81–90 of 264 posts
What is the author implying? Imagine if the topic were about people predisposed to cystic fibrosis or haemophilia. What's his solution?
We don't delibrately select people with these conditions and breed them to make them worse. This is exactly what breeders are doing with brachycephalic dog breeds.
The evolution of the pug: https://youtu.be/iHPozu1raQo?t=2m12s
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…
> and it's a breed that must be kept fit and healthy. Are you saying that human intervention is needed to overcome the genetic flaws created by weird breeding? Your comment persuades me that the article is right, and not that the article is misleading.
As a dog owner I take this as part of my responsibility towards my dog. I control both his opportunity for exercise, and his diet.
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.
Vast majority of purebreds have some serious generic issues. I'm hoping that we as a society will solve this whole situation soon. There is a BBC documentary on this https://vimeo.com/17558275
Suppose there was a breed of, say, monkey, that was popular as a household pet. They were considered to be quite clever and could be trained, over some years, to use a toilet, fetch things from the fridge, even manage primitive forms of communication. The only problem is that they're a genetic trainwreck. They've got a pronounced, gourd-like head with a snout so compact that it's common to have to surgically remove s…
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Well, the only problem with mutts (for me) is that you have no good idea on what size they will have as adults. Living in an apartment I can't really have a big dog and by getting a breed dog (even if it's not really pure bread) I know it will not get too big for the space I have available.
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
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 as an adult.
What is the author implying? Imagine if the topic were about people predisposed to cystic fibrosis or haemophilia. What's his solution?
The ethical issues surrounding dogs are entirely different from those surrounding people. Additionally, humans didn't specifically select for traits in other people which caused genetic disorders to become rampant in an entire bloodline (with some accidental exceptions I suppose).
Well actually they did. Many East Asians have historically preferred lighter skin tones even though it increases melanoma risk.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03630242.2013.806386
There's infinite other examples of unintended negative consequences of sexual selection preferences.
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I think your confusing breeding with tail docking.
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…
Except maybe intelligence, I fail to see how the traits we breed for could be considered anything but deformities if a baboon had them.