BYB Working line or ASL? - Page 2

Not all.puppy mills are deplorable. Some high volume breeders with good business ethics and well bred dogs (usually bought stud stock with good PEDs and titles), good practices etc I still call puppy mills.

 

I support the kennel owners with day jobs and who title their own breeding stock and mostly have their own lines for generations not cross breeding to keep titles up close.

Let's see.... which 8 week old pup costs $600 and which one costs $2500?

And which one ends up in the shelter?

In case of doubt both...

@Beetree

SAR dogs-Blk & Gold-wilderness tracking/trailing, agility & obedience

Blk & tan-cadavor & obedience

Sable-Air scenting, agility & obedience (a little demon)

All under your $600 to the shelter consensus

 

In 2005, I rescued a BYB male dog. The owner didn't want him anymore, and was threatening to shoot him if no one would take him. He became my hearing ear service dog, my heart dog, and he probably saved my life one night. I was heartbroken when I had to say 'goodbye' to him in April of 2016, at the age of 14 years. I never put a title on him except for a CGC, but we did courses in basic obedience, tracking and agility, and he did well at all of them.

He also learned the hearing ear tasks I taught him with amazing speed. Two or three repetitions was usually all it took for him to learn a new task.

He wouldn't have won any conformation titles, but he was a pretty nice-looking boy, and had a really good temperament. He would look very fierce when barking at someone who was knocking at the door, but once I let them in, he'd be offering them his favourite toy within a few minutes, which is just the sort of temperament I needed for a service dog (single woman, living alone.) 

Moral of the story: don't turn your nose up at rescues. There are some REALLY good dogs out there, whether they come with a pedigree or not.

Second moral to the story: when I adopted him, needless to say, I didn't have a very high opinion of his previous owner. 

Don't be too quick to judge: when my birth mother was dying in hospital in November, he was the one who came and shovelled the walkway and driveway to her house so I could stay there. He got me an appointment for an oil change for my car, and his wife came and sat vigil with me at my mom's bedside, so I wouldn't be so alone.

Over the years I had the dog, when my mom came to visit, he'd always say to her "take lots of pictures!" And when I visited her, he always found an excuse to drop by to see his old dog. I began to suspect he'd said he was going to shoot the dog because he knew it would get local dog owners upset enough that they'd offer the dog a home!

Great story Sunsilver, I have a feeling that I have read it before.

I also have a story about my first dog, maybe more amazing than yours. Unregistered male (not even a GSD), neglected (by us), never trained to do anything, never seen a vet, not even vaccinated or wormed.

Thirty years ago he died saving someone's life, and taught us never to neglect a dog, and also never to live without one.

I'm sure many people in this forum have their own stories about that one great mutt.

Problem is, when a newcomer reads these stories, he goes to a BYBer to get his first dog, and then waits for that miracle to happen.

LOL, Swarnendu. It's a theory. Not sure how accurate; there may be those who expect miracles on the cheap, but as has been pointed out, the BYBs are not always the cheapest on puppy prices.

I really do not understand why, particularly these days, taking into account the wide array of communication tools open to a majority of the world's population so that more information is "out there" than at any other time in human history, it is so difficult to get the messages across.

Like: a puppy farmed dog will almost certainly be more expensive to the buyer in the end, because so many of them get badly sick once purchased, due to the poor way in which they were raised; like: if you look after any domesticated animal properly, you can expect a greater return on your investment than if you don't; like: you cannot get a silk purse out of a sow's ear, so if you want a dog to be something special, to fulfill some particular purpose in your life, you need to find out as much as you can first about the way that pup has been bred and raised, and what its immediate ancestry was like, has done, was qualified in. It really ain't rocket science to grasp the basics of that stuff, you don't have to go into such fine detail you become obsessively knowledgeable about the breed or dogs in general, if you don't want to.

There is no 'magic wand' that produces you an outstanding puppy on purchase;

there is no 'magic wand' that means baby dogs come immediately fully-trained;   there is no 'magic wand' that ensures you will never, ever have any bad luck with the dog in terms of it getting some health problems (or run over by a car).  So why so many seem happy to expect that there might be, baffles me.

Now here's a lass I fostered for a rescue from a "puppymill" that the USDA closed within the state that substantiate the complaints of poor quality-she still had a heart of gold-I was to have fostered a second dog but the evaluating vet declared her fear aggressive and euthanized her before I had an opportunity to work with her.