Breeding Ethics

Spiritus

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#61
The Western College of Veterinary Medicine evaluates and scores hips and elbows. For hips, they have five passing classifications:

Excellent
Good to Excellent
Good
Fair to Good
Fair

For elbows, they use three different views for classification. You either pass/fail for elbows, but if there is dysplasia evident, they will grade it for you.

Two of the orthopedic radiologists that view the films used to be on the OFA panel, back when OFA had many vets in their panel (vs. the three they have now). Students view the xrays as well, and ask questions. Many many eyes view the xrays.

I take my dogs directly to the college. They do the xrays without anesthetic, and keep the dog on the table until they know they have the correct view. If there is a question, they will retake the xray to ensure it wasn't just positioning.

I had one dog have a questionable elbow at age 2. The Dr. told me that for now he would pass it, but asked me to bring the dog back in a year for another xray of that elbow. He said that dysplasia is progressive, and if what he was seeing on the film truly was dysplasia, there would be significant change in a year. I took my dog back, had the xray done, and no, the dog did not have dysplasia. And the college only charged me 1/2 price for the film as no one EVER brings their dogs back for follow-up. I was the first person, EVER, to come back for the follow up. The Dr. thanked me for coming back and will be using my dog's xrays in the classroom.

Edited to add: Forgot to mention, the WCVM is working on building a database similar to OFA's. I am looking forward to this.
 

ChRotties

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#62
Is Breeding Dogs for a Living Ethical?

NO! NO AND NO AGAIN!

Anyone and I mean ANYONE that relies on BREEDING dogs as their SOLE source of income is NOT ethical. And, yes, that includes people that show.

The ONLY purpose for breeding should be to BETTER the respective breed...striving to have better than what you started with, and IF breeding is done correctly, (all health clearances, food, supplements, etc etc) you are very lucky to break even , much less have very little profit left over....certainly not enough to make a LIVING off of.
 

Red_ACD_for_me

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#63
Is it ethical to breed your bitch everytime it comes into season?
In my opinion I think it is cruel to breed your dog every season for a source of income. Maybe in your country it is considered "ethical" but here in the states people who breed for greed are called puppy mills or BYB's! How old is your bitch and how many times has she been bred?
 

bubbatd

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#64
Will agree that there are more who give evaluations and rating today . OFA was the 1st in the '60s when I was breeding ... I stuck with them .
 
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#65
Very interesting. So you can mail to the OFA. I think most local breeders leave that little option out when they breed their dogs and settle for certifications from the vet. No wonder they make money off their dogs.

Thanks. Now I know that having no OFA equivalent here is not an excuse.
 
R

RedyreRottweilers

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#66
Spiritus, that is SO interesting, I would love to have them do an elbow eval on my bitch.

If you have any information about how to get in touch with them, would you please PM it to me. I would need info about views needed as well, since OFA only requires one.

If they can accept digital images, I might be able to have the vet I go to hook up with them so that they could evaluate the films and we could do more if the positioning was not correct.

Either way very interesting information. My bitch had no change from 12 months to 24 months, and I plan to film her elbows again at 36 months to again check for changes.
 

Bowowee

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#67
In my opinion I think it is cruel to breed your dog every season for a source of income. Maybe in your country it is considered "ethical" but here in the states people who breed for greed are called puppy mills or BYB's! How old is your bitch and how many times has she been bred?
Almost all of my other dogs has been placed in nice loving homes. Right now, I have 3 female pitbulls. 1 has already earned her title and I'm still campaigning the other 2. Porsche is 1.8 yrs old, Queen is 1.7 yrs old, and Gypsy almost 4 mos old. As of now, I have no plans to breed. I'm still enjoying my dogs. In the near future perhaps.

For me, it is not ethical to breed your bitch every season. I believe that no person who truly loves their dogs will ever subject them to such cruel treatment. They're very different from livestock animals and they should not be treated as such.
 
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#68
Even "livestock animals" (in quotations because livestock animals vary from culture to culture) don't deserve to be treated in a mediocre or bad way just because a person doesn't see them as companion animals.
 

Boemy

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#70
Regarding show kennels with massive amounts of dogs . . . IMO, dogs should be a part of the family. People shouldn't get so many that they can't give them individual attention . . . Not just grooming and exercise (although those are important too!), but also love. Having several dogs is fine, but having 43 in kennels who never see the inside of the house is not, IMO, regardless of the quality of food they get or how many ribbons they've won. (I ran across a few kennels like this when I was looking into labrador breeders.) Dogs want to be part of the family!
 

wolfsoul

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#72
I think it depends --- for instance, my Belgian had one puppy for her first litter. An average Belgian litter is 6-8. If I had wanted to I wouldn't have hesitated to breed her again on her next heat. A singleton litter in a large breed that normally has a good sized litter is not taxing on the dog's body. She only carried milk in two of her nipples and was in perfect physical shape.
 

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