Disgusted - Page 2

                One of my girls last week came up severly dysplastic left hip, moderate on right, bad left elbow... She was never abreeding prospect due to weak nerves, and over drive on protection combination in her personality. Why not with the tools available to breeders today not make use of them to at least lessen the chances that owners who love these dogs and have to watch the dogs pain and make hard descions and these dogs who have to live with it? I went back to look up the lines today after reading this thread and noticed all info on her dam's sire on this site has been removed? So then I looked further and now her Sire's dam and severak generation behind that the HD is removed as well? So then I looked further and found no other siblings registered to this litter or other progeny from the sire to compare notes <there can be no further progeny listed from the female as I was told she died in whelp> but her one pup from previous litter was registered that the breeder showed until selling him and no others there as well. What good is being able to research and make your conclusions on hip reasearch when only the info breeders wish you to see are avaiable and also all the pups sold to pet homes are not in the statistics? Most youngsters kept by the breeders to show till they can be prelimed will be tested and if not the results they wanted sold with most not being spayed to pet homes that in turn breed them as omg my dog is related to so and so. Those prelim results are never recorded and are not factored into the research as well. In the short of it you only get the info on the dogs that are successful so how can any research be accurate?

  I think not only should the testing be done but I also think there should be unified testing worldwide and results posted for all to see and not if the breeder just chooses to send the x rays taken to OFA.

Sadly, Newbie's dog was bred by a poster to this board and is out of a well known stud dog. Why has the hip information been deleted?

who, blitzen? transparency can only be a good thing in a case like this.

Yes, I did ask the person why she would breed her dog that did not get an OFA number. She said she thinks he is really nice and that she loves him. Eeeeeeeekkkkkkk!. When I pointed out the fact that he is not OFA she said: "but he does so great in agility how bad can his hips be?"  There is NO reasoning with someone like that. She is not taking a puppy or getting any $$ from the breeding. The owner of the bitch should and does know better, but just wants to sell puppies and figured this was a cheap way to do it.  Yet she (owner of the dog) was very upset when she found out he could not get a number. Go figure.

Pat

"He does so great in agility, how bad can his hips be?"

Gee, interesting co-incidence! I was just reading a book tonight, about a lady who paid $4000 for a German import puppy with really superb  bloodlines.

Two years later, she was training him for his Schh 3*, and the vet called her with his x-ray results. Both hips were completely out of their sockets. Yet this dog was scaling six foot walls in training!

(*She believed in training above the level the dog was to be certified at, so a dog preparing for his Sch 1 trial would already be working on Sch 3 exercises.)

Sunsilver, what was the book?

Sue, the author got sick and tired of paying good money for dysplastic dogs, so she started her own breed, after being heavily involved in all aspects of training and titleing GSD's for many years. (She titled her first dog at age 16!)

The book is called "Against the Wind: a Breed is Born: The Shiloh Shepherd Story", by Tina Barber.

If GSD breeders would do half what Tina has done to improve the breed, we'd have much healthier dogs. She has over 40 years of records; documenting hips, elbows, temperment, coat colour and length, and  defects such as cryptoorchidism and EPI.  Whenever possible, she gathers this info for ALL the puppies in the litters, even those that are pet quality. There may be GSD breeders out there that do that, but I'm guessing there's not many of them. To those that do, THANK YOU for your deication to the breed!

Her dogs were originally registered GSD's from both American and German lines, but eventually, she started outcrossing to other breeds, and the Shilohs are now a separate breed, though still under development.

And, yes, there are a lot of people who dislike her for what she's done, but could we please not get into that?

Incidentally, this is not the first time I've heard of a dog with severe dysplasia competing at a high level, and not showing any signs of pain or disability. Let's face it, a Schutzhund dog must have a higher pain tolerance than most dogs, and the best dogs are so wiling to please us, they'll just ignore the pain. 

Sorry, missed a few letters, that should read "THANK YOU for your dedication to the breed!"

Sunsilver I bought that book last Christmas and what a read it was.  Also if you are into beginning genetics this is the book for you because she explains it good.  I first met Tina in the old days when she was still breeding AKC GSDs and I have always liked her.  Though her direction is not mine, I still have respect for her and I think she is a damn smart person.

Speaking of breeding dysplastic dogs--I guess what irks me more than people who don't xray are those that do and know the dogs are dysplastic and breed them anyway.  Last nite I was over in the other part of the database looking at the message boards and ads for white shepherds.  Here is this male, OFA rated dysplastic; not only did they use him, they linebred on him so tight--he was the grandfather on both the sire and dam side--luckily his son and daughter that were being bred were both fairs--I guess luickily--not anything I would touch with a 10' pole.  So yep that is pretty disgusting to me...............