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Amy current or past dog breeders on here?

zoo mom

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Now this is my opinion but if I get a dog it will be my dog. I could not possibly let the breeder take it back for several months. I also have absolutely no interest in breeding dogs. There are breeders who will sell dogs that don't meet show criteria. They make excellent pets and still the breed you wanted. I have had 6 Siberian Huskies. None of them were quite show quality. But they were/are all wonderful pets.
1. Crystal had a foot injury as a puppy which could have potentially caused her a lot of problems. Her mother was a show dog her father a sled dog. She was too big for show and the injured foot would eventually cause problems with pulling a sled.
2. Nicole was too leggy. Her legs were too long for her body.
3. Wolfgang was too short in the body from chest to rump.
4. Rosalinda could have possibly been show dog quality but the breeder had 3 litters close together and just wasn't taken with her so decided to sell her.
5. Suzanna was purchased from an owner not the breeder. She and her husband were moving to another country (I don't remember which one) and were going to be living with some of her husband's family and couldn't take her. She was 2 years old when we got her.
6. Michael was a rescue from a humane society several counties away from us. He was approximately 5 years old and had been in 4 homes in a 4 month period. He was a major escape artist and the families just gave up. When I called the humane society to ask if they would consider adopting out of the area. The coordinator said that they were going to be very picky with who they allowed to adopt him because of his history. After spending an hour talking with him he said if we got along with him we could take him.

The point of this is check rescues. Sometimes they get pure breds. Check breed specific rescues. Call several breeders. But I personally would run from that arrangement.
 

Destiny

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My older brother got his family's goldendoodle under a similar breeder contract. They got a cute little puppy for free, but had to sign a contract that basically gave the breeder complete control over everything until the dog had produced enough litters. They had a dog, but it wasn't really their dog. I never saw the actual contract, but they were expected to feed the dog a special diet that was approved by the breeder, couldn't allow her to get knocked up by any other dogs or else, and had to notify the breeder about any health issues.

Once the dog was old enough, they were responsible for bringing her back to the breeder to get bred. Once she was pregnant, they got her back for a while. Then when she was close to term, they had to bring her back to the breeder to have her puppies. The breeder would then keep the dog until the puppies were ready to wean and give her back. All of her litters were quite large, so after 3 litters, the breeder had got more that thirty puppies out of my brother's dog. Took about three years and a lot of car trips, but they finally own their "free" dog.

I asked him if he would do it again and he said hell no. It was hard on the dog, hard on his family, and the whole operation felt like a puppy-mill. Puppies for profit.

Personally, I would think twice before going into this kind of arrangement with a stranger.
 

Sparkles!

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My older brother got his family's goldendoodle under a similar breeder contract.
Oh look. One sentence is all that’s needed before Sparkle’s head explodes into fire…:extremeanger:

I’m always happy when any dog has a good family and is well loved. But ‘doodles’ of any ilk just suck for me and I honestly hate how they are made, marketed, and trafficked.
 

Shezbug

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I think it’s cruel and horrid tbh.
I would possibly feel a bit different about the contract thing if the dog stays with its true pack (as it sounds in the write up by sparkles) rather than being sent off to a new home and family throughout the whole traumatic experience.
I feel sad for any dog that is put through this switching back and forth of homes. It’s stressful to be abandoned by your living pack.
I think it’s horribly cruel to take on a dog only to hand it back to someone who essentially is a total stranger to the dog at an extremely stressful time of its life.
I never ever had seen the fear that one of my dogs went through while dealing with her first and only labor. She was terrified and obviously didn’t understand what was happening to her nor what these tiny squeaking wriggling things were. She settled soon enough but she was insistent on being by my side the whole time she was birthing- I’d hate to think how she would have felt with no one there for her or strangers going through what I allowed to happen to her.
 

Sparkles99

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zoo mom, I like the name Wolfgang for a Siberian husky. :) Totally off topic, but still.

Destiny, I'm sorry your brother & his family went through this. :(

Sparkles!, I like purebred dogs for their predictability (size, personality, etc.) and intend to own one one day, but closed stud books are a problem. People used to breed landraces. A good retriever was crossed with a good retriever. No one cared if it looked more flat coat or golden. They cared what it did, which I think having read your posts you'd also appreciate.

Too many breeds suffer from the founder's effect (this needs many exclamation points after it, in the case of canines. If you start with 25 dogs, no matter how many there are now, you just have the genetic material of 25 dogs - yes, some breeds are like that & worse), pedigree collapse, popular sire syndrome (since this thread is about spoos, someone should bring up the Wycliffe bottleneck for Momof3 to investigate), etc. Momof3, look up coefficient of inbreeding too; there's a program for spoos that'll really help you separate the wheat from the chaff in this breed. Every purebred dog is inbred to some extent, that's how they got to be so predictable, but some are worse than others, even in the same breed.

I don't breed or own dogs, but have studied some genetics. And looking at the Spanish Hapsburgs should also be required for anyone who thinks you can breed healthy anything indefinitely in a closed stud book manner.

So the "problem" with -oodle dogs isn't that they're crossbred, but that I doubt the parents of even a fraction of them have had the necessary health tests that have been increasingly required as generation after generation of dogs since the Victorian era were bred in artificially small genetic pools.

Victorians were really into their own "blue" or "pure" blood too. And they really refined eugenics (Yes, even otherwise ahead of his times Darwin was into this - so he married his first cousin). NOT whom we should be looking to to further enhance the health or well being of anyone.

Too much inbreeding over too many generations causes structural, health & immune system problems. Don't hate me. I love science, especially genetics & biology.
 

Sparkles!

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@Sparkles99

There’s a huge difference between inbreeding and line-breeding.

And remember, genetics works in the favor of breeding FOR health too.

I remember when genetic blood testing was in its infancy. Many were skeptical that it could tell us with certainty if a dog was affected by or was a carrier of an inherited disease. But the breeders who listened to science and technology, and bred accordingly in those early days, now have eliminated many disorders that used to be pretty common in many lines. Some breeders will breed a clear (meaning free of a certain defect) dog to a carrier (meaning has 1 copy of gene but does not exhibit disorder) dog: the puppies will all be carriers but will not affected by the disease/disorder because many disorders need 2 copies of a gene to be affected. Many breeders (like me) do not even touch carrier dogs. It’s not worth it in the long run. The technology is there to be able to only selectively breed the very best health dogs.

Which brings me to this: You said you don’t like closed books? Books are how we know who’s healthy and who meets desired breed standard. If I’ve worked all my life making sure my lines don’t have a certain disease, I’m not going to chance an outside dog not tested and listed in the books.

To ensure the best dogs possible, closed books and line breeding is very needed. A good breeder who knows what they’re doing and is breeding to improve the breed doesn’t breed Willy Nilly or just because they like the way the dog looks or how it acts. And, breeds certainly change over the course of time (not always for the better, looking at you brachycephalic can’t breathers). But I’m of the opinion that I would take a sky high COI pup from clear parentages any day over an untested out cross. But I don’t like my heart getting broken. I cry when one of my oldies dies at 14/15 even though that’s a good long lifespan. It’s absolutely gut wrenching to hear about some up and coming 4 year old dying of heart disease that could have been picked up on genetic testing and eliminated with ethical breeding.
 

Elysian

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This is weird.. I had NEVER heard of this practice until I read this post yesterday, then today I see a "whoodle" breeder offering the same kind of situation on Facebook!
 

April

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This is weird.. I had NEVER heard of this practice until I read this post yesterday, then today I see a "whoodle" breeder offering the same kind of situation on Facebook!
A whoodle? Is that like a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier/Poodle?
 

Chomskypom

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This is absolutely not relevant to the original post any more, but I’ve GOT to let my feelings out :angry101:

I’ve worked with dogs in various daycare and grooming setting for a pretty long time, and what I really need people to understand is that poodle mixes have BAD HAIR. They might be wonderful dogs in every other respect, I’m not trying to impugn anybody’s pet’s character or worth as an individual. But their hair mats and tangles so much worse than either parent breed. It’s SO much higher maintenance. It feels dreadful and cottony and has so much grip that it must pull terribly on the dog’s skin. There are lots of other wonderful nonshedding breeds if one doesn’t like the look or temperament of a poodle but really need that specific quality.

I think being reminded of the existence of “whoodles” awakened a rage-demon in me briefly :scared2:
 

April

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Yup, apparently.
Wow I just took a random stab in the dark
I was trying to think where the W would have come from,lol.
 

Toy

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I hate they are cross breeding everything with poodles. Poodle hair is just that HAIR. It's not like most other dogs coats. It's fine hair, like human hair, that is kinky/curly & mats easy. It requires a lot of constant brushing with a slicker brush & also combed. It must be sprayed with a detangler spray/coat conditioner or a mist of water during brushing/combing to prevent breakage during brushing/combing. It requires line brushing, meaning small sections at a time. It can take hours to brush/comb out a poodle in full coat & that's one that is not matted. A matted coat can take much longer. Hence the reason many poodle pet owners keep them shaved down. I groomed dogs for a good 30 plus years & most were poodles. The hair never stops growing, so it must be cut every 8-12 weeks. Usually faces, feet, base of tail, stomach & legs get shaved. Many assume if they breed whatever with a poodle it won't shed. What they don't consider is the change in coat & the constant need to brush & cut the coat.

Keeping with the original post....what that person is doing is running a breeding mill. Run do not walk.
 

NightOwls

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I could brush my havapoo and she would be notted again in a second. :banghead: we just keep her short nowadays...
 

Elysian

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I wanted it to be a whippet+poodle.

Wonder what those are called? Whipper-doodles?

...

Oh god. Some people call them poowhips! :facepalm:
I like whipper-doodle! Or.. Poppet! So much better than poowhip, what the heck.
Although that is better than shih-poo which have been around for ages.


But darnit now I'm looking at how cute those poowhips are even though I'm opposed to fad hybrids
 

aooratrix

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Co-ownership, as mentioned earlier, is used by quality breeders to keep a dog in their program genetically but to allow it a better quality of life in a home. Sometimes, they are shown, sometimes not. Some people don't practice it that way, but there are always people that abuse anything. What the moneymaker/puppy mills are doing is being called a "guardian program." I've been looking for a dog recently and have run across a lot of kennels that offer this "program" for a better life for the dog and a cheaper adoption fee for the family. This way, they can still get the puppies without having to care for the dog. They have a lot of control over "your" dog; she goes back to their place to be bred (or wherever they send you to get her bred); and she returns to them to have the litter. You may or may NOT be able to visit her, depending on their contract. I could maybe see doing one litter if I REALLY wanted the dog in question, but 1-3 is probably ALWAYS going to be 3. It's a lot, IMO.
 

Destiny

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I could maybe see doing one litter if I REALLY wanted the dog in question, but 1-3 is probably ALWAYS going to be 3. It's a lot, IMO.
After my brother's dog had her second litter of 10+ puppies, his wife suggested that the breeder might let them out of the contract early since the dog had already successfully produced so many puppies and the large litters were obviously hard on her. I tried not to laugh too hard at her naivety. Their dog was producing lots of puppies every time. Of course the puppy mill would want another batch of money-makers out of her.

Not surprisingly, the contract they signed was entirely for the breeder's benefit and they were going to get every one of those litters. The only time they got any slack was when the puppy mill was dealing with too many puppies at the same time, so they were told they didn't have to bring their dog in for a couple extra months.

I think these kinds of dispersed breeding programs are a way for puppy mills to continue operations now that laws are cracking down on people having too many dogs on-site. It is very sketchy business.
 

Sparkles99

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Sparkles!, if someone appears in your pedigree/family tree more than once, particularly within the last several generations, you are genetically impoverished - canine, human, whatever. If your pedigree can be traced back to 25 founding entries in the studbook, you're genetically impoverished. It doesn't matter that there are now 2 million of you so a standard pedigree wouldn't reveal this to a puppy buyer. There are consequences, especially for health, to genetic impoverishment.

Linebreeding is a form of inbreeding. Personally, I don't want to see it banned as I'd like to get a purebred dog one day, in the absence of an intelligently planned crossbred (like spaniel breed A x spaniel breed B with all health tests), for more genetic diversity, not a fad, or a landrace (but most people working with them seem to be into sighthounds & terriers - neither of which would suit me).

For anyone interested in these nuances & degrees of inbreeding, see these websites:



Genetic impoverishment cannot be fixed solely through health testing prior to breeding. Too many breeds are too far gone. It's pretty clear when a breed has reached that point (Bernese & flat coats - cancer at really young ages; Cavaliers - heart problems at really young ages; etc.). The more I investigate dog breeds, the more I wonder how many other breeds have to suffer before we change from a Victorian ideal. I like those breeds, though some wouldn't fit my lifestyle, but wouldn't own any of them.

I don't like closed books. No one with a genuine interest in & understanding of genetics would. You could health, temperament & activity (herding, retrieving, etc.) test prospective candidates for entry into the stud book, just like what was presumably done in the first place before they closed them. Just because someone closed it over a hundred years ago doesn't mean it needs to stay closed. Your breed is very split into field vs. show lines. Many breeds have become caricatures of their former selves. Unregistered dogs still doing the work they were intended for could help bring back a healthier morphology, better work ethic & much needed genetic diversification.

A good breeder needs to understand genetics, in addition to everything else. They also need to listen to all the science, including inconvenient science like I mentioned earlier & in this post.



Toy, that's very interesting information about poodle coats! Does their hair have a terminal length like humans or does it just keep growing & never fall out?!
 

Destiny

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Toy, that's very interesting information about poodle coats! Does their hair have a terminal length like humans or does it just keep growing & never fall out?!
Yes, just like human hair, poodle hair goes through cycles of growth. Old hairs stop growing and will eventually break or fall out naturally. However, it would take a very long time to reach terminal length .... and I am pretty sure the dog would be completely miserable, trapped in their own massive hairball, long before the hair maxed out.

Thinking about it reminds me of that lost sheep someone found after several years living in the wild. Just a mountain of matted wool with a mouth and hooves sticking out

australia_sheep_feat.jpg

Not a pretty sight.
 

Sparkles99

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I remember that story. So sad. Glad they sheared the poor sheep. If poodles are like that, they'd be a lot of maintenance!
 
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