Steve

People are buying or receiving as a gift goods - puppies - dogs and not taking responsibility for them. No one really knows how many dogs per dogs bred are landing with people who are irresponsible and the numbers of purebreds per cross breeds ending up in pounds may be about nothing more than the fact that a lot less purebreds are bred than cross breeds. I can tell you right now I work my heart out trying to cover it all, educating and screening the potential buyer, saying no more often than yes to a home for one of the dogs I breed, I work at staying in touch and offering all manner of support and care and now and then I still end up with a bad ending. Now in 35 years of breeding I know there have been 4 instances where the owners have decided they no longer want the dogs - that's horrible but its also pretty good odds - I reckon its about one in a hundred that go wrong might be vastly different for different breeds and different breeders. So how do we know what the odds are of a pet shop selling a puppy and the new owners turning out to be baddies, how do we know how many people [what percentage] who take a mongrel bred by their neighbour chuck it it? We know registered purebred breeders in Australia breed less than 10% of all the puppies bred per year so surely in Australia we expect to see less purebred dogs being dumped. Is it because people are able to predict the behaviour and management easier of a purebred or is it because the same amount of rats take purebred dogs per dogs bred as they do non registered dogs? The concept of guaranteeing and animal has become popular but not realistic - its like asking a human fertility specialist to guarantee a child - its a living being. You can guarantee it doesn't have PRA or another recessive if you do a DNA test for it etc but what do you want the guarantee to cover ? Lets look at Sharpei for a minute - a purebred yet owners dump them in the hundreds .Is it the breeders who breed faulty goods, is it the breeders who breed too many of them, is it the people who take them and promise to care for them and own them and love them no matter what and then chuck em away , is it lack of education on the part of the breeder or lack of education on the part of the owner? Are the breeders of Sharpei most likely to be dumped most likely to be registered with the CCs or breeding them un papered are they most likely to be breeding them with approvals or without them, are they screening their puppy buyers or selling the pups off to pet shops? What role does rescue play in it all and what are the intended and un intended consequences of rescue intervention ? How is the solution required to stop the numbers of Sharpei being dumped differ from a solution for stopping a beagle being dumped or a mongrel being dumped ? Would making everyone who owns a pet Sharpei have it desexed impact at all on the numbers bred or dumped? If so how much impact ? Who breeds them , who dumps them and why - if we launch a huge campaign to educate potential owners of the facts about what they may have to live with if they take a Sharpei prevent people from buying them and then feeling they cant live with them? Would making laws and enforcing them to ensure breeders are screening and educating their potential owners impact at all? Do purebred registered breeders have less un happy customers per numbers placed than any other breeder breeding this breed? So many questions - different for each geographical area and breed or part thereof and while ever we try to make laws to deal with a perceived problem based on assumption and false data generically it will take us nowhere positive for the welfare of dogs or the numbers dumped.

Well I believe this to be part of the problem and if you want a clear view of this take a look at Victoria - way over regulated to a point of craziness - anyone who owns more than 3 fertile dogs has to be licensed and it has more puppy farmer activity, more large scale commercial breeding, and it hasn't done a single thing to stop dogs being dumped or Euth. They even have a code on the table which looks like it will get in where they will be giving the nod for people to have over 100 per person on their property! If you don't do something to interrupt the demand then people will continue to breed dogs and if you continue to make life difficult for small breeders and make them get licenses and spend loads of money to breed a litter of puppies they will leave and the demand will be taken up by large scale commercial breeders and dodgy people who do what they want underground. Educate the public to only buy from licensed breeders? Go and have a good look at the places you will be educating them to buy from in Victoria. No one who really tries to find homes for puppies has any difficulty in doing so - rescue even fight over puppies and pregnant dogs because they know they are in higher demand If you really think any system is going to be able to blame a breeder for what happens to a dog after it becomes someone else's property time to re think the plan because it wont ever happen. The situation we are in as dog lovers in the year 2013 - if we care about dogs in general and not just our own is far more complicated that picking a part of a perceived problem and isolating one group as the cause and making regulations and laws to change it. There are always un intended consequences and while each group works in isolation seeing one other group or another as the enemy it will always be like this. We don't even know the facts because no real stats are kept and its all about anecdotal perceptions and stories which are often exaggerated and sensationalized and each geographical area is different with different social and regulatory impacts. There is so much mythology and assumptions made that its become almost impossible to have an open debate or realistic converstation of the real issues and possible solutions - too much ego and power and money and blame to really deal with whats best for the dogs into the future.

I don't think this is right - not in SA anyway. Depending where you live - you can burn rubbish on your place - or not. Own more than two dogs, or not. Have horses or not. Have chooks or not. Build a granny flat - or not. Put solar panels on your front verandah or not. Park a car in the street - or not. etc etc. This is correct & thank goodness. At least we can choose to live in an area that suits our needs & is suited to them. Awful if it was all the same. Backyard burning is not ok in suburbia but very handy in the country. Keeping 10 dogs is not ok in a suburban house with neighbours close but is fine on acreage & roosters in suburbia would drive everyone crazy. I like SA organised the way it is & hope it doesn't change. It seems sensible to adapt the rules to suit the environment rather than just have a rule regardless of any sense. Local governments can make local laws considered necessary for the good government of their districts. Laws can only be made when authorised by the Local Government Act 1995 or other written laws but cannot be inconsistent with any State or Federal law. Which is why there is a push on to make it all state law, for those who live in shires where there is mandatory desexing and the state laws do not have mandatory desexing do you know of any person who has been fined for not having their dog desexed AND if there were fined for not having their dog desexed and they didnt desex would they be fined over and over again for not having their dog desexed? Would their dog be taken from them because they refuse to desex it etc ? By the way the pending referendum is asking for local councils to be recognised by the constitution because at the moment they are not and Since the Constitution is the basis of our laws and it does not recognise "local government", it means that no local council anywhere in Australia has legal standing. In NSW there was a period where some shires were pushing their right to restrict how many dogs a person can have on their property and that was challenged because under state law there is no restriction. Currently some state laws cover things like vaccinating breeding animals yearly but if they were not state law no council could introduce that and because state law only mentions breeding animals they can never try to make people vaccinate animals which are not used for breeding. The point Im trying to make is where dogs are concerned your council can say anything they want but if it is inconsistent with state or federal law it means nothing - thus the heavy try at making it state law.

Dogs dont usually go for the ears so Im guessing the pony is most likely

A Maremma will do the job.

State laws take precendence and the local shire cannot make laws which are harder than state laws - because it means that one person in a state in one shire is more restricted and discriminated against than another in the same state - so what has happened in Victoria in this regard [desexing] is illegal - some of these councils have given exemption to MDBA members even though MDBA is not an applicable organisation in that state - yet. What this mob are after is to make it a state law and if they get that then it will be legal.

In areas where there is a breeder licencing/ permit scheme are there less large scale commercial breeding or puppy farmers? Are there less accidental litters ? No. <Are there less puppies being bred and less dogs being dumped ? No Take a look at the ACT data and you will see compulsory desexing has no impact on these things at all. Agree to a licensing system which treats someone who owns an entire dog in their back yard the same as someone who owns 100 dogs is proven to lead to advantage large scale breeding establishments. In Victoria it has led to some of the biggest large scale breeding establishments in the country. We see no real statistics on where dogs come from which end up in pounds or why they are dumped. The minute you agree to a licencing system it hands over your rights as a dog owner to the government and they can change the rules at any time which is currently being evidenced in Victoria. There are numerous documented potential negative health impacts when dogs are desexed at an early age and as a dog owner why on earth would you agree to not have the right to make informed decisions between you and your vet which you determine to be in the best interests of your dog? In case someone somewhere doesn't keep their dog confined [ which is already against the law] and there is an accidental back yard litter ?? Over regulation creates more problems and only those who do the right thing will comply anyway and then you give power to a qasi police force with no outside accountability to police them, give them more money and that will - do what? = more rather than less dogs suffering. Mandatory microchippping - good idea creates a higher chance a dog will get back to its owner but we all know it wont be policed and it wont be complied with by those most likely to be causing a problem - and it doesn't change any of the stats of dogs being dumped and makes it more likely breeders will place dogs via pet shops and dealers than personally handle the sales.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-22/moorook-animal-shelter-passes-latest-rspca/4835152?&section=news The Moorook Animal Shelter says it is pleased the RSPCA has raised no further concerns after a recent inspection. The RSPCA say it is satisfied with the conditions of the shelter and that no additional concerns or matters arose at the inspection. The shelter's owner, Lola McLachlan, is still to answer several animal cruelty charges after the the RSPCA removed a number of animals from the facility in March. Ms McLachlan's lawyer, Susan O'Toole, says the inspection report is a positive outcome. "It was a great sense of relief, so Lola's very happy that the shelter passed the RSPCA's inspection and she's looking forward to strengthening the relationship between Moorook and the RSPCA in the future," she said. She says volunteers from the community had been helping to improve conditions at the shelter. "I know that Lola McLachlan wanted me to express her thanks to all the wonderful supporters and wonderful volunteers that help her out at the shelter, you may be aware that the shelter is privately run, it receives no government funding at all," she said.

The pedigree has potential, but as used, it hides as much as it reveals. How I wish pedigrees were kept like human family trees, with records of year of birth and death. I would love to be able to select for longevity! The easiest thing to pick up from a pedigree, how many titles are behind a dog, is hardly definitive. It does tell whether the owners of a dog's ancestors entered their dogs in dog shows, and it will let you select for dogs that did well in both bench and field. It tells you nothing of a fantastic, healthy dog that was never entered in a show. It lets you see whether there has been line breeding or inbreeding in the last three to five generations. But it's hard work to extend that back to eight to 12 generations as required to get an accurate read on COI. If you want to find out whether the lines are prone to early onset cancer, epilepsy, behavioural problems, or other grave, potentially genetic faults, forget it. Btw, there are dogs that don't have the right look for the breed whose pedigrees are faultless. If you breed two solid colored Labradors who are heterozygous at the K locus, you can expect that around 1/4 of the pups will come out with mismarks, eg., some brindling or black and tan looks. The pedigree does not guarantee against recessive traits that occasionally get expressed through the lottery of genetic mixing. We now have a system which does exactly this and ads in all manner of data to be included in the pedigree - not just a pedigree or records kept by individual breeders but data which can be accessible to all those who come to breed dogs with that ancestry to utilise as a selection tool. Things such as what work a dog has done, test results, scores age at death,what they died from as well,any temperament issues, health issues etc including awards etc regardless of where they obtained them from and who recognises the awards. Because it would be too tricky and slow to build this data by only relying on breeders pet owners etc are also able to add information to build the pedigree picture.its taken the idea of estimated breeding animal systems used in livestock breeding to a different level because of what we as dog breeders need to select for.

To a pet person, first and foremost the pedigree is a guarantee that they are getting what they paid for. That is a purebred pup of identifiable parentage. Some who chose to buy a pup without papers are not so lucky. I've seen a few BYb "Whippets" that clearly aren't. I agree with this too but I dont think they are concerned with the details past that Mum and Dad were purebreds and their pup is therefore predictable.

I agree - people who are looking at a potential breeding dog or show prospect may be more interested but they are definitely in the minority.

Part of it all is identifying the market. That's different for different breeders and different breeds. I prefer to place my beagle puppies in pet homes way over a show home. Therefore most people who will own my beagle puppies are interested in being able to see the puppy's family tree and be provided with a birth certificate but they are not likely to be looking at knowing the bloodline to judge the product, risk factors for breeding it and its chances of winning a championship in the conformation ring. Very few of them care whether the puppy has champion parents or whether there is a long line of champs in the bloodlines. My website focuses on information about how best to manage them as pets and photographs of the dogs I have placed with the families they live with. I sort of mention a bit about the champs Ive bred ,in conformation, obedience and agility and why I breed papered dogs and why the breed standard is important in my selection process but the main thing I show them is the success rate Ive had with making families happy with me and the dogs they have taken. They do want to know broadly in my Maremma what my dogs bloodlines have done and do and whether Im specialising in working ability or pets. People who are buying dogs to protect stock generally want to know that the parents have been successfully working and they show more interest in that than those who are looking for a Maremma as a pet. Inone of my stud dogs every single dog in his pedigree for 7 generations is a conformation champ but they still worked and I dont ever even mention this about his bloodlines when Im speaking about him. My puppy buyers are much more interested in my record of breeding well tempered healthy dogs and having good relationships with my puppy buyers with very few of them interested in the intricacies of how Ive selected for that in my bloodlines. Clearly breeders who have a website with a focus on their show dogs or agility champs etc are looking at a different target market than I am.

Recognised/identified parentage - birth certificate.

Personally I think its covered by predictability - knowing the ancestry and using the information from history increases the ability to predict everything about the dog.

In order to go further with this tell me what you mean by quality?

Yeah write an article and give advice on what breeds are best then moan about the fact they are bred - just goes to show you cant speak logically to an illogical person.

Id also like to say that the fact that we cant have a discussion about how we should market ourselves and our dogs and collectively join together to discuss the great things about us and what we do and how to market that more effectively without having to also get caught up with the negative perceptions and defending what is supposedly wrong with it all speaks volumes. How can breeders ensure they produce a better product isn't the same as how they should market the product they are currently producing.

Just my thoughts, Steve. But I think the demand in the p/b breeding world will always tend to outweigh supply. For the very reason that it's a niche world where the major goals are not connected with making commercial gains. It's not based on 'number of units' produced.... but on quality in breeding & raising dogs according to standards and being in communication with others, via showing & breed activities. Those goals need to be spelled out, via public relations & education.... with the rider that a purebred dog can be worth waiting for. For all those good reasons. Be assured that the pet-buying public.... who's done their research.... welcome registered breeders who are proud to describe the high standards they work for, with their dogs. Setting out what they do... & why. I've found that registered breeders websites... & their notices on places like Dogzonline, are increasingly spelling out what they believe & what they do. When these breeders are telling the unvarnished truth, they deserve bouquets not swipes. :) I'm forever sending pet owners to read some of them, so they can see the special features of what is a niche 'market'. And always will be. Yep I agree

Except your example ignores the fact that the phrase includes the word primarily. If a breeder is breeding for the purpose of bettering the breed then their primary focus has to be on nothing else as their first priority in their breeding program - nothing within that constitution puts greater importance on anything else. If the primary focus for ANKC breeders has to be what is best for the breeds then how can it be possible for them to have making a profit as a primary focus? Like it or not this is the defining difference between a purebred breeder and any other - no matter what they have to consider future generations and not just the one litter they are producing today. There is a definite need to consider how someone interprets and defines what is better for the breed and I think many have it wrong but its still about that higher goal and always will be. Now Ive also seen all of the stuff you cite as it was part of the research we did when we were putting together the MDBA policies etc and I agree it may have been worded a different way based on that psychology but I believe the negative aspects of a breeder potentially making a profit is fueled by anti puppy farm propaganda. My major criticism of the ANKC and various state CCs is that they have changed their rules to suit what they thought would make them look better rather than what was based on science or the long term best for their members and their dogs and breeds etc. They have determined that changing those words and some of their regs would make them appear to be doing everything animal welfare said they should and in fact they use it as part of how they market themselves - which is partly why I dont think we should leave it up to them or not yell a lot at them and let them know how their changes impact on the future.

Yes my focus is on PR and education and part of that is marketing what we do and the dogs we breed to a wider audience not primarily for a financial gain but for a primary gain for the breeds and the future of the purebred dog and the people who breed them. Except if we dont have any puppies to sell and our demand far out weighs our supply who is going to be motivated to market purebred dogs in general? If I have 6 puppies and they are all sold before they are born or very soon after , I only have a litter every year or so and I dont need to advertise or tell everyone how great I am and my dogs are in order to continue what I do and find homes for my puppies - and if I do someone is likely to take a swipe at me - who is going to do the job?

Only if you make em fat Love the way the article is about what breeds are best for families then the clanger - a lab or a lab cross Cross what cross kelpie? Wont even go near the training needed or the attention required to temperament on the part of the breeder - idiots.

Corvus - I could have used any example but I think you are a pretty smart cookie and know that. Marketing is about promoting the positive things about a product which you feel would be most important to your target market .Its about exposing the product and making those who were un aware of it, how they can get it,what the positive things are about owning it and living with it . When Don Burke struck out about 15 years ago and told everyone about the positive aspects of buying and owning a first cross dog he didnt take any time to discuss the possible negative consequences. To the wider audience and about what we do and what we produce we don't need to either - though up close when the potential puppy buyer is in the process of talking with the breeder is the time to educate the potential buyer on the needs of the dog and the possible health problems etc People who have purchased cross bred dogs are in the main great dog owners and yes potentially one customer is as good as any other and the breeder's screening process and information shared are in place to lower the risk of someone buying one of their puppies who they believe are better suited to another dog or another breed. Customers who purchase a dog via ads such as gumtree are not potentially lesser customers because they saw the dog advertised somewhere other than dogz. If you go back to the McDonald's example if I want to talk about the effort I have to go to in order to eat at a gourmet restaurant, the planning, reservations, parking, time, expense, the possibility that one now and then is dodgy and gets busted by the health department , recycles their wine, over cooks their food ,has E coli in their salads etc there is little difference. I want to tell everyone what a great thing it is to own a purebred dog and what the advantages are just as there are dodgy restaurateurs there are dodgy breeders but when Three Chef Hats a fine dining place in Sydney market themselves they talk about the awards they have won, their great customer feed back and don't rattle on and get caught up with how some others don't do it right. Now we could talk about how it got to a point where we stopped promoting ourselves and our dogs and what may be wrong with some breeders,some methodology and even some breeds - different topic which would be great to chat about - but the fact is the people who used to promote purebred dogs, have stopped promoting purebred dogs, the people who used to feel proud of what they do have allowed the marketing of people who want to talk about the perceived negative things about us and our dogs to have the field and we have gone home and hidden under the bed. We need more purebred breeders, more people who get it , who are passionate about how the decisions they make and the goals they work to can change the quality of life and impact for generations but in order to bring new people in we need to promote what we do and all of the wonderful things it brings to our lives, people who want to breed dogs and increase the gene pools and the level of marketing for their breed and purebred dogs in general not simply those who see it as a quick way to make a buck. When I say we need more breeders I hear "No thank you, I dont want more people breeding MY breed, I dont want MY breed to become more popular look what happened to ....... But thats not what Im talking about we need to help people who might want to breed purebred dogs to understand that its about much much more than money , speak with them, educate them and screen them, help them and the rest of the world see what a wonderful opportunity it is to be a purebred breeder.

O.K. You're right please accept my apology - I must have misunderstood. So go slower. When you say quote I am saying they don't address the main, negative perceptions already out there,and that I firmly believe they are a direct result of those rules. That only changing those rules will remove those perceptions. When you say things like this what do you mean? What perceptions, what rules ?

I agree with the fact that some people who are not geneticists are uneasy about line breeding, personally am more concerned about selection than line breeding. Basic fact of life is that line breeding is what we as pedigreed purebred breeders do - without it there would be no individual breeds and it can be used as a great tool to eliminate or avoid genes that make dogs sick. If you have dogs which cant breath its about what you have been selecting for not how closely they are related. From a marketing perspective - some people who are not nutritionists are concerned about the lack of nutrients in McDonalds but that hasnt impacted too much on their ability to sell their product. If we are still talking about marketing what some people who are not geneticists think shouldnt stop us from promoting the great things we do or the joy our product can bring to a human life.

But having different groups makes it black and white - the codes,rules, regs of each one define what the group believes is ethical. I understand what you are getting at in general terms of ethics and individuals but this discussion is based on Moosemum's feeling of needing to take sides between accepting or not accepting those ethics. Neither is necessarily right or wrong but each of us has to determine what fits best with our own personal ethics and either be part of a group or not.