't know how well it actually reflects a dog's ability - from what I understand, it's not hard to get) and 2) consistently breed for those instincts. Given suburbanization and the inaccessibility (for most) of sheep and herding trainers, this is a tall order.

Something else to think about: the "herding aspects" of the BCs and Aussies are precisely what make them awesome, highly-driven sport dogs but, for the average North American family, rotten pets. If Shelties had BC temperaments, I don't think I could live with them (because I know a BC would be a terrible fit for me). I agree that intelligence and responsiveness is a Sheltie trait to be treasured - there's no reason to dumb our dogs down - but the traits that make a great herding dog don't necessarily make a great companion dog, and I think the "companion dog" aspect of our breed is far more valuable.

I think we are violently agreeing! I reread your original post, and admit that my eyes skipped over a line or two on the first read.

And you're quite right....I could not live with either breed - I'm far too lazy. I just don't want Shelties to ever lose the fundamentals.

 

[missjenneygirl]

On the topic of AKC registering the Dals, it was reported in Dog News, as an article, and then as an Editorial.... Two of the people involved in the decision were long time Dal breeders, vehemently opposed.

 

[seashel]

With regards the dalis, if my memory serves corectly a lady has imported two of these pointer bred bitches into the UK and the dali club were not happy but I think the KC has overruled and providing a couple of Ch show judges say they are conforming to breed standards then they get registered. Any progeny will have 2 * for the fist generation and 1* for the second and third and on generations will be registered as norm.
It's all calmed down now.

The general discussions in this thread are still making big waves here in the UK following a certain TV programme.