DUH Duh duh

Message #147 of 148

Many of us dog people agree, dog shows are detrimental to the future of dogs.

Inbreeding has long been known for its detrimental effect on plants and animals. That is well documented. Many show breeds of dogs are inbred.

In some breeds all the dogs can trace back to the same few founding dogs of that breed. After WW2, some breeds were reduced to a very small number of dogs.

Dog breeds can become inbred through the over-use of popular sires. Breeders often use a polygamous method of breeding dogs. That's a keystone of eugenics - the male judged "best" gets to be the mate of many females, while males judged as of a lesser quality, seldom or never get to have be the father of any puppies.

Female dogs rated superior may be forced to have litter after litter, while female dogs rated as of lesser quality may never have any puppies. Sometimes females who are judged lesser quality, might be bred, but their puppies are killed at birth, so the 'lesser' female will have milk, and will nurse more puppies from the female rated as superior.

Feelings aside, there are real problems with this system, AND WE NEED TO WORK ON FIXING THE PROBLEMS IN DOG BREEDING.


First: the animals rated superior might not be superior at all. Talent may not even be judged, and cuteness is not the same as good health.

When people rated animals by how well they did a task, the system seemed to make sense. But more than a hundred years ago, dog shows started having dogs enter a ring and trot in a circle, the judge would watch them all trot, look at them as they stood in a line, then briefly look at each dog as it stood on a bench or table.

Then the judge would announce which dog was the best of it's kind of terrier, spaniel, hound dog, herding dog, greyhound, or small pet dog, etc.

"How" you might ask, "Can anyone judge which dog would be the best dog with children, the best at herding sheep, the best at fetching dead ducks, the best at holding onto a bull's nose, or best at anything - by watching a dog stand and trot around a little ring?"


I will let you in on the open secret "Nobody can."

If people could, would the English Bulldog, whose job is to catch and hold onto a bull's nose, look like it does? Can you show me video of even one show champion English bulldog catching and holding a bull? Out of the whole world can you find me one (ONE!), breed typical English bulldog catching and holding a bull?

The terrierman (terrierman.com) who actually uses his terriers to get rid of groundhogs (a large American rodent), on his farm, says that many of the show terriers are bred too large to fit into the burrows of the animals they were bred to go after.

What good at getting rid of foxes are purebred fox terriers that can't fit into a foxhole?

Bird dogs are suppose to have the talent of pointing to birds on the ground, spooking birds on the ground into flight, and/or fetching shot birds. Before, bird dogs were judged on this talent.

Most dog shows now have no talent part. Dogs with no talent can win, because no talent is needed to get a show championship.

My own complaint is breeders producing the type of puppies they think will win at dog shows, then selling the puppies that the show breeders don't want as "pet quality".

For example, inherited blindness in collies. I have hung around show breeders of show collies who know that their female has the faulty gene, and when they choose a male to breed her to, they choose a blind male, with two copies of the same blindness gene.

And don't get me started on Dalmatian breeders. Their breed has a problem where they get (bladder) stones. One person, with permission from the overall club, out-crossed and produced healthy puppies that looked purebred, bred true for looks, yet didn't have the faulty gene. The breed club had his dogs de-listed. I understand his dogs are accepted with a different registry.

Rainmaker, do you know how many people have bought Dalmatian puppies only to have the dogs come down with this inherited disease???? If this isn't a fraud on the public, what is?

Documentation is there.

So can the dog show judge pick the best greyhound from a bunch of greyhounds in a ring? If so would the judge like to be my date while we go to a greyhound racing park, because with that talent, we should win our bets.

I have never actually inquired into the matter, but I doubt that dog show judges get rich at the greyhound parks, because I have found no signs that a dog's talents can be rated by watching him stand and trot in a ring.

And if you still believe that the show winning bloodhound tracks better than other bloodhounds - that the judge can look at these dogs and select the best tracker - then let me let you in on another open secret - the dogs entered in the show ring in America do not need I.D. - no microchip, no ear tattoo.

It is suppose to be an honor system. I got news for you - people cheat.

Second: not only are the dogs judged to be superior, not necessarily any better, the over breeding of the top show winners has increased the inbreeding co-efficient in dog breeds, and caused a complete loss of many genes, the genetic diversity lost can never be regained.


And on a practical level: the showing of purebred dogs has not increased their health or their usefulness. Plenty of people have been arguing the reverse for more than 40 years, and probably from the first dogs show, because it should have been obvious from the first bench show, that you can't judge the talents of dogs by looking at them.

Spoof Parody:Do you remember the Star Trek episode that they made into a movie? "Nomad, your prime directive is to destroy that which is detrimental to dog breeding. YOU are detrimental to dog breeding." Quick, Lt. Rainmaker, get him into the transporter. "Nomad, you are detrimental to dog breeding, execute your prime directive!"

Permission to cross post.

So we are facing the problems,
now how are we going to fix the problems,
before lemon laws pup some whole breeds out of existance?