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To educate the older owners of dogs I see a dozen or so of them at my vets office . i dont know what it is about older men but they just will not nuter their male dogs for fix their female dogs and my vet just shakes his head and says they need to be educated but some just cant or wont do it .im not saying all older dog owners are this way but a good 50% are at least in my town .
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The breeder I work with has NEVER made a profit from her litters. I would estimate that she loses $3K to $5K per litter (she breeds a litter every few years). Why does she continue to do this? Because she loves the breed and wants to further the development of the breed with healthy dogs.
I'll add some more WRONG WRONG WRONGS to that ..... because it just ISN'T TRUE for all breeders.
Believe it or not, some people breed out of love and passion for a breed and invest a whole lot more $$, time, and emotional energy into their dogs than they will ever get back (just one weekend at the show can set you back a couple thousand).
That said, there are plenty of puppymills and backyard breeders that do breed for profit and do not have the dogs best interest in mind. There are also non-breeders who resell dogs and unethical rescues that contribute to homeless, neglected pet problem. Oh and well-intended, yet mentally misguided, animal hoarders ... alongside the uninformed average pet owner. The list of who to "blame" for overpopulated dogs/cats goes on and on.
lots of views/replies to this post but no one has answered my question so I'll rephrase it a bit..
What would you as a breeder (or client of one) suggest we do with all the dogs CURRENTLY at the shelter?
as BMS335xi said in another post "it takes a true dog lover to adopt dogs...". Well there clearly are not enough of us out there so what should we do? I'm not asking what you personally should do, but as a society.
Build a big sanctuary? Spend more tax dollars and house them permanently in shelters?
Last edited by atina33; 04-15-2013 at 01:39 PM..
Reason: added last line
There is a limit to what one person can do about a problem.
Reputable breeders vet homes carefully, sell on spay/neuter contracts, and take their dogs back. All the parent clubs do breed rescue for their breeds and many of them will also take 1/2 breeds of their breed.
Many of the members in my local show dog club work as volunteers in the local shelter. My club does fundraisers for the local shelter. Some of the members foster mutt litters that are turned into the shelter too young to be placed.
Many people with purebred dogs also have a mutt that they have adopted.
But the dogs in the shelter are coming from irresponsible people who won't spay or neuter and won't take adequate care of their dogs. The show breeders have no control over those people or what they do.
Show breeders make a lot of effort to convince the public to not buy from pet stores or buy-it-now web sites because those are puppy mill dogs. But you can't put people into jail for not listening. The public wants convenience and instruction doesn't sink in. many of those pet store dogs are at risk of ending up in shelters. They are often impulse purchases and not well thought out. The pet stores don't screen buyers to see if they are suitable homes.
What can be done? Support very low cost spay neuter clinics. Many dogs are not neutered because the family can't squeeze the $200 out of the budget, so they put it off and then put it off again. Reduce the breeding pool as much as possible.
People who care about dogs, and that includes the show breeders have been putting a lot of pressure on pet stores to not sell puppies or kittens. That has worked, except that the puppy mills then turn to the internet and sell directly.
The problem is irresponsibility. The average citizen keeps getting more and more irresponsible and you can not legislate people into becoming responsible.
If you, OP, want to do something, organize a low cost spay neuter clinic and get busy raising the funds to run it. That won't eliminate all the unwanted dogs, bit it sure does help to cut down on the numbers.
No matter what they say there is only ONE motive for a breeder ---PROFIT.
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This has to be one of the most ridiculous and untrue things I have ever read on the entire internet.
Even if a person DID make a profit selling an animal, who cares. What are they supposed to be, some kind of financial idiot that goes into debt after working day and night for months and years? Some people seem to think that a reputable breeder is some sort of martyr that works their butt off, staying up day and night for weeks raising puppies just so they can be a puppy fairy who delivers new puppies to families for free, after investing thousands upon thousands of dollars into their dogs.
As for the shelter dog issue: Mandatory microchip that leads the authorities back to the dog's owners who dumped it. Once adults who think it is ok to dump animals realize that they cannot do it anonymously, and they must pay a fine, they would finally have some repercussions for their actions. They would either stop doing it, stop buying throw away animals, or the fines they paid would cover the expenses of the breeders and shelters who take them back to rehome them.
As for the shelter dog issue: Mandatory microchip that leads the authorities back to the dog's owners who dumped it. Once adults who think it is ok to dump animals realize that they cannot do it anonymously, and they must pay a fine, they would finally have some repercussions for their actions. They would either stop doing it, stop buying throw away animals, or the fines they paid would cover the expenses of the breeders and shelters who take them back to rehome them.
Sadly, I could foresee some people actually trying to cut the microchip out before they dumped their dog.
The answer is a tenfold increase in government regulations and pet ownership requirements, but it'll never be supported because blah blah "liberties and property rights" and other jokes. So millions of dogs will continue to be slaughtered every year due to human self-absorption, entitlement, and selfishness. Such qualities can be seen in some posters on this board, even, and in their hearts they don't actually care. The original question, OP, is a tiny drop in the bucket for the problem because there will never be enough adopters for all the abandoned dogs. Ever. The people who abandon almost always get more, just to dump them again. Most attempts at seriously fighting puppy mills and backyard breeders are thwarted by lobbyists and others who claim it's an affront to their freedoms.
Spaying and neutering should be a legal requirement like rabies vaccines usually are, with medical exemptions for those that would have problems during the surgery, and penalties for any veterinarian caught giving out those exemptions a little too "freely." Exemptions for licensed breeders as well, of course, but the industry should be extremely regulated. That's one of many things that should be done. When it comes to animal owners, responsibility should not be a choice. Animal ownership should become the luxury and privilege that it truly is, because the current slaughter of animals says only evil things about our society.
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I want people to research how to get a dog and that includes considering a shelter pet. If that's not the right route for someone, then fine; but they got to that decision on their own, not because someone else planted a certain idea in their heads.
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Last edited by Sam I Am; 04-16-2013 at 04:28 AM..
Reason: off topic or orphaned
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