Or because they know the dog would be happier living with someone else. Many people find it very difficult to admit that they might not be the perfect owner for their dog. I've never had that courage.

but what about if the dog is well socialized. well looked after. well trained? but rehomed to a pet home where the dog would live out his life in a pet home in a house breeder is happy with. i know alot of the time this isn't the case but i am one of odd cases!
lea

Yes, from the dog's point of view it probably would be much better off in a new home rather with that kind of owner!

This is a good example of why puppy buyers should do their home work thoroughly. A breeder who happily dispatches dogs post show career or post breeding does not have a proper relationship with those dogs. Only the hardest circumstances would force a true dog lover to part with one of their dogs.

Sometimes I'm sure it genuinely is in a dogs best interest to move to a new home, for example, it is nervous and needs a quiet environment or it is high energy and needs lots of individual attention etc and those are valid reasons. Making space for the next hobby show dog or breeding bitch is not the kind of ethics I'd want to support!

> Or because they know the dog would be happier living with someone else

That is different and what a good owner should do - on rare occasions - not as a matter of course.

You can dress it up however you want, and the homes that they rehome to may be good, but the dog has been uprooted from the place and people it knows sometimes for many years.
I could no more re-home my dogs than I would have done my children. If I take a dog into my home it is here for life.
We are all entitled to our opinions, and having been on a particular forum for many years or won many prizes in a breed makes no difference. Obviously some people are dog lovers and some are just dog keepers, that is what it boils down to.
Obviously having the next champion means more to some people than the love and loyalty of thier dogs.

> Many people find it very difficult to admit that they might not be the perfect owner for their dog

Oh goodness - how many people are perfect owners ?? :) Not me :) :) But my dogs wouldn't be better off with someone else - the upheaval etc would be far worse than any marginal benefit gained by having a 'perfect' owner :) :) :) If people are so 'imperfect' that they feel the need to rehome the dog, then, surely, they shouldn't own another dog ???

It is so often stressed on here that most (or what seems to be, most) of the breeders here say their dogs are pets first and foremost - why would they ever want to rehome them ?? (Unless, of course, there are major behavioural/financial problems etc etc)

> fails to commit to the dogs involved along the way

but surely if they are carefully homed, same as the puppies that are surplus to what the breeder keeps then that commitment has been fulfilled.

I choose not to re-home as I am too attached to each individual, and so far have not been forced into doing so because of personality clashes between the dogs, but I can appreciate others may wish to do otherwise and still be ethical caring breeders.

No Brainless, the commitment that you have to your dogs is clearly different to people who rehome their older dogs. Some of the best years of a dog's life are the mature ones, why would anyone want to pass that over? Its because their commitment is not to the individual dog but to their breeding plan, whether that is rooted in competition or a vision for the breed itself.

I agree, but is it wrong, or just wrong for us?

I know that several of mine would be quite happy in anther home and probably never give me a backward glance.  Our Lexi after several weeks at the Stud dog owners must have thought she had changed homes and settled beautifully.  Her mother would not have adjusted as well I don't think, or is that my ego?

The mentors I spoke of did not routinely re-home dogs (except the one in her last few years, adn even then had some oldies), but where there was a conflict, or most often if a trusted friend in the breed, a former puppy owner who had already had several of their breeding but wanted an adult companion this time, often these dogs would come back for holidays etc, and were very happy to go home again with their new owners.

Sometimes I think we like to think our well adjusted never lacked for anything dogs would be traumatised by changing homes away from us, from one good home to another.  Breeds and individuals vary as to their adaptability, but most dogs are very adaptable. 

I certainly would want to seesome oldies at  a breeder who had many decades in a breed.

I agree Shivi and when this is the case they are probably much better of being re-homed as if they are of no further use to the breeder they very often get shoved in a kennel with little attention.
So at least better for the dog to be in a home with people who will love and care for it than an, uncarring breeder to whom it is surplus to requirements.
There can be circumstances where a dog does not get on with the rest of the dogs and has to be rehomed, and that is the responsible thing to do. But it is also very common for breeders to move dogs on so they can keep a puppy from the next litter.

Breeders who rehome dogs obviously think more about breeding than they do about their 'much loved dog' ????

No they care about the BREED -and that is a huge difference. I am one of those NOT rehoming and that makes me very limited. In my large breed I will have to have gone 4 years in between litters next time I have one, as I am simply not able to keep another pup or even two or three -which is what you have to count on having to do, whether you want to or not. My mentor in my small breed does rehome her adults and she does this because she KNOWS she isn't capable of looking after more than a maximum number -coats to care for and she has a young family and health problems and VERY high standards when it comes to her dogs' care. Plus the breed is very longlived. But what she breeds is extremely good dogs of outstanding quality in both looks, temperament and health, which serves the breed as a whole -and if she did not rehome now and then, she would have to stop breeding. I know several pet owners who have taken on her retired adults and they are the strictest vetted homes you could imagine, the new owners are no different to new puppy owners in that they become friends for life etc. I can't do it myself and that's my shortcoming, but I CAN understand why it makes sense.

>I know several pet owners who have taken on her retired adults and they are the strictest vetted homes you could imagine, the new owners are no different to new puppy owners in that they become friends for life etc.

I know that it won't be many years before I become too old to realistically take on a puppy of the breed I love so much, so to give a retirement fireside to a well-bred, well raised dog with no unknown 'baggage' would be ideal.

>A breeder who happily dispatches dogs post show career or post breeding does not have a proper relationship with those dogs.

A good breeder will also lookat the bigger picture and consider what's best for the breed as a whole. If all the good, most ethical breeders stopped breeding because they didn't want to have more dogs than they could manage properly, the only puppies available would be from the bad breeders. Is that really what we want? Or are carefully vetted retirement homes perhaps not such a bad thing?

My own experience of seeing how Piglet blossomed when being the only dog rather than one of a group made me realise how selfish we'd been in all the years when we considered ours the only possible home for him. He's still not going anywhere though!

> all the good, most ethical breeders stopped breeding because they didn't want to have more dogs than they could manage properly, the only puppies available would be from the bad breeders. Is that really what we want?

That is exactly what has happened in my breed where registrations have gone down from their peak in the 1970's of nearly 400 pups a year (yes some of those would have been from BYB/PF too) to on average over last 5 years to just 50 registrations.

20 years ago it was around 120 - 150 pups per year.

The back yard puppy farmed ones are being bred if anything in larger numbers than ever, though it is hard to know as they are usually not KC registered.

New breed enthusiasts are made aware of their responsibilities, and with the pace of modern life and drains on peoples time and resources fewer of those people feel able to breed.

Where in the past we had some good breeders breeding several litters a year with the rest as an when, we now have regular breeders rarely breeding more than one litter a year, and many of the well known kennels owners have died or had to move into smaller accommodation etc, and there are not enough  new enthusiasts to adequately fill the void.  Part of this is the numbers issue, as to how many dogs someone can keep.

I am now up to my maximum of 6, with age ranges of 6 months to 13 years.  From my next litter I won't be able to keep a puppy, but fortunately pick of litter has been booked for a long time by the bitches sires owner.  Ditto the planned first litter from her daughter pick male will go to the stud dog owner who wants a son of their veteran boy.  Hopefully some of the other pups may bring in some new serious enthusiasts to the breed, but most will go to loving pet homes the backbone of breed survivability.

I live nearby and was sure I had seen Coton de Tulears advertised recently. Doing an internet search shows that she is selling Cotons (pups and adults), Coton x Westies and Coton x Lhasa Apsos. Funnily enough the crosses are not shown on her website.

That area where the South Yorkshire border meets Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire has several breeders who advertise litters of various breeds and crosses on a regular basis.

>The difference is some breeders view their animals as family members, and to others they are just a commodity so once they are no longer of any use, for breeding or showing they get passed on.<br />Speaks volumes !!!

Hear hear

Wasn't there someone on here this past year who bought a puppy from a breeder in that area, (I think it may have been a Coton), only to discover it was possibly a cross (breeder was selling both pure and crosses).

Malwhit, Now why am I not surprised to read that - fashionbable cross breeds, more profitiable could that be the reason?

> more profitiable could that be the reason?

This is a puzzle to me.  Generally speaking, those that are interested in profit do not show.  Why would they?  It's an expensive hobby and it's pretty unlikely to generate any puppy sales from the general public.

Maybe she's just got greedy. I know of someone who shows and  who breeds cockers but discovered she could sell cocker poos for more money and easier.

From her website

"Xmas babies ready 21st December"

Says it all, really :(

Also stooge we've had a puppy farmer in our breedrecently (already had dogs removed once then return d) who twice a year shows the dogs as I think he thinks this legitimizes his breeding.

How well do they do? Are they in good condition, mentally and physically? In other words, if they were owned by someone else, would they be suitable for breeding?

Always last, always yellow, tails always down unfortunately. some of them are good quality as they came from good lines :(.