Reply to Poll: recent prices paid and which breed?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Please, please, please look into breed-specific rescues before buying from a breeder. I get all the reasoning behind it, I do, but there really are pure bred dogs out there available for rescue and often times they are in foster care or home rescue networks rather than the pound. You may have to wait a little longer to be matched with the right dog for you (both in terms of what you want and what the rescue dog needs), but it's worth it. Also, look into fostering some of the other "hypoallergenic" dog breeds and maybe you can broaden your search outside Havanese if you find that some of the others don't trigger your allergies. At the very least, take your kids to a kill shelter and show them what you're choosing to do. That would be a better lesson on the death of a pet than just having a rescue pet die a year or two earlier than a purchased puppy. [/quote]

Many people want puppies to have complete control over the training process. You hardly ever get puppies at breed rescues.

Two things are needed to decrease the unwanted pet population:
1. Continue with spaying and neutering efforts.
2. Creating and enforcing much stricter laws against puppy mills, like California just did. Ideally, the only breeders allowed would be responsible ones whose dogs live in their own homes and who prioritize the health of the line. We could do that by requiring that every potential breeding dog passes genetic health checks before being accepted as breeding stock. Currently, this is purely voluntary.

Shaming dog owners for going to responsible breeders for their puppies is NOT the solution. [b]Not every household can handle the health and behavioral risks that come with the rescue of an adult dog.[/b]
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PP here. Literally almost all health problems dogs have are the result of humans creating what we currently deem "pure breeds." You are not at all setting yourself up for an easy life free of health and behavioral issues just because you raise the animal from a puppy. There are breed specific rescues because people buy dogs they can't handle and give them away. If you cannot handle a certain level of commitment and uncertainty about what you're getting, you shouldn't be a dog owner in the first place. And there are absolutely puppies and younger dogs available in rescue.

Your two solutions are valid, but as long as people continue to be willing to shell out 4 figure sums for puppies, no one has an incentive to spay/neuter or support regulations that make it harder for them to make that money.

As for shaming dog owners, well if you feel ashamed that you bought a puppy even though you are fully aware of the thousands of dogs in need of a home, that's on you. [/quote]

You're both right and wrong. Recent research has shown that early neutering and spaying of the kind practice by shelters significantly increases neuro-muscular diseases, because cutting off hormones before growth plates have fused makes the bones grow out of proportion and increases impact on the joints. That's why dogs who were neutered too early tend to be taller than intact dogs. Early spay-neuter decreases pet population so we don't have to kill so many, but it also endangers the lives of the pets that have that early procedure.

For brachycephalic breeds and their breathing problems, I agree that it's totally a breeding issue over many decades. ALL dogs that have been created for entertainment, instead of a useful trait or work, can be considered to be unethically produced.

As to your last point, there are totally posters on here who cry shame on every one who even hints at not using a rescue or a shelter. And NO, it's silly to say you can just wait a while to rescue a purebred puppy. Usually people who want purebreds are only interested in a limited number of breeds, and in their catchment area of a few hundred miles, most of the time, there are no puppies. I've looked... for years, literally.
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