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Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

theguardian.com

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Re: Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

#151

Post by maxerickson »

krastanov wrote: post #124
snerbles wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family trains and breeds hunting retrievers as a hobby. Hip displaysia, heart disease and eye disorders run rampant in the breed, particularly in show lines where the dogs are expected to be pretty and not be particularly athletic. Organizations like the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals ( http://ofa.org/ ) maintain public databases of genetic clearances for dogs in the effort to combat these problems. If you want…

How do you "run genetic clearance"? It sounds quite ominous - do you kill the offspring that does not pass the clearance?

One way to do it would be to test each candidate parent dog for the problematic genetics and simply not breed the ones that do have the problems. That isn't any more ominous than breeding in general.

Where it is possible it will also be more effective than culling; it should lead to a population of animals that are free of the problem altogether.

Re: Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

#152

Post by djrogers »

Periodic wrote: post #146
weavie wrote: post #46

Not just Pugs. I had a German Shepherd. Beautiful dog, but everyone who I met who had had a German Shepherd in the past told me their dog had to be put down around 10 years of age due to their back legs failing. Our dog didn't even make it to 10. She died of heart failure at 7. According to the vet this is another common problem with the breed. I well never get a pure breed again.

I'm glad you used the phrase "get a pure breed" as opposed to "purchase a pure breed". There are far to many amazing dogs that need a home to spend money buying a dog. If you want a rough story, look at the Bernese Mountain Dog. Twenty years ago the life expectancy of the breed was only 7 years due to congenital heart problems. Breeders have been working to breed it out of them and introduce more variety in the genom…

> I don't think there's any reason to get a pure bred dog unless you want to show or breed it yourself

There is one other reason - working dogs. Livestock guardian for example is a job that's very poorly suited for mutts due to the genetic personality traits involved. An LGD with chasing, shepherding, or tracking instincts would be at best worthless, and at worst a danger to your animals.

Re: Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

#153

Post by Asooka »

13of40 wrote: post #90
Declanomous wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not. Foot binding is similarly debilitating to the squished snout. It wasn't possible to choose an example that was literally the same because human's don't breed themselves for deformities. If anything, now that we can test, many people take steps to make sure their children don't end up with debilitating traits. Having back issues when you are 60 isn't even remotely in the same league as the back issues…

> humans don't breed themselves for deformities. Except maybe intelligence, I fail to see how the traits we breed for could be considered anything but deformities if a baboon had them.

Right now the only thing people are selecting for is wanting to breed and ability to provide for one's family. Sometimes. A study of who fucks who would be really interesting, but kind of useless because what would you do with the information?

Re: Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

#154

Post by snerbles »

krastanov wrote: post #124
snerbles wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family trains and breeds hunting retrievers as a hobby. Hip displaysia, heart disease and eye disorders run rampant in the breed, particularly in show lines where the dogs are expected to be pretty and not be particularly athletic. Organizations like the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals ( http://ofa.org/ ) maintain public databases of genetic clearances for dogs in the effort to combat these problems. If you want…

How do you "run genetic clearance"? It sounds quite ominous - do you kill the offspring that does not pass the clearance?

Clearances are run on the parent animals. In the case of hip displaysia, we have adult x-rays sent to OFA for grading - signs of the condition don't usually manifest until the dog is fully grown.

For pups, we have a refund/buyback policy for animals that do manifest such conditions. We have on occasion "adopted back" dogs that the owner could no longer care for, and we've never had a problem finding them a new home.

We did acquire one dog that received an OFA "Fair" hip rating (as opposed to "Good" or "Excellent"), and she simply didn't breed. She lived a long and happy life among the rest of the pack.

Re: Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

#155

Post by arielweisberg »

whack wrote: post #138
arielweisberg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can make a blanket statement about whether you can manage to retain breed traits without damning the dogs. If I had to slap down a guess on what is going on. The #1 issue is targeting cosmetic traits that are anatomically not functional. The #2 issue is breeders not prioritizing health over conforming to the breed standard. Pet grade purebreds may not look quite perfect to a discerning eye, but they…

> I don't think you can make a blanket statement about whether you can manage to retain breed traits without damning the dogs. > If you control for #1 and #2 is there still a higher incidence of issues? Probably. Why would reducing diversity be a free lunch? You just answered your own question. Is it theoretically possible for any species (including humans) to be purebred/inbred while still avoiding the whole host of…

You can't make the argument that a mutt is universally better than a pure bred either. A mutt is a random assortment of components some of which are not ideal for life in human society or what you want in your particular pet.

Temperament is the most problematic because you can get a bad mix of drives and intelligence.

I think the question is whether what you get by picking the components is worth the cost? You won't answer that question with anecdata from a farcical comedy video. IMO the video does a lousy job of making any kind of useful point. I suppose it's good for awareness.

The video makes the exact mistake I warned about. You can't conflate what bad breeders do with what the outcome would be if all breeders were forced to conform to better standards or you find a breeder who breeds the way you want it done.

Straight from the video, breeders breed parents and children and siblings. It's sadly common that it will have happened at some point with many breeders. It's also insane and if you buy from a breeder that does that you have done something wrong.

If someone has some well thought out research comparing the outcomes of a known strong set of well bred dogs from a breed designed to be functional (for some definition) to a set of mixed dogs then we might have a way to quantify exactly what the cost is. Anything else is conjecture.

There are other strong arguments to be made for adoption and mixed breeds. Possibly for people unable to muster the expertise to find a breeder. I still think it's conjecture, but at least more reasonable sounding.

Some of those arguments apply to human breeding, but try having that conversation ;-)

Re: Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

#157

Post by tomjakubowski »

lightedman wrote: post #105
weavie wrote: post #46

Not just Pugs. I had a German Shepherd. Beautiful dog, but everyone who I met who had had a German Shepherd in the past told me their dog had to be put down around 10 years of age due to their back legs failing. Our dog didn't even make it to 10. She died of heart failure at 7. According to the vet this is another common problem with the breed. I well never get a pure breed again.

Your "German Shepherd" today is nothing like the purebreeds from the WWII era. They were bred afterwards for looks, nothing else. The inherent intelligence remained and was left unchanged, everything else was selectively bred, so you get to enjoy cardiac failure and hip dysplasia as a result.

Is there some connection between the breeding of the German Shepherd and WWII? My impression is that the breed dates back at least fifty years before that.

Re: Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

#158

Post by Periodic »

jbmorgado wrote: post #86
pacaro wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rephrase this. The concern as an apartment dweller is less one of size, and more one of energy. I have a Bernese Mountain Dog (currently 110lbs/50kg) he's a great apartment dog, because he's low energy. Other residents in the building have much smaller dogs that pose a real challenge because the energy level doesn't match the space available

You are right, that's also an issue in my mind. A small, energetic and noisy dog wouldn't be a proper pet for an apartment as well. Then again, it's exactly why I feel safer getting a breed dog that fits the basic requisites. In my parents home - that is quite big and with a lot of open space - we've got a mutt and we were very happy with him, but we didn't really have any constrains about how he would turn out to be…

For apartment dwellers I always recommend getting an older dog. Puppies are cute, but they're honestly a lot of work and generally high-energy. After just one or two years most dogs will settle down and you'll have a very good idea of what you're going to get. The adult dogs are perfectly trainable. Most people who get puppies also have no actual skill in how to train dogs, so they're basically rolling the dice on what their dog's personality is going to be like.

Rescue organizations (in the US at least) are a great place to find dogs. The dogs have often been in a domestic setting with a foster owner. The history of the dog is usually known. You'll be adopting dogs in the 2-8yr range and you'll have a great idea of what you're getting.

It can take a while to find the right dog, but it should. It's a decade-long commitment.

Re: Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

#159

Post by snerbles »

arielweisberg wrote: post #141
snerbles wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genetic clearances are much more common in the world of working breeds, since there is a market pressure to have dogs that can actually function in their job. Demand for working titles (search/rescue, agility, hunting championships, etc) also selects for more physically capable animals.

I have seen so many working GSD with hips so bad they are quivering. They stick out like a sore thumb. The selection process for working dogs is not perfect either. It's always been security theatre where I see these dogs. Granted I also see perfectly good dogs with great temperments some of the time. Where working dogs are not status symbols, but a means to an end I agree there is market pressure. Assistance dogs in…

I should probably have clarified that, where the focus is on physical performance and trainability.

The focus on "sloped backs" among GSD breeders is a tragedy.

Re: Pugs are anatomical disasters. Vets must speak out–even if it’s bad for business

#160

Post by tptacek »

mulletbum wrote: post #48
milesf wrote: post #39

The article is misleading. I own two pugs, and it's a breed that must be kept fit and healthy. They can't be allowed to run hard in hot weather, and if it is hot they need a lot of water. The folds in their skin need to be kept clean as well. This is a very old breed, and the dogs do have a decent lifespan if they're cared for properly. I don't know about Bulldogs, but I've never owned one because they're only expect…

Your dog can't run in hot weather? Doesn't that concern you when there are millions of working dogs that are at the same fitness level, but wont die in hot weather? I feel as though you justified the entire article in your second sentence?

Virtually all pet dogs can't do some of the things that dogs would do in the wild. Why is running hard in hot weather one of our sticking points?
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