Full Cry, 2010
Jolanta was in our vet’s waiting
room the other day, when a woman asked her,“Why do you have a girl dog that
hasn’t been fixed?” “I’m a breeder”, my wife said. There was a long silence.
Then “Oh”. Another silence, “Why do you do something like that?”
There
is a suburban world out there, and population-wise it’s much bigger than ours. It's
filled with people who have no idea that some dogs are bred for a purpose. If they ever gave it a
thought, they would become convinced instantly that a Cockerpoo would serve just as well for coon hunting as a Bluetick.
But of course they would be against coon hunting too. The problem is that
ignorance and misinformation about bred-for-a-purpose dogs doesn’t end in the
vet’s waiting room. All too often it extends right into the vet’s examination
room.
I’m
not writing about our own veterinary group; they are country vets with a farm
animal practice and good common sense. But the people we sell tracking dog pups
to often select another kind of vet, the suburban, 9 to 5 type of
“practitioner” who makes the bulk of her or his income from giving shots ($40)
and of course a mandatory physical
examination that goes with the vaccination, another $40. Neutering and
spaying fees also help them cover their large overhead expenses.
We
vaccinate our own puppies and dogs, but when our pups leave at about 12 weeks
of age they usually need one or two more puppy shots. The new owners take their
pup to their local veterinarian, and then the trouble begins. In a stern
authoritative voice comes the word:
“This puppy should be spayed (or neutered). When can we schedule the surgery?” One
justification given for this pitch is that millions of dogs are put down in
rescue shelters every year. The solution to the problem, many suburban vets
believe, is to spay/neuter everything and encourage people to take rescue dogs.
The shelters will always have dogs from trashy folks who still let their dogs
breed. The other argument for spay/neuter is that it’s better for the health of
the dog. More on this later.
Those
of us who breed dogs that are needed, dogs that are bred to do a job, are never
going to change the prevailing suburban mentality, but we can take precautions.
One of these is to prepare inexperienced puppy buyers for the propaganda they
are likely to encounter at the vet’s office. Buyers with a promising puppy should not be pressured into spaying or
neutering right away. They should be encouraged to wait and see how the pup turns
out before they make any irrevocable decision about the breeding future of
their dog.
A couple came up from North Carolina last weekend to buy their second
pup from us. Their first wirehaired dachshund, “Jackson ” is now ten years old, and they
wanted a successor to continue blood tracking work. As a pup Jackson had been a very good looking prospect,
and he developed into an outstanding worker. Over the years a number of people
from the Southeast asked us about the
right stud dog for their good tracking bitches. We referred them to Jackson until we learned
that he had been neutered very young at the hands of an over-enthusiastic vet.
At present wirehaired dachshund bitches with tracking talent in the Southeast have to travel out of the region to get
together with an appropriate stud.
In
our opinion, about one male dog in ten is truly of breeding quality, and then of
course not every good stud dog is good for
every bitch. You shouldn’t double up on physical faults, and on top of this there is
temperament and working style to consider. If a tracking bitch is a bit hyper
and too fast and rough on the scent line, you don’t want to breed her to a dog
of similar tendencies. Breeding strategies differ from breed to breed, but in
my own breed, wirehaired
dachshunds, it requires careful planning and research. Early in the years of Deer
Search a group of us tried winging it with any “teckel” that came from Germany . I
discussed the results in “Breeding Disappointments”.
For
the good of a breed, quality dogs have to be available for breeding in
different parts of the country. This can’t be done if some of the best dogs and
bitches are being castrated or spayed. Buyers of your good pups should be
encouraged to realize that they have a responsibility to maintain the quality of the dogs
they admired when they came to you.
As
readers of this magazine know, breeding good dogs is not like breeding pet
rabbits. Not every first-time buyer realizes this. We get quite a few calls
from people who want to buy a “breeding pair” of pups. They figure that any
two pups, male and female and not brother and sister, are all that’s needed to
make some easy money. We don’t sell to these folks.
Breeders
of hunting dogs should prepare puppy buyers to reject the suburban vet’s advice:
“spay/neuter/adopt from the pound”. This is not too difficult! But some vets
use another argument. They claim that spaying and neutering is healthier for
the dog, and some of them may actually believe this.
The
health aspects of spay/neuter are complicated because it varies from breed to
breed, and from disorder to disorder. Thousands of pages of scientific studies have
been written on the subject. Fortunately there is a very good digest of this
research available, but even this paper is 12 pages long. If you are interested,
read “Long-Term Health Risks and Benefits Associated with Spay/Neuter in Dogs”
by Laura J. Sanborn. Her article is posted at is http://www.naiaonline.org/pdfs/LongTermHealthEffectsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf
Sanborn
states that in bitches the risks of eventual mammary cancer increase with each
heat cycle up to the age of thirty months. If an owner waits for a couple of
heat cycles to evaluate his bitch before he decides to spay, the risk of
mammary cancer does increase but very little. In the case of most other
disorders of intact bitches, they are healthier if not spayed. In any case, the
risk of gender-related diseases is very low to begin with.
With
dogs the reasons to neuter for health reasons are even weaker than for bitches.
For example prostate cancer is four times more likely in neutered dogs. Keep in
mind though, that prostate cancer is much rarer, to begin with, in dogs than in
humans.
As I
said above the health implications of spay/neuter are complex; these two
paragraphs of summary can’t do justice to the subject. Just prepare your puppy
buyers to resist the vets who lean on them with “professional authority.” Most of us would prefer to deal with others already in
our country world of hunting dogs. In the new reality, where most people live
in Suburbia, we can’t be that exclusive. We have to communicate our values and
our point of view to some people who didn’t grow up in the country.
3 comments:
Nicely put! There is a stigma out there in the general public about people that are breeders - funny as very many of the general public don't get their dogs taken care of....sigh...
I love that "Suburban World" term!
I have been very lucky with my puppy people. Many of them are quite willing to wait until after a heat cycle in bitches not meant for breeding and those with males I'm finding are very receptive to letting them grow up before neutering them.
If you think YOUR gene pool in wires is small, well mine in smoothes in the US is microscopic compared to yours!
We might as well enjoy the subculture in which we live and stay underground as long as possible. We'll never win this particular fight with the masses, not to mention far more issues even more important than breeding dogs. But that has been the way of the world since day one: the tyranny of the majority.
Off to read your other article mentioned!
Claire
Another great post Jolanta!
Post a Comment