Now The other day I was told by someone who is going to breed her pet lab, that because the pups would be for pet/working (yes working as in F.Ts etc) that she won't have to get her bitches eyes and hips done!!!!!!

Now will someone please tell me that this is NOT true???  I can't believe what some people (this person) has said to me about this and many other things!!!

Rox

Sorry Rox but the person is obviously a fool! Why on earth would I put up to two years of work into training to bring a puppy to the point of being really useful just to see them become blind or a cripple? We are possibly even more careful about our dogs genetic health than anyone else in the breed.

Tell the person that if she cannot do the job properly then stay out of breeding and particulay stay out of working Labradors and tell her I said so!

Regards, John

Don't worry have had words as I thought that in working it is more important due to bad hips = no work!

I have already had words and will have words again!  Also her son (my boyfriend) Will have no end of it from me saying how wrong it is so message might get though. 

There will be alot of problems with her selling the pups if she goes ahead without testing as I will happily sit on her drive telling people to only pup puppies from health tested stock!!!!! ;)

Rox

Good for you.
Maybe you could explain to her how she will be liable for bills/compensation for any suffering pups - but you know these people - it *couldnt possibly* happen to them ;-(

Hmmm she really has only had dogs for two years and think she knows everything!!! (might i state she has a 2 yr old lab and a 9 mth aussie and is looking for another!!!!)  As it is th household is not the best with 4 kids aswell, I will have a quite word with her next week when I'm round there, if I don't have a quite word it will be a load one, will also get rest of family involved (grandparents live opposite so emagine how easy it would be for them to tell people they should only buy from health tested stock!!)  Also have many people at ringcraft who are willing to do anthing for dogs so there might be more then just me telling her its wrong!

Rox

Hi Ice, i have no argument with you concerning health tests on dogs, but not happy with the reply on 
(th household is not the best with 4 kids aswell) I have 5 children and although my house does get a little messy with toys it is always clean....and i have dogs in the house 2 of...

I don't mean she shouldn't breed because she has four children but I know these children, I know the family and with two young dogs aswell, The mother at present is at collage taking A levels, I'm not talking about the mess that a kids make as much but the youngsters are very heavy handed.  They wouldn't mean to do anything, infact would love to help with everything if she did have a litter but breeding a litter with trying to look after children, young dogs etc aswell as studying A-levels it woudl be hard (not impossible by any means) to bring a litter.  No doubt it, has been done, and will be done plenty more times. 

I am not saying that parents cannot breed, but surly it is alot more work!?

Rox

Well yes kids and a litter of pups is more work i should know, but having said that i dont go out to work( i leave that to my hubby lol ) so spend my time devoting my attention to a litter of pups, i didn't even like going to the shops while i had the puppies just incase something happened,but again only done that once due to very sad circumstances on the second litter, most of my children are at school and they were responsible enough to help care for the litter and they did enjoy getting involved...

Rox,

I would simply say to her that without the relevant health checks being done, she may have to take ALL the pups back if/when they have problems and with labs that could be a litter of 12+. Also that any respecting stud owner would NEVER let their dogs mate with a bitch that doesn't have proof of good health, therefore she couldn't use a good stud, therfore she will have a hell of a job finding people who will buy her pups, especially for working, where lines are so valuable.

Keep up the good work-

Ali :)

Ali, theres a problem with the stud dog owner, a lovely lady herself, but she breeds her sons labs to a very long waiting list and I sometimes get the feeling she doesn't always have health checks done, she puppy farms the labs to some degree I think.  when I say puppy farm I just mean lots of litters, alothough they are all reared and looked after and the bicthes don't have a litter every season, its just alot of puppies she has, conditions are all clean before people start arguing about that but I would never give her name to anyone who wants a lab puppy even though she is a friend of the whole family and a very nice person who I have in the past been allowed to handle her show dogs!

Rox

Rox,

It all sounds highly dubious to me :(
Labs are numerically such a huge breed, with 1000's of pups born every year, it worries me a lot that people should have such disregard about proper breeding. This is one reason that the breed is becoming so varied in size, working ability and temperament, its all very sad.
All you can do is what you can.
Cheers
Ali :)

I'm trying to give her the reasons not to breed but I don't think its sinking in :(  If she goes ahead with this litter I can see her losing alot of her "friends" because people are not happy with what she is going to do.

Ohwell  What I really want to do I can't :( it's against the law to rescue a dog without permission :( !!!

Rox

I think you'd find that many owners of top working dogs would take the more "robust" view that the bitch is going to be bred from anyway, so it may as well be their hip scored & eye tested dog gets used. (The lure of the stud fee might help as well!)

The majority of pet AND working puppy buyers eyes glaze over when you start talking about bloodlines & pedigrees.

Hit her with the lure of the £! Tell her that most puppy buyers WILL ask the question about hips & eyes (even though they haven't got a clue what answer they are looking for! LOL) so not having the test done WILL impact on the saleablility of the pups. Male labradors (especially blacks) are not the easiest to sell, so she wants to stack everything in her favour as there will always be plenty of other labs around for sale that have been tested! Total cost of x rays plus eye certs shouldnt be much more than £100 which can easily be added on to the price of the pups!

Thanks Havoc, will tell her about black males esp...as she is breeding a black bitch with I think a black dog!!!

sometimes with bad hips probs are not detected because of really good muscle development,that holds the hips securely & disgising the problem, this dosent mean that they have good hips though!!!

my friends old collie never had any lameness probs, but at 8 he slipped & disolcated his leg, the vets couldnt put it back in because he basically had very shallow sockets & hardly any fermoral head left. so he had chronic hips but never had had any probs with them till his accident, he was totally sheep trailling stockbred!

but michelle, if you don't get your dogs hips done then they might come back with a bad score, yes it is possible that scores are not always true, and yes muscle does get in the way but surely you would still have hips scored if you were going to have a litter?

Rox

of course you should! because of what i just said!
ie you could have a totally sound dog ,that worked everyday but had a terrible score so would not be suitable for breeding!!!
(sorry if i wasnt clear!)
im actually in favour of all dogs been scored, my flynn has a score of 21-21=42, yet his sister & brother both have a score of 6, i think theres alot of things that we just dont know about HD, & at least by doing everydog we may start to see patterns developing>