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The next growl from the Growler

Another column from our show world insider...

As a long time breeder of pedigree dogs I watch in horror what is happening in the dog world.
Yes, I health test (I do more tests than the KC want for my breed). I raise puppies in my home trying my best to make sure I am selling healthy happy well socialised pups to the best homes I can find.
I don't make a lot of money and I don't have a huge kennel.
There are a lot of breeders like me, all quietly doing the same thing - often still in contact with puppies who are now elderly and their owners and sometimes with owners who have come back to find a second family pet after the first passed away.
While I admit over the years we all make changes and try to improve, I do feel let down and unsupported by the KC who don't seem to have any time or interest in what any breeder is doing once the registration money has been paid.
After 'that programme' as many call it, why didn't our KC spend some money showing the other side and how good breeders operate? Surely a great education advantage was lost by the total lack of action or defense.
Then we had the mad knee-jerk face-saving race that went on. Rafts of change and new rules suddenly pouring out of Clarges Street with little consultation or warning. Very few of us could keep up. Most willingly went along with change and breed clubs up and down the country ran around like mad things trying to cope, holding the KC-demanded meetings and reviewing the new standards in the time frame allowed.
Many breeds had rules regarding breeding and health testing that were far more stringent and fitting to each individual breed, but they were swept away - replaced by a set of one size fits all approach from our KC. Is it the breeders fault that our esteemed leaders were caught napping and made to look foolish by a well planned and edited assault on pedigree dogs?
I would say KC educate yourselves, come down of your lofty perch in your gentleman's club and actually look at the dog breeding that goes on today.
The small hobby breeders you look down on are what has replaced big impersonal kennels and make up the majority of your customers
LONG MAY IT CONTINUE
THE GROWLER
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cambstreasurer said…
I do wish there was a concerted effort to "sell" the benefits of buying a puppy that has been raised in the breeder's own home and given an enriched social environment.

Of course that doesn't guarantee health, but it would give some protection against the problems that arise when puppies are raised in a kennel situation where they have minimal contact with human beings doing normal domestic activities.
20 August 2010 at 12:21
Anonymous said…
Careful here. Lots of 'Home Bred' pups live in garden sheds or cupboards under the stairs. We always had our pups indoors as part of the home but it is a lot of the so called 'home breeders' that use dog breeding purely to make money.
I'm 'In the pink' but can't seem to log in today!
20 August 2010 at 13:05
Anonymous said…
if growler does test, what test do they use, I assume the BVA/KC ones, and it seems they are not very well informed (but for DT that’s no surprise) as the KC had to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds dealing with press and the general public correcting the incorrect and misleading information in PDE, which in its self failed to say anything about what health test are available and what to do when looking for a new puppy. Why not ask the Rhodesian Ridgeback breeders who proved just how the program lied by Ofcom’s ruling that whats shown on prime time TV can be seen as gospel by the general public, when its then shown it has NO educational value at all. Does growler endorse all their puppies I wonder, or do they contribute to further unrestricted breed? As for their narrow view of a “gentleman's club” its a shame they don’t bother to see just how much work those men and women do for the sake and future of ALL dogs. Perhaps a few minutes reading the last few KC annual reports might given a more educated stance if not at least it would an be informed one.
20 August 2010 at 15:44
Anonymous said…
I agree with growler a lot of breeders feel totally let down by the KC who maintain their control by having a pretty secure monopoly over the hobby of dog showing and breeding.As for reading annual reports why bother they are carefully controlled and lets face it at the last AGM any voices raised in opposition were soon silenced.There are plenty of small breedersa who raise pups as part of the family and only a fool would think they are all uncaring money making operations.Better to be trying to be informed than yet another tame KC voice trained to spout the party line
20 August 2010 at 20:23
Anonymous said…
the KC Annual report list FACTS of what has been done, where the money has been spent i.e. which charity and for what reason, what course/training/event has been run, results of the KCGCDS Over 300,000 dogs and owners have now passed through Scheme), KCJO (over 3,000 members),SOS, KCACI how many of the schemes are now copied by other clubs around the world, the thousands of information guide produced and published and issued each year (all free of charge!!), supporting the work and event run by the nearly 2,0000 societies it has registered with it,the work through the webs sites , the various kc run events besides Crufts i.ie. Discover Dogs held in London, Mirco Chip Month, Field Trails, Agility Festival, they are not political aligned to any party but they do make a difference with legislation, banning electrical collars, fighting against control orders in local area. The very fact a person makes an assumption about an organisation and doesn’t bother to read a report of what they do say more about them than the organisation !! on the slim chance this will be published http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/item/449 and let other judge with an informed view for themselves!
21 August 2010 at 10:47
Anonymous said…
Ditch the Kennel Club, go it alone. All you breeders who have "ethical standards" advertise yourselves as such. Personally I don't care about a piece of paper showing a 100 years of lineage. I'd just rather have a piece of paper endorsed by a reputable independent from the breeder vet saying mum, dad, pups are healthy and from the breeder say should you need, i will help, piece of paper.

Come on, time to stop whinging, get the puppy contract in place and go it alone. be brave start something new and ditch that awful kennel club. they don't do anything worthy anyway.
23 August 2010 at 13:26
Anonymous said…
"I'd just rather have a piece of paper endorsed by a reputable independent from the breeder vet saying mum, dad, pups are healthy" to make such a quote shows just how little this person knows about breeding a healthy dog a good breeder knows the health status of the pups grandparents, great grandparents, and further back too, the sibling of dogs on the pedigree, they know the temperament of the dogs recorded to. A vet who I suspect had little or no knowledge of a breed giving a simple health cert (although good to show the pup is healthy on the day) will not guarantee its future health. Yet if you look at breed clubs list and the KC publications (and their web site search engine) you can see just WHAT testing has been done for the ancestors of a pup. Such statement made by the previous post show just how little people know or research about how a healthy pup is bred, which is as much as a problem as poorly bred dogs are.
26 August 2010 at 15:26
Mrs Margaret Carter said…
"a good breeder knows the health status of the pups grandparents, great grandparents, and further back too, the sibling of dogs on the pedigree"

This argument is typical of the Kennel Club. A patronising put down which is full of half truths.

Actually, most breeders only know as much as the owners of other dogs chose to make public, and many people are successful at hiding the health problems in their dogs.
A person acquainted with a breed for decades may have heard rumours about the problems in other lines, but for the relative newcomer there will be no way of finding out about the faults in the extended family of their dogs.

Anonymous goes on to say... "Yet if you look at breed clubs list and the KC publications (and their web site search engine) you can see just WHAT testing has been done for the ancestors of a pup"

A little misleading here..... There are very few official health schemes, they apply to relatively few breeds, and therefore there is very little information about breed health on the KC website.

Breed club lists, showing the health status of individual dogs are very few, and are all voluntary, so they will contain only a handful of names.

Then we have..." Such statement made by the previous post show just how little people know or research about how a healthy pup is bred, which is as much as a problem as poorly bred dogs are."

I would agree that lack of information about health issues in breeds is a problem for puppy buyers. Perhaps the Kennel Club should be doing more to genuinely help educate the public, instead of wasting time and money trying to puff up their molehill of health testing into a mountain?

Margaret Carter
30 August 2010 at 18:21
Anonymous said…
“Breed club lists, showing the health status of individual dogs are very few, and are all voluntary, so they will contain only a handful of names.” And unfortunately due to the actions of Margaret Carter by choosing to publicly revel the health status of dogs on national television (although it being with the best of intentions) but without a balanced and correct information to educate the viewer on just what work has been done by scientists, vets and breeders so far and the challenge they still faced, theirs and other work had been undermined, so she has directly affected those lists as who would want to add their name to a list voluntarily at the risk of such information being twisted by the media? As for her comment “A little misleading here..... There are very few official health schemes, they apply to relatively few breeds, and therefore there is very little information about breed health on the KC website.” These test can only be initiated with the guidance of the vets, so is she questioning their ethics here? And the schemes such as hips and eyes cover all the affected breeds, month on month with the progress of scientists at the AHT and others around the world has ment new DNA tests have been found, indeed the unlocking of one marker for a condition in a breed allows many others to be found much quicker. Lens Luxation tests introduced last year mean thousands and thousands of dogs have been tested and their status are now know for this condition, and as a result tens of thousands of dogs (as they are hereditary clear, which is shown on the KC site) will not be affected by this eye conditions and it can be irradiated from a breed in matter of a few years. However Miss Cuddy was quite dismissive of these test at the time I hope even she know appreciate the major benefits to the canine world (and indeed it has helped human research too)/ Ms Cater is too quick to judge all of dogs by her own experience in JUST her own breed but perhaps a step back to look at the wider picture may help others to focus on not just their view but a wider one of the health of ALL DOGS.
31 August 2010 at 14:03
Anonymous said…
Does this blog not allow people of different views to express them or is there another reason why the following wasnt allowed? - “Breed club lists, showing the health status of individual dogs are very few, and are all voluntary, so they will contain only a handful of names.” And unfortunately due to the actions of Margaret Carter by choosing to publicly revel the health status of dogs on national television (although it being with the best of intentions) but without a balanced and correct information to educate the viewer on just what work has been done by scientists, vets and breeders so far and the challenge they still faced, theirs and other work had been undermined, so she has directly affected those lists as who would want to add their name to a list voluntarily at the risk of such information being twisted by the media? As for her comment “A little misleading here..... There are very few official health schemes, they apply to relatively few breeds, and therefore there is very little information about breed health on the KC website.” These test can only be initiated with the guidance of the vets, so is she questioning their ethics here? And the schemes such as hips and eyes cover all the affected breeds, month on month with the progress of scientists at the AHT and others around the world has ment new DNA tests have been found, indeed the unlocking of one marker for a condition in a breed allows many others to be found much quicker. Lens Luxation tests introduced last year mean thousands and thousands of dogs have been tested and their status are now know for this condition, and as a result tens of thousands of dogs (as they are hereditary clear, which is shown on the KC site) will not be affected by this eye conditions and it can be irradiated from a breed in matter of a few years. However Miss Cuddy was quite dismissive of these test at the time I hope even she know appreciate the major benefits to the canine world (and indeed it has helped human research too) Ms Cater is too quick to judge all of dogs by her own experience in JUST her own breed but perhaps a step back to look at the wider picture may help others to focus on not just their view but a wider one of the health of ALL DOGS.
1 September 2010 at 11:33
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