Tell me everything!

[Coldcoffeekindamorning]

If one wanted to buy a dog, where would be the best place to look? What questions would one need to ask? Basically how do you go about thinking about getting a dog?

I live in the suburbs of a city and have a large garden. I have 2 young children (6 and 3), they absolutely love animals and are always gentle and cautious around them. I would quite like a medium-large dog (DH thinks a labrador or a retriever is the way to go) but the breed isn't so important as long as they fit in with our family and like to go on very long hilly walks outside. I've been looking at the cat and dog homes in our area but none of the dogs are suitable to live with preschool children and if I'm honest I would feel terrible taking a puppy from it's mother. I would like a dog that we can give a good home and welcome into the family but I don't have any experience of owning a dog. Any pointers or suggestions or all the things I haven't thought about?

I’ve just read your comment about taking puppies from their Mothers. Please be really careful about taking a “rescue” or older DDog from anywhere but a recognised Charity.

Someone we know paid for a bitch which had been used for breeding and then sold on. Everything about the situation screamed abusive breeders and she now gets regular phone calls asking her if she will “rescue” another DDog.

If you do settle on a breed, there are almost always breed specific charities. National Charities might also help but as I said before, many won’t rehome to homes with young DC.

However, as it may help others: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090023315004578

A very thorough analysis, which details that 16% of guide dogs have to retire early due to muscular skeletal issues such as dysplasia. That's a huge amount. This was, of course, as of 9 years ago. What's more of a worry is and the gene pool, COI if both labs and Goldies has actually become smaller since then, so it's probably higher now (realistically)

https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/33252/1/Daisy%20Jones%20MRes%20Thesis%204252846.pdf

This also demonstrates that they screen the dogs in their breeding programme too early for many health issues (particularly dysplasia).They screen then between 11-12 months (Guide Dogs Association are cited as having provided this information).,

Unfortunately, as any retriever owner knows, they're not done growing then...so the plates/bones/joints shift and change. By screening them younger, they can claim their dogs are healthier. If they waited until the dogs were fully grown, they would have higher scores. The BVA actually says you shouldn't really test your dogs before 24 months for that exact reason.

Guide dogs will also breed any dogs where the score is 'median' for the breed. Which in theory, is fine. But as I just noted above. If a dog is showing as 'breed median scores' at 12 months...it's almost certainly going to get worse as they continue to grow, isn't it? And screening that early is against BVA advice.

And Median for the breed is still astronomically high - for Goldies that's 17. And I wouldn't be comfortable buying a puppy from parents that had scores higher than 10.

So, they might be testing...but they're testing at the point where they are likely to get the best scores rather than testing when the dog is fully mature.

Champdogs website for breeders. Breed specific Fb groups to get Chatting to people and to ask questions about who the best breeders are.

I don't think you have evidence of what you allege @TheHungryHungryLandsharks because if you did you would gladly share it to prove your point.

You were the one that mentioned health issues first not me. If such data did exist I would want to see it to be informed but I can't find anything. So what if they approached you as a breeder to use one of your stud dogs? Your dogs are presumably health checked or you wouldn't be using them as stud dogs.

I don't know what you even mean by some of what you say such as "discarding them once they are done". The guide dog organisation has a long list of people queueing up to take their dogs once they have finished working although often they end up being taken by the people they have been living with as a pet or by the people who raised them as puppies. This is true of all their dogs that are retired from working for various reasons, including ex breeding dogs.

@Twiglets1 I've literally just shared evidenced.

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks the study is extremely complex and will take a while for anyone to properly read and process. However, a cursory glance shows me that The data contained 7686 working guide dogs; 6465 dogs reached old age, which represented 84% of the dataset. The remaining 16% were withdrawn because of health conditions.

It doesn't say that the 16% were all withdrawn due to muscular skeletal issues such as dysplasia as you claimed, but for a variety of health reasons. The study says the three health groups with the most cases were, in decreasing order, musculoskeletal (n = 387), nervous/sensory (n = 180), and general health deterioration (n = 174).

Yes a lot of Labradors and Retrievers do have problems with arthritis, you will know this as a breeder. The Lab I bought as a pet many years ago had arthritis by about the age of 7 or 8, and he came from an extremely reputable breeder with parents who both had excellent hip scores, etc. The guide dog organisation are breeding more cross breeds now to try to help with this - for example Labs crossed with Retrievers or German Shepherds. However, most breeds have their issues which again as a breeder, you will be well aware of.

I'm not going to post anymore about this as it's derailing the thread so apologies for that @Coldcoffeekindamorning