Would you do it?

[crow_noir]

You said how i think and feel.

It was so very frustrating when i was looking for a female to breed King to. He was the champion of health but people didn't care. All they cared about is that he wasn't AKC or the right color. Grrrrr! Perfect health and GREAT temperment. ...are people so shallow that they HAVE to have that American title saying the dog came with a vin number and family tree? Would papers saying the dog is a healthy fit specimen, and a great member of society be enough?

How can people that say they care so much about a breed, not be willing to do what is right for it?

Sure, i don't plan on ever spending over $300 on the purchase price of a dog (unless possibly getting a Saarloose... but that would be way down the years from now... when i have MUCH more property.), but if i ever was looking at getting a dog from a breeder you bet i would get the testing done. I'd want them to know what they'd produced and I'd be sure to be buying from a breeder that WANTS to know what they produced.

(Still, i much prefer rescuing off the streets ... and by the time I'm done that dog has cost me well over $300 too. LOL)

...That is how I feel in a way. I know so many people who have gotten a "deal" on their dog and in return their dog has to pump out several litters and they must pay for the costs of said litters. Then the breeder takes the pups and sells them. If people are willing to do that..

I think if people really were passionate about the health of their breed and spent time dealing with it they would understand better..There can be carriers for several generations who have affected siblings..but since no one keeps track of the siblings, no one knows their lovely breeding dog is a carrier. And then they bred it to another carrier, and voila, there is a litter of affected dogs. Loki probably has PRA, and since he is showing signs so early, he will probably go blind early. He has untested relatives that are showing the same symtpoms but because they are in pet homes, they haven't been tested and their owners have just assumed that their dogs are strange. If those pet dogs had been tested properly, Loki and the rest of his siblings would not have been born, and there would be less blind dogs in the world. How can people preach about responsible breeding but turn a shoulder when the responsibility falls on them? That is what I feel like. Like people care more about spending a couple hundred dollars than they do about the health of an entire breed. When you look at a pedigree you have to look at those dogs but also the dogs they produced, the dogs in their litter, the dogs behind them, their aunts and uncles, etc. It is not as easy as looking at a healthy dog and assuming it's breedable. You could be breeding a dog with good hips out of an entire litter of dysplastic siblings. Because Loki may have PRA, this means that Solo and Jaguar are probably carriers. Jaguar has just recently been bred. So many things could have been avoided if all of the relatives who weren't in the pedigree had been tested.