so I went to see some pups today and it was awful :-(

[AllergicToNutters]

They were living in rank cages outside on concrete floors. The smell was horrid. There was Dad and a Portuguese pointer in a cage, Mum was sooo skinny and looked as if she had been bred and bred. The pups looked healthy enough but the one remaining pup ( so I had no choice in selecting one for us) was shaking and whimpering. He was absolutely beautiful but I didn't take him. I felt awful. The pups were kept in a shed away from the other dogs and Mum. They were clearly not 'indoor' dogs. Very sad and don;t know what I can do.....

I bought a kc reg pup a few years ago, she was from a family home, i saw her and the other 9 pups with her mother, i was asked 'if i would like to see dad?' as he lived up the road, i stupidly said 'no' as i stupidly trusted them. She's a pure white staffie (at the time white ones were rare), i didn't consider rescue as i had a 2 and a 4 year old and wanted a pup to grow up with the kids, i had really wanted a english bull but could not find one (so this was the next best thing), i took the pup home the same day as i first saw her, she's healthy (have never had any health problems with her) but as she has got older it has become clear that she is not KC reg at all (she may be crossed with something else, maybe an english bull or a bit of jack russel), her ears stick up, her face is no way near as full as a staffie and she has long legs. I really wish i had seen her dad. I would not change her for the world now as she's part of our family but i am not happy that i payed a lot of money for a KC reg pup.

I know know more about rescue dogs, the dc's are older and i hope to one day rehome a staffie to keep my girl company. I don't think i would ever buy a kc reg pup again (well maybe i would be tempted by an english bull).

Pressed post too soon.

Not to mention saying that people who buy purebred dogs are not dog lovers - that's not judgemental either, is it.

I have Dalmatian's

They are not bred to work anymore, they are a utility breed so I guess there is no reason to keep breeding them other than to keep the breed going.

I am probably just another irresponsible owner adding to the problem of not allowing domesticated dogs to run free and mate at will but I dont actually mind that.

I took a lot of time to research this breed and find a decent breeder and ensure they did all the relevant health check etc.

My dogs are happy and very healthy thanks to their breeders careful breeding.

If anyone has ever met a Dalmatian, you probably realise why I would love this breed to continue and progressively become healthier. They are beautiful dogs with the most amazingly daft personalities. I would be sad to think of a world with domesticated dogs and not Dalmatians.

I dont feel guilty for owning a pedigree dog.

There are a few health problems with Dalmatian, BeerTricksPott3r.

Between 10 - 11% of Dalmatian puppies are born deaf and there for the importance of BAER testing adults and puppies is very important and the more this is done by responsible breeds the less likely you are to have deaf puppies.

They also suffer from Hyperuricemia which can be a problem and expensive in vets bills. It is in basic terms that Dalmatian's livers have trouble breaking down uric acid and this can lead to kidney stones amoungst other problems.

This is currently a Dalmatian-Pointer Backcross Project in the USA to try an help with the Hyperuricemia. The Uk kennel club has now registered a Dalmatian from this project although they have put some restrictions on her but it is a step in the right direction.

There is also The Dalmatian Heritage Project. They aim to only breed from normal hearing, normal urinary metabolism and happy and confident dogs.

Unfortunately over breeding after a certain disney film did this breed no favours at all.

Shame isnt it.

Did you know that Dalmatian's can be, Black spotted, liver spotted, lemon spotted, blue spotted, brindle spotted and bi and tri colour spotted!

Wish KC would embrace all the different colours!

I would also totally support tight restrictions on breeders and i would think responsible breeders would too.

This thread has certainly got me thinking.

For those saying most people don't need pedigree dogs, I think it's worth taking it back a further step and asking why people need dogs at all?

I would imagine that all of us on this thread, bar wannabe, don't actually need a dog at all. If all our dogs suddenly disappeared tonight would we still be able to function tomorrow? And by that I mean get up, wash dress, move about safely, eat etc? Would our source of income or ability to do our jobs stop or be effected without our dogs?

For the vast majority of us our dogs are a luxury item, however unpleasant it might be to consider our beloved pet as such. My dog costs me money and I could continue to function perfectly well without her (although I might get fat and my general stress levels might rise a bit).

Given that we don't actually need them then a market, a demand, will arise for dogs with specific attributes that fit our lifestyle to make us happy. I would no more want a husky or an old english sheepdog or a pomeranian or whatever it was that won crufts that the owner said on bbc news this morning takes 2 hours of grooming everday than I would want a horse or a harp or a windsurfer. None of those things fits in with my lifestyle or would increase my pleasure. And yes it's all about the pleasure.

imo that is what primarily drives the pet dog market, will this dog increase my happiness? And from that a market for pedigree dogs is created. To argue it backwards, you don't need a pedigree dog, is mm, not sure how to put it, you might as well shout at the tide.

BeerTricks - we have a rescue lab cross now, as well as our purebred lab. Dh was brought up with labradors, so we went for what he knew best when choosing our first dog - now we're a bit more confident, we felt able to choose a rescue dog. And I have to say that Dogs Trust were wonderful about making sure that we got the dog that was right for us and our family, and that we were right for her too. I can't imagine the house without them now, even though I grew up with only cats, and wouldn't have imagined myself as a dog person at all - but apparently you can teach an old mumsnetter dog new tricks!

A friend of mine is puppy-walking a yellow lab boy for the Guide Dogs Association, and I am wondering (in a totally non-serious way) about dognapping him, so I have one of each colour - not to mention the fact that he is seriously cute.

That is really why its important to health check and home dogs properly.

Deafness is so common and quite a lot of people dont know they have a deaf dog.

I was bitten by a jack russel as a child and I genuinely still get a bit nervous around them, silly i know.

Slubber - I would have to agree with you, to a certain extent, about pet dogs not being a neccessity, but I do believe that the dogs are helping me with my depression. They give me unconditional love, want to be near me, wherever I am, and love being caressed and cuddling up - all of which helps lift my mood. They also seem to perceive when I am down, and one of them will come and put their head on my lap. Plus their antics make me laugh.

So whilst they aren't neccessities, I would say that they are more than just a luxury for me.

BeerTricks - if we'd been nearer to Many Tears, we would have given serious consideration to adopting one of their lab bitches.

I almost took on a what was supposed to be a pure white Jack Russell that I later found out was deaf and a cross - possibly with SBT.

I took her home with us from a dickhead soldier that I was certain would end up dumping her. It was an instinctive act that could have gone badly wrong, and I am just glad I have doggy friends who are more sensible than me.

She was lovely, but I quickly noticed she didn't react as quickly as MuttDog. A friend of mine (who had experience with working with deaf dogs) came and saw her and confirmed my suspicions. We had it confirmed by a vet, who then suggested that LittlePup was also a cross, not a JRT - not so much of a problem but irritating as DD had wanted a pup that would sit on her lap.

Within a couple of days I realised that I wouldn't be able to take her on as she would need specialist attention and time that I couldn't give her.

Luckily by the time I made that decision my wonderful friend had fallen in love with her and took her on. A year later she responds to hand signals, but is definately not a JRT - we thing most likely there is some SBT in her.

I didn't realise the connection between pure white animals and hearing issues - apparently it is quite common. Since then I have met a couple of deaf Dalmations and a deaf EBT (thru my friend) and the work that goes into training them is surprising - as long as she gets them early enough she reckons she could signal train any dog.

SDT, yes, sorry luxury probably the wrong word.

I suppose I'm trying to rationalise the existence of pedigree dogs.
If you look at Maslow's heirachy of needs (get me OU course and dog house thread collide!) for most of us dog ownership would meet some needs in the esteem and love/belonging levels

So for most of us although we don't need a dog to actually survive, they can for some tick boxes further up in terms of 'things that humans psychologically need'.

Because human needs and wants are not generic, and because we have the capacity to selectively breed species to meet the demands of different groups of people we have done exactly that.

I think that this is how the toy breeds came about. People selectively breeding dogs to become companions, some of the super-strokable variety, but not requiring huge amounts of daily exercise or an innate drive to do 'work' of some sort.

When i say most I mean most dog owners, not most people.

I'd really support tight restrictions on who could breed. Both pedigrees and crosses

No one would dispute that puppy farms are deplorable. But I still don't get this reliance on 'responsible' breeders to somehow make things right. Selective breeding caused the problems in the first place and now we are relying on more selective breeding to rectify the problems.

Take the case of Dalmatians, which Misery brought up. What would 'responsible breeders' do, with pups who are found to be partially or fully deaf based on the BAER test? Cull them from the breeding pool? But what if the pups who carry the defective genes also predominantly carry some desirable genes which then get lost from the pool? Or that the non-deaf pups carry a higher probablity of another type of recessive gene that the deaf ones don't carry?

While we can pat ourselves and show that the incidence of deafness has decreased with 'responsible' breeding. But a few generations later, Dalmation pups may have a lower incidence of deafness, but say, a higher incidence of blindness. Selective breeding is problematic no matter how you cut it, and future generations of very selectively bred organisms will all share very similar genes, with all the risks that go with that.

Btw, I read about an interesting project in the US called the Backcross project (I think) to deal with the urinary stone issues in Dalmatians. Most breeds of dogs have a normal gene for uric acid excretion. Apparently the ancestor to the Dalmatian also had such a normal gene, but that gene got lost in the shuffle as the breed was propagated through selective breeding. Since the normal uric acid excretion gene was lost in the Dalmatian stock, the project attempted to insert it back through mating with a Pointer. It is very interesting and I am not sure how succesful it was. I think there were loads of politics and concerns as well, with the Dalmation breeders club.

It seems to me that this is all very murky and the issues are not just a few bad apples, i.e. the puppy farms. It seems a more systemic problem with how we think about and perpetuate dogs based on narrow breed characteristics.

Beer what exactly will that solve? Some breeders will just corner the market, and you still end up with a smaller genetic pool. The point is to increase diversity, and the whole breeder market is about maintaining pure breeds or specific designer breeds.

Removing a deaf (from your example) dog from the breeding pool doesn't require culling (by which I assume you mean having the dog put to sleep) - all it requires is for the dog to be neutered or spayed.

Flatbread you are missing a major point. There are already too many dogs, if we encourage more BYB and 'accidental' matings who will look after them all?

No, SDT, culling from the breeding pool just means not letting it breed. Not killing it.