Back yard breeders make up many GSD breeders now, at least in my area- Fl. Very few good reputable breeders in this area.
The southern states typically have loose dogs that roam, un-neutered males and unspayed females regardless of breed or mutt status. Why? Ignorance, carelessness, freedom and all that.
So it’s common for rescues to ship litters up north to find homes there.
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My mom was shamed into rescuing her last three dogs. They were an absolutely heartbreak. All died relatively young. The dog she most recently lost already had two major surgeries on her hind legs at age 2 and ended up dying from aggressive cancer of the kidney at age 6. My mom called me in tears asking why this keeps happening to her. All her rescue dogs dying young. I told her she did very well by her dogs and it was just bad luck. I did tell her that if she wanted to try a reputable breeder, I would help her find one. She is going that route this time.
Rescue no longer means just stray dogs that got together and had hardy little mutt puppies. It frequently means poorly bred designer dogs sold through puppy stores from puppy mills ended up losing their homes and were picked up by “rescues” from local shelters because of their looks. Heck, down here, all the pits and pit crosses are the only ones left at the shelters because anything that could possibly be a breed or breed cross is snatched up before the anyone local can even look at them. There’s a big difference between the modest adoption fees at the pound ($35) and the $$$ prices the “rescues” charge people. Same dog, but they snatch them up from here, haul them to another state (or another part of our state) with more breeding restrictions, and sell them for big bucks. A lot of rescues are scams.
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I suspect there are huge regional variations.
A horse friend of mine coordinates with the SPCA and a team of vets to head up to the northern parts of Ontario and Manitoba. They’ll go up and provide veterinary care (spay/neuter) and deliver supplies, round up loose dogs, figure out which ones are strays, and bring them further south to find homes.
Strays don’t really exist here, and haven’t really existed here for decades.
The SPCA and rescues are full of surrenders and northern dogs.
With social media it seems that more and more people are rehoming dogs on their own.
There is a fabulous website that I found my good girl on- getyourpet.com . You can adopt directly from the owner. The family that had my girl loved her, but she was too much for them. Great site!
This is an oxymoron.
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I always tell this story, but when I was eight years old, my know-nothing-about dogs parents and I (at my begging) got a dog from the local shelter. She’d been found pregnant with one puppy sniffing around a junk yard. She was probably a corgi-chihuahua mix of some sort, lived well into her late teens and won over even my father with her intelligence and loyalty. She did have a few health problems in her late teens, but even then some of them may have been due to the fact she was raised before lots of the care we know is important about now for dogs (like regular dentals for small dogs, teeth brushing) was common.
So I do think hybrid vigor may have existed long ago. But the type of small, feisty-yet-trainable stray doesn’t seem to exist in shelters anymore. My big issue with shelters/rescues is less with health problems (vet care for all dogs is getting more and more expensive) and more with temperament.
So many highly stressed, unhappy dogs-partly due to genetics, perhaps, but also due to having clueless owners that didn’t install the basics (or even treat the dog with basic human decency) during the dog’s formative years. At least with a reputable breeder, you’re hopefully dealing with someone who knows and loves dogs. A breeder’s dog who isn’t “show quality” but who is still a nice dog may be the best investment.
The big pushback I see on social media is from the “if you don’t want to rescue a pit bull (regardless of your lifestyle, family, or stage in life) you don’t deserve a dog.” I’m not anti-pit, but large, athletic dogs have certain needs.
The best dog for an owner is a good match for that owner, regardless of where the dog comes from.
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I have never heard this one before.
It goes against everything I say about the breed (and any breed really).
They are not the breed for everyone and don’t get one unless you know what you are getting, because when you own a breed that lots of people want to hate you need to go above and beyond to make sure they are never in a situation that adds to that hate.
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How do you figure? A mother can adopt out her child, parents can adopt children. No difference.
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For sure, but because they aren’t the breed for everyone, my local shelters are (sad to say), almost exclusively pits and pit mixes, and yet people who go to breeders are still shamed (usually on social media, but even IRL). My last dog was a longhaired chihuahua and once I was complimented on how cute she was by a passerby. A woman walking her own dog nearby actually chewed out the man who did so, saying my dog was obviously purebred (which she was) and I should have gotten a dog like hers from a shelter. Obviously, it’s fortunately not typical that people are so unhinged in person.
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Well, I don’t think there is any comparison between child and pet adoption. But, if we want to draw that parallel, it is the birthmother who places a child for adoption. In dog speak, that would be the breeder.
What you’re describing is just rehoming. A person who has a dog (bought from a breeder, pet shop, or picked up at the shelter) and wants to place it with someone else is rehoming their dog to a new owner. The new owner is essentially buying a dog from someone else - because usually there is some fee. But even if there was no fee, they are no different than a person who “buys” a dog. They are just the owner.
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I probably shouldn’t have, but clicked the link, and there were a few dogs I liked. But I was a little confused, since some older dogs seemed to be legitimately in need of new owners (the ones I was interested in), while there were some three month purebred puppies also advertised. Are all the adoptions truly $99,including a vet check?
That’s my understanding. At the time that I got Oh, the fee was waived.
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That’s fine- we simply do not agree. For me, re-homing and adoption are essentially the same thing. The site charges a fee- which is fine with me, because they are offering a great service for the owners of the animals, as well as potential adopters.
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Holding hands! Adorable!
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** But how are so many dogs ending up in “rescues” in the first place? They are clearly being produced by breeders somewhere.**
Dogs are dumped left and right in the south. Has been true forever. People get a free puppy, raise it, don’t spay/neuter it, they have a litter and give them away. That’s probably 50% of your dogs that get a ride north.
The other 50% are the asshats that breed junk, try to sell junk, then that unfixed junk gets dumped and shipped north.
I cannot recall the dogs that I’ve found on my farm in the last 20 years. ALL dumped dogs. every single one. Mostly mutts. One we called Soap was either an English or Llewelyn Setter. Dumped.
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I know he is not liked on here but I love watching Dr. Pol. What alarms me is the amount of clients who have intact dogs. I can only imagine that when you multiply this number by every vet practice across the US there is no doubt where all the dogs are coming from in the rescues ??
My parents spayed or neutered every dog we had . We had 1 “oops” breeding when our Lab was bred before they got her spayed. The 8 resulting pups were so much fun for me but not so much for my dad who had to hose out the garage every weekend!
Unplanned breedings never happened again in our dog family. It made enough of an impression on me that I get any dog we have spayed as soon as is physically possible.
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I think as was said already in this thread - it really depends on where you live. Most of my dogs have been intact for most of their lives, and no unplanned litters. But it would be very unusual for people in my area to have unaltered dogs wandering about.
Most of the people I know who show or compete with their dogs in field events have intact dogs. But very few unintended litters (and the 2 I can think of were very well-bred, just wrong-timed breedings).
Having an unaltered dog or bitch is not the problem - it’s the unfenced, loose or wandering unaltered animal that is the problem. Certainly if people can’t guarantee their dogs will not reproduce accidentally, they should have them altered. I think that’s why breeders recommend owners wait, and vets recommend that they don’t - the vets see the unintended consequences of owners who can’t supervise their intact dogs and most good breeders who carefully place puppies do not. I see people say on social media that “vets are greedy and trying to make money” but I am certain that is not the reason.
(As an aside, I would recommend that you wait to spay your puppy until she’s at least 18 months old, but at the very least I would say 12 months.)
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I feel like I dodged a bullet with spaying on my newest puppy. I got her (GSD/coonhound/bloodhound/lab/pit bull) from a rescue who brought the mother and puppies up from Mississippi. I got her in 2020 and they said the only reason they didn’t spay her before 8 weeks was COVID, and that I had to agree to spay by six months. I actually put it off until the day before her 1st birthday, after she’d had her first heat. Luckily, the rescue didn’t ask for proof before then. I talked to my vet about it and he said there were pros and cons but you really shouldn’t do it before six months - that it was old school thinking to do a “pediatric spay”.
I’ve looked at a lot of DNA test results and by far the biggest gene pool spreaders are pit bulls, Great Pyrenees, and Australian Cattle Dogs. The first one suffers from generally bad owners, and the other two are often farm dogs running loose, so understandable to see them so often.
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rescues do the pediatric spay to assure they don’t have that oopsie litter.
Poop happens.
I had one. Just got a new puppy, she turned a year, and the male jumped the fence.
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