The doodle thing is so strange to me because honestly, a poodle - at least a standard; don’t know about minis - is not a beginner dog. They’re just too smart. So I wouldn’t be surprised that part or all of the problem with the crazies is on the owners, but the marketing suggests they’re easy. When I was looking for a dog, standard poodles were on my list, and the breeders I talked to were very up front about how smart they are and how that’s a double edged sword
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I think the high rate of abandonment/shelter-relinquishment of breed members would indicate that a lab is not a beginner dog, either. Very high energy and need for attention, along with being joyfully ADD.
So that would be a cross of two non-beginner breeds … hmmm …
That tells me that they are selling the idea of these dogs. Once primed with an idea, buyers do tend to fill in the blanks with an ideal vision from their own imagination.
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Re puppy mills, I just heard a description that anyone that has more breeding dogs than they can reasonably afford to maintain, food, vet, grooming, exercise has a ‘mill’.
Is that a fair description?
I have been seeing a few advertisements for a ‘guardian’ home. You get to have the dog, not sure who is responsible for the vet care, you feed exercise, etc but the ‘breeder’ retains ownership and can breed the dog. Not sure who looks after the puppies…
Is this new or do responsible breeders do this?
We had a boxer once, many years ago, happy for sure but dumb as a rock. Difficult to housebreak, chewed everything but his chewtoys lol.
It seems to me anytime a breed becomes popular they also become problematic. I know ‘doodles’ are not a breed but they are a thing, and so many people have them now.
I crossed them off my list after doing some research and two local groomers told me their experience is they are ‘dumb’, which probably equates to poor training, and around here they are generally 2x the price of an actual purebred anything!
For me, a mill is someone who is producing puppies for money, not the betterment of the breed. They’re producing many litters a year (maybe just not 2-3 litters). They breed their bitches over and over and over (many breeders I know would breed their bitch maybe 2 or 3 times at the most and then move on to the next generation).
Mills don’t exercise, they often keep their dogs in cages; they don’t groom their dogs (why bother); feed probably do that :), vet if needed but probably not the level of a non-mill breeder; no verifiable health checks especially for known breed-related issues.
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Speaking of puppy mills - go ahead and google puppy mills on YouTube and you will find a LOT of Humane Society rescues and very sad situations you wish you hadn’t watched. There is a charity that specializes in buying and taking fully grown puppy mill breeding dogs when they are for sale or with health problems given away. They are called National Mill Dog Rescue. They have a website and claim a lot of puppy mill dogs. Many of these dogs hadn’t been outside a cage before, never seen grass or been handled by a human on a regular basis. Very unsocialized, but they need help and love to make up for the shi##y care they’ve received while making their sub-humans money with pups.
I love this #Where’sMyWhite (so true!): Having a dog will bless you with both many of the happiest days of your life and one of the worst.
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Responsible breeders do not typically use “guardian homes” - the term, or in general, the practice of retaining ownership on a breeding dog that is placed elsewhere. Many good breeders do co-own dogs with other people and that sometimes includes the possibility of breeding rights in the future, but the legal owner of the dog is the one it lives with. Co-owners of bitches both have to sign off on litter registration paperwork for AKC.
Sometimes a breeder may place a dog or bitch in a permanent home and breed it again without co-ownership. The owner of the dog is still typically the one it lives with, though.
In general, I don’t really have an issue with the concept of a good breeder occasionally breeding a dog/bitch that has been placed in another home. But I do have an issue with this being the standard operating practice of a breeder - it is usually an indication of a breeding for money operation. It’s expensive to keep breeding animals - what a deal if you can pawn it off on someone else, yet still use them to make money whenever you want.
By itself, it wouldn’t necessarily be a deal breaker. No titles and no health testing would be a deal breaker, though.
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MCOA specifically forbids the use of guardian homes if used by the breeder to have more litters per year then the club’s rules allow.
I do know of one Mastiff breeder who was using guardian homes for one bitch she co-owned, who she kept breeding (3 different homes IIRC). She finally got called out. The bitch’s breeder found out about all the homes and demanded the return of the dog. The co-owner, who the breeder had sold her to in the first place, took her and returned her to her breeder.
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Hard as hell to do correctly. Not just twice the work, more like four times the work. Litter mate syndrome is not just for litter mates. It really is about two puppies being raised together who are close in age/developmental stages.
Sheilah
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I got my current Std poodle with such a “deal”. I was the dog’s “guardian” for 3 years.
I would drive her back to her breeder in May so they could breed her, then I’d get her back after her pups were weaned. After her 3rd litter, the breeder gave me her papers and she was mine to keep (and I had her sterilized ASAP - no more litters for her!)
Not a bad deal on a breed whose pups go for $2500 or more.
My dog didn’t cost me anything, and she is a great dog.
Haven’t read the whole thread, but consider a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog. I’m good friends with a small-scale breeder and can’t say enough good things about these dogs. They’re short-haired but great around horses and love being outside, even with freezing Ohio winters. Just make sure if you go with a large breed to make sure hips (+/- elbows) are OFA certified!
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It is supposed to be “a deal” for you. That’s why people agree to it.
The problem is that it allows breeders to have more dogs than they can reasonably afford to breed properly. And it also doesn’t allow you to opt out at any point if you don’t think breeding is in your bitch’s best interest. Pregnancy and whelping aren’t without risks.
Who was responsible for obtaining and paying for your bitch’s health clearances - you, or the breeder? It is recommended that poodles are screened for hip dysplasia and congenital eye disorders, and for a CHIC certificate thyroid and cardiac tests are added.
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The breeder was. The dog only became mine after her 3 litters were completed. She had all those tests done, as well.
The dog was placed with you AFTER being bred 3 times? That’s not how guardian homes work - guardian homes usually have the dog from 8 weeks - and the “guardian home” assumes all of their costs throughout their lives. Who knows how the health tests are covered because they usually aren’t conducted; presumably the breeder would be responsible if they were actually going to do them… Not sure either how dogs/bitches are selected for guardian homes - in theory it would seem that that pick of the litter would be placed in a guardian home.
It’s not uncommon for a breeder to place a bitch (or a dog) in a pet home after its breeding career is over. I wouldn’t call that a guardian home. I wouldn’t be able to do that; which is one reason I’m not a breeder. Owning the stud dogs is easier and a lot less risky.
Does your breeder use the term “guardian home?” It doesn’t sound like they should use that term, especially because it gives a negative connotation about their breeding program.
No, I started being her guardian when she was 3 years old and had just had her first litter. She had already had all her testing etc. done by the breeder and was UTD on vaccines. I did pay for routine vet care. I was her “guardian” for 2 more years and she became mine after her last (3rd) litter.
And yes it WAS a guardian home situation…
The pups may go for $2500, but adults that are retired from breeding, or don’t pass their health screenings, or are returned to the breeder, are generally a few hundred dollars. I would never risk a dog I love for someone else to profit on puppies. I am nervous enough breeding for myself, knowing how many things can go wrong.
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Eh, ok. A modified guardian deal. I don’t really get it but whatever. Keeping a bitch that someone else owns and gets to breed…can’t really understand why that’s a great deal.
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Well, I have learned a good deal from this thread about dogs and where they come from in the modern era.
I am all in support of responsible breeders, including those who limit their breeding based on the welfare of the dogs. And yet, all that said, one reason for such high prices for high quality dogs will be that the supply is nowhere near the demand for them, so people who can afford it are willing to pay to get the dog they want.
Meaning that responsible breeders do not begin to meet the demand for pet dogs, generally. And they are not trying to do that. So where do ordinary people find their pet dogs?
I have no idea how many pet dogs are in my city, and county if we include the rural areas as well, but based on the human population numbers I’d hazard a guess that it is easily in the high 10’s of thousands and maybe well over 100,000. In this area it’s just sort of a given that people have dogs and it’s unusual to find a household without at least one, usually two or three.
Where are these thousands upon thousands of local pet dogs coming from? Only a tiny fraction could possibly come from responsible breeders as RB’s don’t produce nearly that many dogs. Most people couldn’t afford those dogs anyway.
Some of these pets are adopted from shelters (there are three large ones locally and they stay full) and some come as giveaways from other people’s pets who were allowed to have a litter. But I’d hazard a guess that a good many do come from puppy mills. There seem to be a lot of puppies for sale in the area and the demand for them is high. They tend to be the popular breeds, “doodle” crossbreds, and a lot of tiny-dog crossbreds (maltipoos and so on). Everything that this thread has associated with puppy mills.
And given that the shelters are not able to adopt out all of their dogs, but the puppies in the classifieds and pet stores do tend to sell out (it seems), it would seem that, generally speaking, people seeking pets prefer a pet that they think they know something about over a shelter dog.
One thing that I find interesting as a cultural change from when I was a kid. When I was a kid it was common for some family pets to be strays that stayed. But there are no longer strays wandering the neighborhoods as there was then, because these days, in this city, most of the yards are fenced, in all local economic stratas. There is no place for a stray to go except the street. The few that appear tend to be fairly quickly scooped up by animal control because it’s difficult for them to find hidey holes. Ironically, the absence of “free strays” probably makes the demand for puppy mill puppies even higher.
Anyway … after reading this thread, my conclusion is that I’m speculating that puppy mills are a huge industry and not just a sideshow as I had previously assumed. That some significant percentage of pet dogs originate in puppy mills. Awful.
Not sure of your location, but here in the northeast (US), most pet owners responsibly spay/neuter- and there actually are not enough dogs to meet the shelter demand locally. There are a number of rescue groups that regularly ship dogs up north from southern states where spaying and neutering hasn’t caught on as much- and there are many, many, many dogs dropped off at shelters, caught by AC, or other horrible situations- and they get shipped up north to meet the demand. From my observations watching these groups on FB and such, the puppies and youngsters tend to get scooped up quickly, while the older ones tend to sit a little longer- but most dogs move through the process at a fairly reasonable rate, I think. So where you get your dog from may have to do with local culture, but the adopt culture is very strong up here.
I just don’t think that’s true. I think most pet owners don’t even try to find a breeder. And then there are a lot that do contact breeders, and want a puppy NOW, and get mad when the breeder tries to dissuade them from getting a puppy for Christmas, or a breed that is unsuitable, or are unwilling to wait, or are unwilling to pay what the breeder wants. So they go to a pet store and pay half that price for a puppy mill puppy with ‘no strings attached.’
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