Ethics - Page 3

Uh oh, looks like the Wildthing just got beat at her own game. This is getting better than the Sopranos.

Hip quality IS NOT A CRAPSHOOT -- but I don't see many people correcting those with that attidude. GENETICS, ENVIRONEMNT, NUTRITION -- all have a role. Ask a good breeder - (on either side of the pond) they insisit on good quality hips to good quality hips. Ask a Newfie breeder - and they have a stroke if you let one of their precious (overwieght) pups climb stairs before it it something ridiculous like 16 weeks old (so it will never build any muscles and strengthen already weak ligimentation, I guess) and ask Robert Ababy, and he'll tell you it's his food that makes good hips, as he has always made different formula for different sized dogs so they have the proper nutrition to grow to their fullest potential. ZW 78 to ZW 90 is a damn site better than ZW 95 TO ZW 110 -- regardless of what you think of the numbers. OFA Good to OFA Good is a damn site better than OFA excellent to OFA Fair - or worse -- not certified !! One half of the mix is not going to carry the load !! And just to say it again, years ago I made an acquaintance of a breeder of Newfoundlands who was very tired to handing out replacement puppies due to lousy hip quality -- They were not even x-raying their breeding stock -- they thought most Newf's had bad hips - imagine that !! I asked him to raise one litter on "Abady" and guess what -- much better hips !! DUHHHH !!! As I understand it, there are many German breeders who do not even feed commercial feeds -- only meat out of the back door of the slaugher house -- and guess what, their dogs have great hips !! Shame on the vets who discourage people from feeding sufficient protein to retard the dogs growth !!! This way you can get an undernourished, AND Dysplastic dog all in one - with, God only knows, what kind of other damage to organs, etc, from lack of nutrition when it was growing fast and needed it most !!

So in theory, If I feed Abady,use 2Kkl1 a normal to breed and keep a close eye on their enviroment, I should never produce a litter with any having CHD? And you PINE will assure me of this?

No, and neither will Dr. Corley. But....you will have increased your 'odds'. and there's still a big difference between some degree of imperfect hips via x-ray, and CRIPPLING which would cause some 12 year old kid to lose his/her beloved pet prematurely. ABADY is not the only or best food in the world. I'm sure there are (a few) others. 20 years ago, breeders "poo-pood" ABADY and foods formulated under similar philosophy as not-proven. I think their biggest problem was reluctance to give up their 100 wt. quantity discounts from Purina or Blue Seal or Whomever -- Well, time has passed, and Dr. Bob, I think makesa a good case for showing that his formulae can improve hips. -- A retired German Breeder (in the U.S.) said he didn't have to OFA his dogs because he walked the puppies around a 2 acre perimiter fence and if they could do that - they had good hips !! Yeah, sure. We all have to use the best dogs we can, and do the best by them nutritionally and environmentally, and then we can say ... we tried, we did not compromise or make excuses for poor results, and were true to the breed, producing generations that could do the work they were bred to do -- Yup, there's dogs in that lot that have a shallow acetabular rim and we hope that develop good muscles to compensate - that's it !! The best that we can do . The best that some paranoid people can do is crate their dogs for 8-12 hours after they feed them, and only let them lick ice blocks instead of drink water, because they are scared to death they will boat before they can get a litter out of them. TTFN.

Ok PINE, I know the things that could be done to lessen the chances of CHD, including the three factors mentioned by you.Then why can you not assure me CHD will not take place? Of course hips are a crap shoot........... Of course there are things to be done to help, tell me how to eliminate it entirely.When you have that answer then it is no longer a crap shoot.

Partrishap, Why do you think it would be strange for one hip to be good and the other bad? ONe would then have to ask why is my one eye 20/20 and the other 20/50? All body parts are formed on their own and each can be different from the opposing one. Thus making each joint, bone, eye, tooth, jaw have a fate of its' own. If it were a perfect world then we all would be formed perfectly symetricly as well as our dogs.

My orthopedic (people doctor) surgeon told me about a disease people have - something crippling that affects the knees -- I forget the name -- He said everybody who has it - knows they have it - and they know there is a good chance of passing it on to their offspring. If everybody who had it - declined to have children, the disease would be gone forever -and no child would ever suffer from it again. Pretty simple, huh ? Same thing with Dysplasia -- and do you use the C for crippling or Canine ? If we didn't ever breen dogs "known" to have dysplasia, we would GREATELY - lessen the odds of continuing to produce it. I received a personal phone call from Ed Corley years ago because I sent him a pedigree of 8 generations of GSD's with certified HIPS and elbows -- The oldest dog on there, had a OFA NUMBER OF 114 !! So they had just started. He called because he said he had not, to that point, seen a pedigree with 8 unbroken generations of hips and ELBOWS, (because very few people were x-raying elbows in the early 80's). Most breeders do not have the luxury of x-raying every dog they produce, but they certainly do know if people are complaining that puppies are lame or worse - requiring thousands of dollars of surgery for that 'one' bad hip -- More breeders today, I think are trying harder - there are the few show holdouts -- The German rating is probably better than most, and if the puppy that I kept from my favorit bitch got an OFA FAIR - i WOULD STILL BREED HER, because she does have a great "genetic" background. And if I imported a dog, I'd want the ZW of the litter to start out at 75 not 95. we may never eliminate this problem, but we can go a long way to minimize it's ill effects. Just say no to the lovely bitch/or stud with questionable hips or poorly rated parents and we can continue to improve. Breed the best we have to the best we can find -- slow but steady (improvement) wins out in the end. There's no shortcut, no pill, and no guarantee, but it is still NOT a crapshoot. There are 'odds'to be reconned with.

Pine, not looking to argue with you and you by all means have some valid points......Maybe you just do not like the word crapshoot? You think your or for that matter my odds are better then 50/50?

okay, last time -- all of our odds are better than 50/50 if we continue to strengthen our breeding stock by using "better" dogs each generation, successively strengthened by their good genes, combining with the good genes from their breeding partners -- etc., etc., etc. Large (nameless) foundations breeding service dogs can show that simply breeding good hips to good hips -- consistently, over a long period of time have greatly increased the percentages of good hips in offspring of successive generations. (Along with good nutrition and all the common sense things we've already discusssed). These types of organizations can do that because they have extensive records and the luxury of x-raying, (I'm guessing) 80 percent of their puppies. All I want to do is continue to work to REDUCING the odds - as I would never say that this problem will be eliminated in (at least) my lifetime, since I'm old. It just turns my stomach - when I speak to people on the street - like on Sunday, and the elderly couple said "We paid $1,200 for what we thought was a good puppy, and had to put it to sleep at 10 months, because the hips were so bad !! (Duhh -- check out the pedigree - NEITHER PARENT OFA'S PENN'd, "a" STAMPED OR OTHERWISE !!! Their "odds" were probably 90/10 guaranteeing bad hips. I just want ours to be the other way round !! BTW: If we want to migrate to a raw food discussion someday -- I've been feeding puppies that I've kept a 100% raw diet from 5 weeks to around 8 months, and I believe that's increased their odds of having better hips too. And, yes, if I though dressing them in pumpkin outfits and feeding them 2 apples a day for 3 weeks in November, I'd do that too. It couldn't hurt.

I'm all for bettering the breed, We first have to undue what we have screwed up the last 40 to 50 years You Pine side step my questions......You made a statement,I disagree with you. You say hips are NOT a crap shoot, I say not only are hips but for the most part so are puppies in generalI KNOW whats needs to be done to help the breed get back to where it was. Do I think it is possible? Not at the rate we are going.At this point in time nothing you or anybody else says can convince me that a German Shepherds hip are anything but a crapsoot, weather you like the word or not.It is what it is my friend,and yoe can't change that .Raw diet from what I read sounds great.How is it compared to dry commerical in price?Where do you get it?and do you use any supplements with it?