This may be of interest to some and ring true to others.

http://www.caninechronicle.com/feat...milton_404.html

VickiT

What i find offensive is the comparison of breeders to the MAFIA,an orginization that is know for for murder,drugs,prostitution,gambling and other factors of organized crime.
The entire issue comes down to being resposible as a breeder and culling the dogs with apparent genetic problems from the breeding program.
It is those who have thousands wraped up in a dog that want to get some back so they breed anyway.I have given away dogs at the cost of thousands to me ,that were not correct for breeding,and i will never get back that loss.But i could never test for all the possible genetic defects that can and will occour in dogs. Some times as the article stated it takes generations for a problem to surface.I can only test the dogs that i have welped or come to me for breeding,i have no controll over the past generations,nor do i have controll over the pups unless i sell with a spay/nuter contract.
Now lets put part of the blame on the clients of pet shops and back yard breeders that buy dogs and then have litters so the kiddies can see the birth experiance or just to let little muffy have a litter before we spay her,these are the breeders as well as the puppy mills that should be the focus of the article not breeders in general.
There are plenty of responsible breeders out there that do not deserve the general lumping in of the article,although i find it humorus that she mostly singles out the conformation people and judges as the biggest part of the code and the problem

What did I miss? Evidently, there is a mass conspiracy within breeders and dog associations.

I think what we mave have here is not a code of silence, but a code of niavety. All canine so-called "breeds" are incredibly inbred. Might we remeber biology 101... All dogs are considered one species - lab, collie, GWH, mastif, etc. Many so called breeds we consider are likely not even sub-species, depending on your own definition. The personality, color, and otherwise morphological differences that we see come from hundreds, if not thousands of years of genetic bottlenecking. If anyone thinks that diseases or genetic defects are not present in most dogs, they are niave. The selection, inbreeding, of specific traits insures this.

"Omerta can only be broken by people who have the courage, conviction and passion to ensure that the breed as a whole becomes stronger and healthier"

The breed is not going to become stronger and healthier, especially with more inbreeding. Genetic defects are variations of the typical genetic expresion in the phenotype that add or detract from fitness. Selection of a smaller gene pool will likely do little positive for an individual breed.

Q.Why do mutts live so long? A. broader gene pool.

Not to shift responsibility away from breeders - just to disagree with the dramatic nature of the article. We should all be aware that genetic defects abound in dogs - some breeds select for them, that is what makes the breed what it is. Ending the naivety would go a long way with breeders, buyers, and the author of this article.

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"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everybody gets busy on the proof." J.K. Galbraith