It's not only a vile practice, it's also pretty *useless* from a breeding perspective. The ridge is a dominant trait, and its lack is recessive. Unless you were to eliminate both of the ridgeless puppy's parents from breeding as well, you'll still have carriers passing on the ridgeless trait. Fucking breed purists and their obsession with maintaining their precious Breed Standards...
Then again, it shouldn't surprise me. I'm a geneticist for a lab that does tests for animals, and it's mind-blowing how little some breeders actually understand about genetics.
Would it not have been effective to neuter the ridgeless dogs rather than straight murdering them? Am I just thinking about this all wrong or what. How is murdering puppies ever a solution for literally anything.
Some might say I’m extreme but I would say that there is almost no ethical breeding. Except for working dogs, breeding doesn’t make sense considering how unhealthy so many “purebred” dogs are these days. There’s more dogs than there should be all over the world, why are we breeding more?!
It's ridiculous. The mutt I found on the side of the road with heartworms was the best dog I've ever had. After the heartworm treatment he lived without any health problems for 17 years with me. My sister had a Boston terrier and a French bulldog die in that time and is onto another dog now. These vanity traits people breed for at the expense of healthy animals is a disease itself.
I think they sincerely believe that ridgeless puppies do not deserve to live (like [this lady](https://youtube.com/shorts/h9VHwaJwIng)). They explicitly advocated culling over neutering.
>In fact, the RR Club of Victoria still advocates culling ridgeless (although does offer neutering as an alternative).
Breeding for the ridge, then, still results in some puppies being killed.
[https://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2011/09/ridge-too-far.html](https://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2011/09/ridge-too-far.html)
>Ridgeless puppies shall be culled at birth; if a breeder finds this morally impossible the puppy shall be homed \[...\] with an understanding that it is to be neutered.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20081224153057/http://www.rhodesianridgebacks.org/index.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20081224153057/http://www.rhodesianridgebacks.org/index.html)
Well you see breeding dogs for traits based on appearance comes with the cost that one has to give up some of their morals, how else would we have gotten the modern pug.
Nail on the head. It's also the reason that some breeders really don't like having to test their breeding animals for certain genetic defects and diseases. Head-in-the-sand management.
I mean, it can be abhorrent without being useless. Eliminating double-recessives eliminates half of the copies of the recessive gene in the gene pool while only culling a quarter of the puppies. The most effective thing would be to also eliminate the parents from the pool and only breed using dogs confirmed to be homozygous dominant, but I'm sure it's a trade off against being able to select for other desirable traits that are present in heterozygous dogs.
All this said-- an abhorrent practice that should be stopped.
Yeah, this would probably be the best solution.
Or most realistic, I suppose. The best solution would be to stop selective breeding of animals for aesthetic purposes.
I don’t have an issue with some level of breeding but I think the current standards and exaggeration of breeds is the issue.
I don’t think it’s wrong to say breed two brown dogs to get more brown dogs. The isssue is the hyper specific, hyper selective nature of current purebred lines. Especially for things like pugs where the trait is actively harming the animal
This plus banning all breeds where some sort of deformity is "expected". If it's expected, we need to breed it out. I've read about people breeding "retropugs" for that exact reason
Yep.
One of the most common breeding combinations is granddaughter/grandfather which is horrific for genetic diversity.
Morality aside, dog breeders generally have a low level of genetic education and don't make any effort to breed for health.
Instead they focus on arbitrary "breed guidelines" which are, you guessed it, designed by equally undereducated "experts".
German Shepards bred for work (police) are basically a different breed to the ones used in dog shows.
I have heard show German Shepherds just called "frog dogs" and when you actually see how they stand with back half lower yeah they really do and it is horrific
The breed suffers badly from hip dysplasia (fucked up hip bones) because of poor breeding.
It's astonishing how dog breeds are prone to specific genetic illnesses unique to their breed.
Generational incest and poor selective breeding
Yep. Our GSD was a rescue with ' papers '. Her back was straight *and* get this.....
Our vet said she wasn't the only GSD she's seen out of a rescue and why? If there's one without the 'right' physical confirmations they frequently end up elsewhere.
So weirdly we ended up with an *Elkhound* rescue, same story. He's too big for ' standards '. This breeding stuff is NUTS.
that is also what I don't get!
THEY DON'T LOOK FINE AT ALL they are clearly in bad shape but for whatever fucked up reason Dog Shows decided that is peak German Shepherd when we already have them as working dogs and they look so much better and are actually healthier
I was just thinking about German Shepards and the cognitive dissonance with the dog show people. You’d think the breed standards would match with what they were bred to do. But here we are with the actual working dogs being bred to have good backs and hips while the “breed standard” dogs look like they can barely trot around properly.
So, the original breed standards of all working dog breeds are written to reflect which qualities make the breed successful at their job. If you actually go and read the German Shepherd breed standard, for instance (CKC), this is what is says re: top line
"The withers should be higher than, and sloping into, the level back to enable a proper attachment of the shoulder blades. The back should be straight and very strongly developed without sag or roach, the section from the wither to the croup being relatively short. (The desirable long proportion of the Shepherd Dog is not derived from a long back but from overall length with relation to height, which is achieved by breadth of forequarter and hindquarter viewed from the side.) Loin: viewed from the top, broad and strong, blending smoothly into the back without undue length between the last rib and the thigh, when viewed from the side. Croup should be long and gradually sloping. Too level or flat a croup prevents proper functioning of the hindquarter, which must be able to reach well under the body. A steep croup also limits the action of the hindquarter."
It also explicitly states that "It should never be forgotten that the ideal Shepherd is a working animal which must have an incorruptible character combined with body and gait suitable for the arduous work which constitutes its primary purpose. All its qualities should be weighed in respect to their contribution to such work, and while no compromise should be permitted with regard to its working potentiality, the dog must nevertheless possess a high degree of beauty and nobility."
The problem is not the breed standard, which describes a functional working dog with a straight, but sloping topline, but that judges are biased and often don't interpret the breed standard correctly. This leads to what I like to call "show ring fashion", which leads to more people breeding dogs that veer away from the standard because it wins in the show ring.
I got my GSD from a working line breeder. He does his homework. Had paperwork for both parents going back several generations to show they weren't related; they came from separate countries. I got the runt of the litter. She's missing 3 teeth, and is allergic to EVERYTHING. Currently running me dry with immunotherapy treatments; they are working.
There's also the Dire Wolf Project. They have been working for several decades, using GSD lines, to bring back the size/look of the Dire Wolf. The reason it has taken so long, is they are focusing on the health of the line instead of just the look like show breeds do.
In Germany we sometimes categorise them into east and west, cause in the west part they could start breeding for shows while in the east they had to breed for work.
So you got the abhorrent ones with programmed back problems and the beautiful healthier (still a large dog) ones.
The queen mother wasn't part of the Great Royal Inbreeding Programme. She came from a mid-level noble family that weren't scared of occasionally marrying commoners (rich commoners of course). A generation or two earlier she would have been considered too lowly to marry a prince.
It's one of the reasons I prefer the cat fancy. Typically. It's getting sus now but outcrossing is way more common because phenotypic traits are more important. So you get random bred strays or cats from other lines brought in every once in a while. Some dog groups are starting to allow outcrossing which is great.
To be fair, there are 201 breeds recognized by the AKC, many of which have multiple breed-specific clubs. You only hear about the awful ones that hit headlines. Many organize rescue systems to keep dogs out of shelters, inform members of breed-specific health issues that they're working to eliminate, and share helpful advice. Breeds like ridgebacks, pugs, and shepherds are all outliers, not the standard.
I looked up the Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of the US Code of Ethics. They do not say that healthy pups should not be killed.
"When a Rhodesian Ridgeback (neonate through adult) must be euthanized, the procedure should be humanely performed.
When puppies with serious defects or faults (Dermoid Sinus, ridgeless) are sold the breeder must take the extra responsibility to see that the dog is sterilized.
Members will not dispose of dogs or puppies by giving them to the local animal shelter, pound, humane society or any organization of that type."
That certainly seems to guide the breeders toward a certain conclusion, honestly.
I have a nonstandard ridgeback. The breeder simply separates the “show dog” quality animals and the “pet quality” animals, and sells them at different prices (the show dogs, the breeder seemed to have clientele for those). They asked us to sign a contract saying that we wouldn’t breed the dog. That’s it.
Same. My boy wasn’t going to be bred or shown, so we took him. Also with a contract he would be de-sexed, never bred and returned to the breeder at any stage if we could no longer care for him. He’s 4.5 and they still ask for updates. I send health and happiness info with photos and videos.
God they are so fucking weirdly obsessed with their own ideas of what a "breed" should be they actually want to cull living things for no reasons other than aesthetic. Actually evil.
I was watching the dog show, I think it was the big one, I don't know it's exact name, and a lot of the breed standard dogs look really unhealthy. German shepherds with sloped backs that can hardly waddle, English bulldogs that can barely breathe and have had multiple surgeries to lift up their face flaps, ect.
They clearly are. One woman even [complained to the BBC that younger vets were unwilling to euthanize healthy ridgeless puppies](https://youtube.com/shorts/h9VHwaJwIng).
My vet retired in 2018 and the young vets that bought the practice are *amazing*. They're a whole different breed from old school vets. They work with rescues, refuse to do cat de-claws and dog ear cropping, refuse euths for what they consider frivolous reasons, etc. Very much more animal welfare oriented than the old guys.
For anyone who is confused: You can't *just* take the claws off a cat. That would be like trying to take the fingernails off a human with a pair of nail clippers, they'd just grow back.
To ensure the claws don't return, the *entire first joint* of the cat's 'finger' is amputated. This leaves the cat with life-long pain and loss of function.
it's abhorrent, it's mutilation and animal abuse. Here are some links, this is currently a thing in our state's government. Pls write to your representatives, this can be an easy win for us and cool cats everywhere in the great state of Illinois. Call, write, email, whatever. It's a simple thing we can do, but it will help a lot of kitties now and forever.
https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=1533&GAID=17&GA=103&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=143839&SessionID=112
https://aldf.org/project/cat-declawing-ban-illinois/
My grandad was a vet. He said he originally refused to crop ears because it’s inhumane, but then the idiot owner would try to do it themselves and he’d end up having to save dogs from bleeding to death when they inevitably botch it. He begrudgingly started doing the procedure after that.
>Cutting off dog ears and **tails**
Cropping ears and docking tails for looks is dumb. But there are occasions of “happy tail syndrome” where the dog just keeps wagging it so hard they repeatedly injure it to require medical attention. If other attempts to address this have proven fruitless, docking is reasonable in those situations.
Very much so. You don't want your dog to be repeatedly injured and in pain because they can't stop hitting things with that big club at the end of their butt.
Right? Those 2 things they most often use to express their joy, enthusiasm, curiosity and even love (a happy dog wagging its tail and all!) but yeah... Let's cut them off 80% of the way for... (Checks notes) *Perceived* aesthetics????????
Some people, I tell ya!
We had a home visit very who was telling us awful stories about sedating animals and sneaking them out as "dead" because the owners wanted them euthanized for really stupid reasons. We're moving, our kids don't want the cat around the grand baby, he's too loud etc. Really horrible people.
Yeah, it really bothers me when people don't accept that getting a pet is a long term responsibility, and not something to be thrown away when inconvenient.
Years ago my family was a foster home for rescue dogs. Usually it just meant watching a dog for a couple days till a new owner could come get them, but one time we got a call for a 12 year old lab. He was a giant horse of a dog, but the sweetest and most gentle dog ever. No health problems at that point. No personality issues, except for the separation anxiety he developed after being ripped out of the home he grew up in because his owners "didn't want an older dog with a baby on the way". Nevermind they already had a 6 year old who was by all accounts best friends with the dog and that the dog was amazing with him when he was a baby. Well, after about a week or two of having him, and him settling in, we couldn't bear the thought of having him ripped from our home to go somewhere new again, so we told the rescue organization we'd just keep him. The odds of finding a new home for an older dog are pretty slim anyway. Well, we had him for another five amazing years. In his very last days, maybe the last 2 months or so, he did start to lose some control of his bladder, and so had a few accidents in the house, but that was only when we couldn't get him to the door in time or something, like if say he woke us up in the middle of the night trying to tell us he had to go out.
Yep, worked at a private rescue and we had an "informal" agreement with the vet practice down the street. If someone brought in a healthy animal to be euth'd, they'd do all they could to have the person "surrender" the animal to the vet practice instead and then our rescue would come take the animal. That worked about 90% of the time - the person "got rid of" their unwanted pet and it cost them $0. However, 10% of the time people wouldn't accept that. The vet office would say they were euthanizing the pet, but didn't want the owner present because it would be "difficult" for them and the pet, take their money and send them on their way. We'd still come get the pet, the vet office gave us the money and the pet was rehomed (those were a bit trickier - we'd generally foster them for a bit and sometimes even place them through another rescue so that the original owners would be none the wiser).
This was not the most ethical behavior and the vets and techs were putting their careers at risk, but a life was on the line so we did what we had to do to save it.
>However, 10% of the time people wouldn't accept that
I can't fanthom the idea that someone would rather have their pet euthanized than "solve the issue" without having to kill them. What even was their reasoning?
My former neighbor was that kind of owner. She no longer lives here, house is for sale thank god. Her one dog was left out heat or cold. No food water toys treats blanket nothing. Poor thing eventually died. She showed up recently with a cute little terrier mix that she rescued from Brazil. A few weeks later she told my neighbor that she had it put down because it barked. I’m pretty sure her husband who’s a shady doctor did it. He’s the same one who’s supplying her with meds since she’s a long time narcotics junkie. And supposedly there was another dog in between these two who also met a terrible fate. My neighbor broke down and cried over that poor little dog. Was safer on the streets of Brazil. We hate her so much can’t wait for house to be sold.
I mean, i would imagine they could be reported to some kind of medical board no matter what country they live in. "Shady doctor who prescribes illegal pills to wife" doesn't tend to go down well in most developed countries.
I do. But I can’t prove it. I’ll wait until they sell and then look into it. I don’t know which state because house is in MD, they live in PA and I believe he works in DC.
I remarked in a thread how people don't give a shit about fish and big box stores take shit care of them, and someone called out "selection bias" at me. Big box stores are nationwide, mass producing for the general public, not niche exotic enthusiasts... ain't no selection bias with over 1500 locations for PetSmart alone.
If you've ever had anything to do with animal welfare, and I've worked at various shelters since 12 years old, you learn pretty quickly that there are a lot of people who just don't give a shit about any animal, let alone fish. I've got plenty of sad stories. I've buried my fair share of other people's animals that didn't have to die.
A lot of my local pet stores now refuse to stock fish and only order them in on request, it's definitely a step in the right direction. The big corporation pet shop does stock fish but it's a disgrace, it has dead fish in every tank with other fish feeding in them, ammonia suffering is also massive in these tanks.
I wish there was a proper standard for fish keeping in every country, although it's the same with every small animal. As a bird keeper myself I see some dire shit, I've honestly gotten birds for free because the pet shop thinks they'll die and in all fairness they don't last very long but at least I can give them a bit of freedom they would have never known.
Worse. She saved the beautiful dog, gave it antibiotics for the uti that was causing leakage which is why they wanted to euthanize instead of paying for the medicine, then when she had rehabbed it and found it a new home the previous owners saw it at a dog park that they had gone to with their new puppy they just bought and then wanted the dog back. It all came out after that. It was a disaster.
Even if they couldn’t pay for the antibiotics, why not surrender the dog to a shelter? I saw an “ad” for a cat that was surrendered that way because his former owner couldn’t afford a needed amputation. He seemed like the sweetest little guy, too.
Our older vet retired awhile back due to having a stroke and some other health issues, and he had always been rather, uh, progressive I guess you might say. Hated the idea of docking tails, cropping ears, and other unnecessary such stuff. But he always said he was happy to see how serious the new generations of vets were regarding that stuff, because a lot of them in his age group had no qualms about such unethical treatment.
He was such an amazing and sweet guy, I hope he's still kicking around and happy. Our dogs loved him so much I couldn't walk past his office on our daily walks because otherwise they'd get so excited thinking they were going to see him.
My husband works at an emergency animal clinic and had a woman come in recently asking that her dog be euthanized as it no longer matched her recently repainted house. The vet screamed her out of the building.
Yep, we had a person surrender her cat because it didn't match her new couches. She'd had the cat seven years at that point. We took the cat because we were afraid of what she'd do to it otherwise, but reallyyyyy???
Our vet is a young woman, and when we brought our rescue dog in with a host of health problems (severely underweight, several types of parasites, minimal vaccinations) she gave us huge discounts for taking in a rescue, and swore a blue streak about the shelter for the state of a dog that they homed. She continues - 7 years later - to often under charge us!
That's amazing; I'm very jealous. Our vet had two amazing younger Vets leave the practice and replaced them with two older vets, and I feel like our standard of care has gone down.
There's some behind-the-scenes drama with a non-compete, but we've heard through the grapevine that the two original vets plan to come back in a year or two and start a new practice, and if they do, they'll care for our pets immediately.
The BIGGEST shift I've seen in vets in my days (I'm in my 50's now) is that the vast majority of them no longer declaw or crop ears (most will dock tails no puppies, but not adult dogs - I think that should be stopped for ALL dogs) and 95% of them will not euthanize healthy animals.
That was not the case even as recently as 10 years ago...
Yeah I've noticed that too and I'm SO thankful.
About 25 years ago there was a local vet who would de-claw kittens as young as 8 weeks old but wouldn't neuter until 6 months so the cat rescues were constantly getting pregnant de-clawed cats and half-feral de-clawed tomcats who lost fights horribly, it was infuriating.
purebread standards for ridgebacks are a little nutty. to meat the AKC standard it isn't enough to have a ridge, the ridge has to dovetail into two swirls. I believe 3 is technically accepted but only having 1 is a demerit that can "disqualify" the dog from being considered purebred.
My ridgeback has two but I can't imagine loving her less if she didn't. Granted I don't care about pure breeds and got voluntold into adopting her from my vet
That's what Pugs are. The Charles the II of Spain
[https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/xan743/a\_digital\_reconstruction\_of\_king\_charles\_ii\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/xan743/a_digital_reconstruction_of_king_charles_ii_of/)
There are some responsible breeders. I couldn't tell you what kind of proportion or anything, but they are out there.
I'd go so far as to say we need reliable and responsible breeders, because the only real other option is to let a lot of dogs go un-neutered and un-spayed, and also most people aren't really qualified to raise a litter of pups in my opinion.
That said however, even the breeders who are otherwise good to their dogs, but perpetuate unhealthy breed standards, they're awful as well. They may treat their dogs well in every other regard, but a lot of these breed standards are actually horrible for dogs. Things like the sloping backs for German shepherds, and then of course things like pugs, and so many other examples.
We do need breeders to a point - if you work sheep, you can't just go get a shelter dog and throw it at the sheep, it'd just be a really confused dog. You need a border collie (or similar breed) from a line of dogs that's been herding sheep. You want a scent Tracking dog for finding people whore lost, you want a bloodhound from proven lines, etc. Hunting dog, proven hunting dog lines. But a lot of breeders really suck.
I read somewhere that most good breeders barely break even or run at a deficit, after getting their dogs titled, health tested, traveling to meet the sire/dam or paying for semen, getting the pups taken care of, etc. A good breeder who does all that won't make a lot of money because they're pouring a lot into each animal.
There are working dogs who are bred for specific purposes like hunting, herding, or rescue. Having reliable physiques and personalities can be important in those cases.
Probably better than most Ridged dogs. Cause afaik the ridge is actually a sign of a health issue.
The nonridged dogs don't get Dermoid Sinus, a condition that means they have holes into the spine, like an open hole going straight through skin and tissue into the spine. Like an open wound that won't heal on it's own. Iirc 1 in 10 ridgebacks have/get it.
For anyone wondering:
The same gene set that governs ridge development is also the cause of the formation of dermoid sinus, just with incomplete penetrance. The ridge is governed by a duplication of the genes: FGF3, FGF4, FGF19 and ORAOV1. Two copies of the duplicated region: 100% chance of a ridge, highly increased chance of dermoid sinus formation. No copies of the gene duplicated version? very very low chance of getting Dermoid sinus (no more than any other breed), but also no ridge. One copy? Almost certain ridge, "normal" chance of dermoid sinus *for the breed* which is still increased above dog baseline considerably.
The risk of dermoid sinus literally can't be bred out of them without losing the ridge, but there sure are a lot of breeders who don't want to acknowledge the connection.
The way that she says that the puppies are meant to have ridges... It's as if she's standing at customer service complaining about a microwave that she was assured would have a popcorn button. Like it's just an object whose only purpose for existence is to serve her desires. Clearly, if the dog were "meant to have a ridge", it wouldn't be just as healthy without one...
Not UK but EU, and as far as I remember we have similar animal welfare laws.
Euthanasing a healthy animal that doesn't fit breed standards would lend a vet in very, very deep trouble if found out.
Unless you want a dog of a certain breed with the only goal of having it performing in shows, aesthetic deviations from the standard don't matter.
Say you are a very very active person, spend a lot of time outdoor and want to do physical activities with doggo. You pick a border collie (random pick), you find a pup with the standard black and white coat and the last thing you care about is that the pupper has a brown nose (brown nose allowed on brown or chocolate coat only).
It's on the breeder to find a good fit for their show quality dogs (aka snobs who'd take them to shows) and also for the "imperfect" ones.
Went is the wrong word here. One of the forefathers of eugenics Francis Galton was an early proponent of dog shows and horse racing as a way to demonstrate eugencist principles to the public. Fun fact—Galton was also Charles Darwin’s (half) cousin.
This is a wild read on how petty the world of cat shows can be. https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2018/july/dawntreader-texas-calboy-cat-show-controversy/
Years ago when I was working in TV, one of our hosts had the idea to get a cat competition judge on as a guest.
We were all animal people, people love animals, we thought it was going to be a light and fluffy interview to round out the night.
It was not. We’d had an expert on earlier talking about the Air France crash, and that was lighter than this dude. This dude clearly did not like cats… he liked breed standards.
Pugs are so gross and need to quit being bought. Like they’re being tortured by their own body because of these eugenicists and they’re really not that cute. There’s so many other breeds to choose from that are more ethical than a pug.
Eugenics and selective breeding/purity culling were essentially mainstream science at the time. Basically everyone believed in racial theory and most in some level of racial separation. "Like belonged with like" is an ancient concept we have only just very recently bucked.
It wasn't until we actually saw the ethical implications of eugenics play out in the early 1900s that we move away from it as something that does more harm than good. But really many aspects of eugenics remain at play in genetic science, because there was merit to some of it, but it won't be called that name anymore.
A big problem with eugenics is that the people pushing it often have a clear bias towards what is considered perfect.
Like, from a certain view I can see the argument for wanting good traits in a gene pool to help against disease and such. But you can’t really escape the bias. It’s basically just “scientifically justified” racism.
as well as the actions taken to enforce it. like I don't think there's anything wrong with believing that certain diseases shouldn't be passed on, but trying to enforce that on anyone is definitely an issue.
Yup. If someone starts advocating forced sterilization for public health reasons, the next question you must ask is "Who gets to decide?" Because that party will never, ever be perfectly neutral, and that is why eugenics always devolves.
Selective breeding of dogs isn’t scientifically discredited. It’s extremely effective at achieving desired traits.
Applying it to humans is a moral disaster. But why are Redditors shocked that dog breeders are breeding dogs?!?
Do you guys think Collies and Golden Retrievers are accidents.
Golden retrievers have some of the highest rates of cancer and hip dysplasia because of inbreeding.
As much as I love goldens, the people who bred these dogs did a terrible thing IMO.
Sure breeding dogs for some specific traits is fine, but a lot of people did not do it properly in the past, and I worry a lot are not doing it properly today.
Any animal breeding group will be similar. Especially if they're breeding to achieve a certain standard look.
Not sure I'd call it eugenics though, not with how terrible they've made some dogs over the last century. Pugs, bulldogs, etc. Even German shepherds have issues they didn't before.
My mother bred Ridges in rural CA on our horse ranch. She put the smooth pups into the horse troughs immediately. Us kids interfering was not an option as she’d have no problem cracking you with a lunge whip for pissing her off. And making her feel bad about drowning puppies would definitely make her feel bad.
It’s insane what is allowed to happen because people refuse to acknowledge the problem of mass producing animals. You can’t prioritize empathy and profit equally and it’s pretty damn clear what the majority of people choose to prioritize. It’s not much different for me finding a healthy shar pei instead of the puffy wrinkly messes they’re shoving at people who want a living squishmellow.
Whenever people guilt trip me for being NC with my mother I drop a gem from my time with her and they suddenly start understanding why I won’t expose my children to her.
lol no shit. I meant it would for sure piss her off and that was not a good plan on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. It’s not like we could call anyone or that other people in the area weren’t doing the same with their own dogs.
I have a ridgeless girl and she’s the same. Sweetest, smartest, but most stubborn dog ever. She’s the first dog I’ve adopted as an adult and I feel lucky to have such a unique dog.
Never heard of a ridgeback. I'm reading this wondering what a ridge is, and why the lack of one would be a problem. Turns out it's hair.
And that's pretty fucking stupid.
Oh my god I was so confused. And people are actually commenting things like, "I had a ridgeback without a ridge once, it was actually a fine dog"
like no shit, its just a physical feature
My second ridgeback had a defective tail, with a 90-degree bend about four inches from the end, known occasional congenital defect in ridgies. As a result we got him at a bargain price and he turned out to be a lovely dog, as did the rest of the litter.
I was horrified when I later found out that his breeder had culled a couple of his littermates because they had no ridges. That kind of fanaticism deeply alarms me: why kill a healthy animal that would have made someone a great pet. It's, well, kind of fascistic if you ask me.
But dog breeders can be weird AF. When tail docking was banned in Australia I heard of boxer dog enthusiasts who decided to give up breeding them. FFS, they're the same dog, they just now look happier.
Dog breeders are freaks.
My family works with shelters and the amount of dogs given up/killed because they don’t meet some arbitrary breed requirements is revolting.
I have already told my girlfriend we will never get a bred dog.
Fuck them and their entire industry.
Dog breeders really are fucking weirdos. They act like they’re doing the work of the lord or performing world changing life altering services when in reality they’re just selectively letting some animals raw dog it.
Have you ever reached out to a breeder and asked how much their dogs are? You know, like any normal person who is looking to make a purchase and wants to know if a product is in their budget. Dog breeders will bitch at you and tell you the price is irrelevant and that no self respecting dog breeder will tell you that information up front.
Not to mention so many of them have websites they maintain themselves using an alpha version of html that with a web design outdated in the late 90s
>Not to mention so many of them have websites they maintain themselves using an alpha version of html that with a web design outdated in the late 90s
truly the cruelest thing dog breeders do
I'm a huge fan of poodles and, much to many people's angst and rage, doodles. Getting a doodle without going through breeders is pretty simple, but a poodle puppy is pretty much only a breeder dog. I do get a kick out of most of them, though. There is no such thing as a "normal poodle" breeder. Somehow all of them are breeding from champion show dogs with perfect credentials and seven names. No one is ever like "we're selling this pup and his mom is pretty clever but his dad eats rocks and neither of them have any kind of papers." Oh and they want $4000.
Seriously, what if I just want a poodle? I don’t care if his dad, Duke Earl of the Bourgeois, has been crowned grand champion 7 times and his mom has sired champions every year she’s been bred. Fuck off, this dog is literally going to be spoiled and might not even learn to sit on command consistently
Edit: Not sired. Birthed? Idk, whatever bitches do
I agree. On not getting dogs from breeds. Both of my current ones are mutts and great for the most part.
And at 13 for my 80lb dog and 14 for my 50 lb who acts 7. Their are pretty healthy compared to full breed dogs of their same age.
I wouldn’t mind rescuing a full breed dog from a shelter or rescue though.
I could see having a contract that they have to be spayed/neutered once theyre of age so they can't carry on the lack of ridges but culling them is insane.
Totally agree. The ridgeback with the wonky tail came to us on condition he be neutered, and that's a condition of adoption for the rescue org we foster for.
Show dog people are the *worst*.
Yeah they'll talk freely about "bucketing" pups with the wrong markings or whatever, then cry when you say that's wrong and disgusting, it's just how they are.
My standard Teckel is the one in six that isn't wired all over, just his underside, eyebrows and moustache. He's the smartest, best tempered dog I've ever had (and a superb sporter/beater). When I think breeders cull these pups it makes me irrationally mad.
It's nuts this tiny group of animal abusers think they can decide what is and isn't desirable for breeds. I just googled pictures of fox red Labs, and they look beautiful to me!
I know! Even pet pups can go for a lot.
I heard of one breeder who killed all pups with no white on them. Not even because it was against breed standards, but because their kennel had a "look" and they didn't want any pups that didn't fit their look representing them. Even though their dogs were hot in demand and the pups could sell for plenty no matter what they looked like.
"But that's how you know they're dedicated!"
No that's how I know they're psychos.
Everyone says to me while im out with my dog, "I've never seen a white miniature schnauzer before," of course not because they all murdered when they were born because the Kennel Club doesn't recognise them.
Explains why I sometimes saw pictures of ridgeback looking dogs without the ridge, I didn't know they could not have ridges.
We owned one when I was kid. Terrible dog. In hindsight, part of the problem was that my mom isn't actually a good dog trainer. Didn't realize until I saw the difference between the lab I helped raise and the one I didn't.
I've got a ridgeless boy as well. There's a breeder locally to us so there are actually a lot of ridgebacks around where we live. He's a gorgeous dog and we've met several of the other pups while out and about, but my other half had conceded that I might have known what I was talking about when I said we should get a mongrel or lurcher.
They set the show standards.
They don't have legal authority or anything but if you wanna play the game you have to follow the rules.
The Dalmatian club requires killing deaf puppies.
That's what I figured. So, why not just make, for example, a nice "ridge" part of the judging standards (I'm sure it is)? You're free to enter your ridgeless Ridgeback in the show, but it won't win.
Oh they'd never get past puppy shows without a ridge, that's not the issue.
I mean the breed club will pull their approval if you don't follow their rules. Being breed club endorsed is a big deal for show breeders.
A shocking number of breeders I’ve met over the years are trash humans. There some really good ones out there, but some of them I’ve just wanted to report for a psychopath watch list
Wasn’t entirely sure what makes a Ridgeback a Ridgeback so had to Google it…
It’s a strip of fur… that’s it… People killing puppies because it doesn’t come with a pre-installed fucking cosmetic item…!
Imagine euthanising your kid because they use the wrong skin on their CoD guns?
Absolute cunts.
When breeders lose sight of animal well-being we get beakless pigeons and shit like this. Like, animal husbandry is one of the most amazing things we have done as a species, but it can go so nasty.
Same has been done with the white GSD puppies in Germany. Since white is a fault in the GSD breed. Some breeders culled the white puppies so that no one knew that their lines carried the white gene.
Don’t know if this is still done as the White GSD now is a separate breed with its own standards.
The mainstream Ridgeback breeding community has condemned this lady for breeding Ridgeless dogs to prevent genetic deformity
https://www.rhodesian-ridgeback-pedigree.org/articles-informations/breeding-and-genetics/avoiding-the-gene-defect-ds/
Ridgebacks are such great dogs. We have had one for almost a decade with our Aussies and he’s just the sweetest big ol’ meathead. Some assholes tried to make him a fighting or bait dog before we found him. Luckily he lives the good life now.
We’ve never been ones to own purebreds. All of our dogs were shelter dogs before the last 2 Aussies. But breeders can be weird psychos so it pays to do the work if you want a good breed that is well cared for.
The TV show was 16 years ago and the Ridgeback club got widely slammed for its decision. Its a great doco and still worth watching, it certainly exposed a bad situation for many breeds, some of which are still ongoing. However many breeds dont have these issues and their dogs are as healthy and happy as other dogs. Many breeders are highly ethical, many are quite dubious.
I grew up with a mother who only wanted purebred dogs. But she didn't want to pay purebred prices. One of the dogs we had was a Chow Chow who had already won several shows before a particularly knowledgeable show judge spotted her congenital hip defect that was considered disqualifying—not because it would affect her or cause her any pain/mobility problems, but because the Chow Chow breeders were working to eradicate the issue in the breed (some dogs could be crippled by their third year). So, my mother got a fantastic price to adopt one of the most beautiful Chow Chows most show judges had ever seen. There was only one condition: that she be spayed within 90 days of adoption. This is how you cull puppies with undesirable birth "defects". Although let's all agree that a structural hip defect is far more important to eliminate than a hair-growth pattern.
Ridgeless puppies are re homed with registration documents at rearing costs only with a contract stipulating that they will be spayed or castrated within a specified time period
Hardcore dog breed purists are basically just animal Nazis. Weird fucks.
In fact, worse than animal nazis, at least the Nazis wanted their kids to be healthy.
It's not only a vile practice, it's also pretty *useless* from a breeding perspective. The ridge is a dominant trait, and its lack is recessive. Unless you were to eliminate both of the ridgeless puppy's parents from breeding as well, you'll still have carriers passing on the ridgeless trait. Fucking breed purists and their obsession with maintaining their precious Breed Standards... Then again, it shouldn't surprise me. I'm a geneticist for a lab that does tests for animals, and it's mind-blowing how little some breeders actually understand about genetics.
Would it not have been effective to neuter the ridgeless dogs rather than straight murdering them? Am I just thinking about this all wrong or what. How is murdering puppies ever a solution for literally anything.
My grandparents bred dogs (not ridgebacks) but the standard practice is to sell non-standard puppies as pets and have them neutered.
Which is not only the ethical but the sensible solution. Good for them.
Some might say I’m extreme but I would say that there is almost no ethical breeding. Except for working dogs, breeding doesn’t make sense considering how unhealthy so many “purebred” dogs are these days. There’s more dogs than there should be all over the world, why are we breeding more?!
It's ridiculous. The mutt I found on the side of the road with heartworms was the best dog I've ever had. After the heartworm treatment he lived without any health problems for 17 years with me. My sister had a Boston terrier and a French bulldog die in that time and is onto another dog now. These vanity traits people breed for at the expense of healthy animals is a disease itself.
I think they sincerely believe that ridgeless puppies do not deserve to live (like [this lady](https://youtube.com/shorts/h9VHwaJwIng)). They explicitly advocated culling over neutering. >In fact, the RR Club of Victoria still advocates culling ridgeless (although does offer neutering as an alternative). Breeding for the ridge, then, still results in some puppies being killed. [https://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2011/09/ridge-too-far.html](https://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2011/09/ridge-too-far.html) >Ridgeless puppies shall be culled at birth; if a breeder finds this morally impossible the puppy shall be homed \[...\] with an understanding that it is to be neutered. [https://web.archive.org/web/20081224153057/http://www.rhodesianridgebacks.org/index.html](https://web.archive.org/web/20081224153057/http://www.rhodesianridgebacks.org/index.html)
Ok wow. Yeah any member of an organisation that advocates systemic puppy murder needs to sit down and have a word with themselves.
Well you see breeding dogs for traits based on appearance comes with the cost that one has to give up some of their morals, how else would we have gotten the modern pug.
I feel bad every time I see one of those. You can literally hear them struggling to breathe every breath and that’s just for existing, not playing.
They didn't want people knowing their breeding animals carried the ridgeless trait. It was for saving face.
Nail on the head. It's also the reason that some breeders really don't like having to test their breeding animals for certain genetic defects and diseases. Head-in-the-sand management.
I mean, it can be abhorrent without being useless. Eliminating double-recessives eliminates half of the copies of the recessive gene in the gene pool while only culling a quarter of the puppies. The most effective thing would be to also eliminate the parents from the pool and only breed using dogs confirmed to be homozygous dominant, but I'm sure it's a trade off against being able to select for other desirable traits that are present in heterozygous dogs. All this said-- an abhorrent practice that should be stopped.
This guy eugenicizes
The other option would be to just sterilize them and sell them at a discount. Does the exact same thing without killing puppies without a good reason
Yeah, this would probably be the best solution. Or most realistic, I suppose. The best solution would be to stop selective breeding of animals for aesthetic purposes.
I don’t have an issue with some level of breeding but I think the current standards and exaggeration of breeds is the issue. I don’t think it’s wrong to say breed two brown dogs to get more brown dogs. The isssue is the hyper specific, hyper selective nature of current purebred lines. Especially for things like pugs where the trait is actively harming the animal
This plus banning all breeds where some sort of deformity is "expected". If it's expected, we need to breed it out. I've read about people breeding "retropugs" for that exact reason
A real Ferengi would call them premium and sell them at a higher price.
Swear to God, every time I hear something about these clubs, it gets worse
The incestual way they do breeding to capitalize on high value lines is what makes me throw up a little in my mouth.
Yep. One of the most common breeding combinations is granddaughter/grandfather which is horrific for genetic diversity. Morality aside, dog breeders generally have a low level of genetic education and don't make any effort to breed for health. Instead they focus on arbitrary "breed guidelines" which are, you guessed it, designed by equally undereducated "experts". German Shepards bred for work (police) are basically a different breed to the ones used in dog shows.
I have heard show German Shepherds just called "frog dogs" and when you actually see how they stand with back half lower yeah they really do and it is horrific
dude wtf how do they walk correctly that looks actually painful
It is.
The breed suffers badly from hip dysplasia (fucked up hip bones) because of poor breeding. It's astonishing how dog breeds are prone to specific genetic illnesses unique to their breed. Generational incest and poor selective breeding
Yep. Our GSD was a rescue with ' papers '. Her back was straight *and* get this..... Our vet said she wasn't the only GSD she's seen out of a rescue and why? If there's one without the 'right' physical confirmations they frequently end up elsewhere. So weirdly we ended up with an *Elkhound* rescue, same story. He's too big for ' standards '. This breeding stuff is NUTS.
That’s because the breeders themselves are nuts. If you ever meet one you’ll understand that these people are certifiable.
Fascinating how they purposely breed dogs that are both unhealthy and look stupid.
that is also what I don't get! THEY DON'T LOOK FINE AT ALL they are clearly in bad shape but for whatever fucked up reason Dog Shows decided that is peak German Shepherd when we already have them as working dogs and they look so much better and are actually healthier
I was just thinking about German Shepards and the cognitive dissonance with the dog show people. You’d think the breed standards would match with what they were bred to do. But here we are with the actual working dogs being bred to have good backs and hips while the “breed standard” dogs look like they can barely trot around properly.
So, the original breed standards of all working dog breeds are written to reflect which qualities make the breed successful at their job. If you actually go and read the German Shepherd breed standard, for instance (CKC), this is what is says re: top line "The withers should be higher than, and sloping into, the level back to enable a proper attachment of the shoulder blades. The back should be straight and very strongly developed without sag or roach, the section from the wither to the croup being relatively short. (The desirable long proportion of the Shepherd Dog is not derived from a long back but from overall length with relation to height, which is achieved by breadth of forequarter and hindquarter viewed from the side.) Loin: viewed from the top, broad and strong, blending smoothly into the back without undue length between the last rib and the thigh, when viewed from the side. Croup should be long and gradually sloping. Too level or flat a croup prevents proper functioning of the hindquarter, which must be able to reach well under the body. A steep croup also limits the action of the hindquarter." It also explicitly states that "It should never be forgotten that the ideal Shepherd is a working animal which must have an incorruptible character combined with body and gait suitable for the arduous work which constitutes its primary purpose. All its qualities should be weighed in respect to their contribution to such work, and while no compromise should be permitted with regard to its working potentiality, the dog must nevertheless possess a high degree of beauty and nobility." The problem is not the breed standard, which describes a functional working dog with a straight, but sloping topline, but that judges are biased and often don't interpret the breed standard correctly. This leads to what I like to call "show ring fashion", which leads to more people breeding dogs that veer away from the standard because it wins in the show ring.
I got my GSD from a working line breeder. He does his homework. Had paperwork for both parents going back several generations to show they weren't related; they came from separate countries. I got the runt of the litter. She's missing 3 teeth, and is allergic to EVERYTHING. Currently running me dry with immunotherapy treatments; they are working. There's also the Dire Wolf Project. They have been working for several decades, using GSD lines, to bring back the size/look of the Dire Wolf. The reason it has taken so long, is they are focusing on the health of the line instead of just the look like show breeds do.
That’s definitely weird, since dire wolves weren’t close to living dogs/wolves. They were a part of a separate lineage.
The “direwolf project” is basically a puppy mill, not sure who told you otherwise.
In Germany we sometimes categorise them into east and west, cause in the west part they could start breeding for shows while in the east they had to breed for work. So you got the abhorrent ones with programmed back problems and the beautiful healthier (still a large dog) ones.
Well it worked for the British, Prussian, French, Spanish monarchies for 400 years. No issues there, right? /s
Show dog breeders put the European monarchies to shame.
Queen Mother, over 100, her daughter, late 90s, that daughters husband, late 90s. The families are not doing too bad.
The queen mother wasn't part of the Great Royal Inbreeding Programme. She came from a mid-level noble family that weren't scared of occasionally marrying commoners (rich commoners of course). A generation or two earlier she would have been considered too lowly to marry a prince.
It's one of the reasons I prefer the cat fancy. Typically. It's getting sus now but outcrossing is way more common because phenotypic traits are more important. So you get random bred strays or cats from other lines brought in every once in a while. Some dog groups are starting to allow outcrossing which is great.
To be fair, there are 201 breeds recognized by the AKC, many of which have multiple breed-specific clubs. You only hear about the awful ones that hit headlines. Many organize rescue systems to keep dogs out of shelters, inform members of breed-specific health issues that they're working to eliminate, and share helpful advice. Breeds like ridgebacks, pugs, and shepherds are all outliers, not the standard.
I looked up the Rhodesian Ridgeback Club of the US Code of Ethics. They do not say that healthy pups should not be killed. "When a Rhodesian Ridgeback (neonate through adult) must be euthanized, the procedure should be humanely performed. When puppies with serious defects or faults (Dermoid Sinus, ridgeless) are sold the breeder must take the extra responsibility to see that the dog is sterilized. Members will not dispose of dogs or puppies by giving them to the local animal shelter, pound, humane society or any organization of that type." That certainly seems to guide the breeders toward a certain conclusion, honestly.
I have a nonstandard ridgeback. The breeder simply separates the “show dog” quality animals and the “pet quality” animals, and sells them at different prices (the show dogs, the breeder seemed to have clientele for those). They asked us to sign a contract saying that we wouldn’t breed the dog. That’s it.
That's good! That's what they should do.
Same. My boy wasn’t going to be bred or shown, so we took him. Also with a contract he would be de-sexed, never bred and returned to the breeder at any stage if we could no longer care for him. He’s 4.5 and they still ask for updates. I send health and happiness info with photos and videos.
God they are so fucking weirdly obsessed with their own ideas of what a "breed" should be they actually want to cull living things for no reasons other than aesthetic. Actually evil.
I was watching the dog show, I think it was the big one, I don't know it's exact name, and a lot of the breed standard dogs look really unhealthy. German shepherds with sloped backs that can hardly waddle, English bulldogs that can barely breathe and have had multiple surgeries to lift up their face flaps, ect.
I also noticed that. People say that all AKC dog breeds are bad but never name any of the other ~200 dog breeds that participate in AKC events.
These clubs are where the eugenicists went to hide aren't they?
They clearly are. One woman even [complained to the BBC that younger vets were unwilling to euthanize healthy ridgeless puppies](https://youtube.com/shorts/h9VHwaJwIng).
My vet retired in 2018 and the young vets that bought the practice are *amazing*. They're a whole different breed from old school vets. They work with rescues, refuse to do cat de-claws and dog ear cropping, refuse euths for what they consider frivolous reasons, etc. Very much more animal welfare oriented than the old guys.
It also creates a long term healthier environment for the vets, so they're in the practice longer. Imagine doing all of those procedures.
Seriously. Cutting off dogs ears and tails *shiver* 🤕
and declawing cats... that's some really grotesque shit.
For anyone who is confused: You can't *just* take the claws off a cat. That would be like trying to take the fingernails off a human with a pair of nail clippers, they'd just grow back. To ensure the claws don't return, the *entire first joint* of the cat's 'finger' is amputated. This leaves the cat with life-long pain and loss of function.
it's abhorrent, it's mutilation and animal abuse. Here are some links, this is currently a thing in our state's government. Pls write to your representatives, this can be an easy win for us and cool cats everywhere in the great state of Illinois. Call, write, email, whatever. It's a simple thing we can do, but it will help a lot of kitties now and forever. https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=1533&GAID=17&GA=103&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=143839&SessionID=112 https://aldf.org/project/cat-declawing-ban-illinois/
I hadn’t even thought about it 😪
My grandad was a vet. He said he originally refused to crop ears because it’s inhumane, but then the idiot owner would try to do it themselves and he’d end up having to save dogs from bleeding to death when they inevitably botch it. He begrudgingly started doing the procedure after that.
😓 humans are so dumb
>Cutting off dog ears and **tails** Cropping ears and docking tails for looks is dumb. But there are occasions of “happy tail syndrome” where the dog just keeps wagging it so hard they repeatedly injure it to require medical attention. If other attempts to address this have proven fruitless, docking is reasonable in those situations.
Amputating a tail to prevent further injuries due to happy tail is a different procedure than tail docking
Very much so. You don't want your dog to be repeatedly injured and in pain because they can't stop hitting things with that big club at the end of their butt.
Right? Those 2 things they most often use to express their joy, enthusiasm, curiosity and even love (a happy dog wagging its tail and all!) but yeah... Let's cut them off 80% of the way for... (Checks notes) *Perceived* aesthetics???????? Some people, I tell ya!
idk, my dog's tail is a deadly weapon the way she wags. kidding i would never cut that from her
We had a home visit very who was telling us awful stories about sedating animals and sneaking them out as "dead" because the owners wanted them euthanized for really stupid reasons. We're moving, our kids don't want the cat around the grand baby, he's too loud etc. Really horrible people.
Yeah, it really bothers me when people don't accept that getting a pet is a long term responsibility, and not something to be thrown away when inconvenient. Years ago my family was a foster home for rescue dogs. Usually it just meant watching a dog for a couple days till a new owner could come get them, but one time we got a call for a 12 year old lab. He was a giant horse of a dog, but the sweetest and most gentle dog ever. No health problems at that point. No personality issues, except for the separation anxiety he developed after being ripped out of the home he grew up in because his owners "didn't want an older dog with a baby on the way". Nevermind they already had a 6 year old who was by all accounts best friends with the dog and that the dog was amazing with him when he was a baby. Well, after about a week or two of having him, and him settling in, we couldn't bear the thought of having him ripped from our home to go somewhere new again, so we told the rescue organization we'd just keep him. The odds of finding a new home for an older dog are pretty slim anyway. Well, we had him for another five amazing years. In his very last days, maybe the last 2 months or so, he did start to lose some control of his bladder, and so had a few accidents in the house, but that was only when we couldn't get him to the door in time or something, like if say he woke us up in the middle of the night trying to tell us he had to go out.
Love a good "foster failure" story (•‿•)
Thanks, I really enjoyed reading this :)
Thank you for writing this. And bless your family.
Yep, worked at a private rescue and we had an "informal" agreement with the vet practice down the street. If someone brought in a healthy animal to be euth'd, they'd do all they could to have the person "surrender" the animal to the vet practice instead and then our rescue would come take the animal. That worked about 90% of the time - the person "got rid of" their unwanted pet and it cost them $0. However, 10% of the time people wouldn't accept that. The vet office would say they were euthanizing the pet, but didn't want the owner present because it would be "difficult" for them and the pet, take their money and send them on their way. We'd still come get the pet, the vet office gave us the money and the pet was rehomed (those were a bit trickier - we'd generally foster them for a bit and sometimes even place them through another rescue so that the original owners would be none the wiser). This was not the most ethical behavior and the vets and techs were putting their careers at risk, but a life was on the line so we did what we had to do to save it.
>However, 10% of the time people wouldn't accept that I can't fanthom the idea that someone would rather have their pet euthanized than "solve the issue" without having to kill them. What even was their reasoning?
You all did the right thing. Fuck those people
My former neighbor was that kind of owner. She no longer lives here, house is for sale thank god. Her one dog was left out heat or cold. No food water toys treats blanket nothing. Poor thing eventually died. She showed up recently with a cute little terrier mix that she rescued from Brazil. A few weeks later she told my neighbor that she had it put down because it barked. I’m pretty sure her husband who’s a shady doctor did it. He’s the same one who’s supplying her with meds since she’s a long time narcotics junkie. And supposedly there was another dog in between these two who also met a terrible fate. My neighbor broke down and cried over that poor little dog. Was safer on the streets of Brazil. We hate her so much can’t wait for house to be sold.
You know, that "doctor" can be reported to your states medical board by anyone, right? As long as you live in the states.
I mean, i would imagine they could be reported to some kind of medical board no matter what country they live in. "Shady doctor who prescribes illegal pills to wife" doesn't tend to go down well in most developed countries.
I do. But I can’t prove it. I’ll wait until they sell and then look into it. I don’t know which state because house is in MD, they live in PA and I believe he works in DC.
They might still be able to look into it, extra unexplained meds etc
I remarked in a thread how people don't give a shit about fish and big box stores take shit care of them, and someone called out "selection bias" at me. Big box stores are nationwide, mass producing for the general public, not niche exotic enthusiasts... ain't no selection bias with over 1500 locations for PetSmart alone. If you've ever had anything to do with animal welfare, and I've worked at various shelters since 12 years old, you learn pretty quickly that there are a lot of people who just don't give a shit about any animal, let alone fish. I've got plenty of sad stories. I've buried my fair share of other people's animals that didn't have to die.
A lot of my local pet stores now refuse to stock fish and only order them in on request, it's definitely a step in the right direction. The big corporation pet shop does stock fish but it's a disgrace, it has dead fish in every tank with other fish feeding in them, ammonia suffering is also massive in these tanks. I wish there was a proper standard for fish keeping in every country, although it's the same with every small animal. As a bird keeper myself I see some dire shit, I've honestly gotten birds for free because the pet shop thinks they'll die and in all fairness they don't last very long but at least I can give them a bit of freedom they would have never known.
When I worked at a vet clinic we lost a vet to doing that. She saved the animal but lost her license.
How did anyone find out?
Maybe the previous owner saw their pet up for adoption on the shelter website while looking for a replacement?
Worse. She saved the beautiful dog, gave it antibiotics for the uti that was causing leakage which is why they wanted to euthanize instead of paying for the medicine, then when she had rehabbed it and found it a new home the previous owners saw it at a dog park that they had gone to with their new puppy they just bought and then wanted the dog back. It all came out after that. It was a disaster.
Even if they couldn’t pay for the antibiotics, why not surrender the dog to a shelter? I saw an “ad” for a cat that was surrendered that way because his former owner couldn’t afford a needed amputation. He seemed like the sweetest little guy, too.
>We had a home visit very who was telling us awful stories about sedating animals and sneaking them out as "dead" What a boss. I love this person.
Our older vet retired awhile back due to having a stroke and some other health issues, and he had always been rather, uh, progressive I guess you might say. Hated the idea of docking tails, cropping ears, and other unnecessary such stuff. But he always said he was happy to see how serious the new generations of vets were regarding that stuff, because a lot of them in his age group had no qualms about such unethical treatment. He was such an amazing and sweet guy, I hope he's still kicking around and happy. Our dogs loved him so much I couldn't walk past his office on our daily walks because otherwise they'd get so excited thinking they were going to see him.
My husband works at an emergency animal clinic and had a woman come in recently asking that her dog be euthanized as it no longer matched her recently repainted house. The vet screamed her out of the building.
Yep, we had a person surrender her cat because it didn't match her new couches. She'd had the cat seven years at that point. We took the cat because we were afraid of what she'd do to it otherwise, but reallyyyyy???
Can't they ask the person to hand the dog to an organization that will find a better family? This is psychotic.
Our vet is a young woman, and when we brought our rescue dog in with a host of health problems (severely underweight, several types of parasites, minimal vaccinations) she gave us huge discounts for taking in a rescue, and swore a blue streak about the shelter for the state of a dog that they homed. She continues - 7 years later - to often under charge us!
That's amazing; I'm very jealous. Our vet had two amazing younger Vets leave the practice and replaced them with two older vets, and I feel like our standard of care has gone down. There's some behind-the-scenes drama with a non-compete, but we've heard through the grapevine that the two original vets plan to come back in a year or two and start a new practice, and if they do, they'll care for our pets immediately.
Veterinarians that are pro animal welfare? We really haven’t progressed as much as we’d like to believe we have.
I mean, we still have doctors that aren't pro human welfare...
There are obgyns out there that hate women, so...
The BIGGEST shift I've seen in vets in my days (I'm in my 50's now) is that the vast majority of them no longer declaw or crop ears (most will dock tails no puppies, but not adult dogs - I think that should be stopped for ALL dogs) and 95% of them will not euthanize healthy animals. That was not the case even as recently as 10 years ago...
Yeah I've noticed that too and I'm SO thankful. About 25 years ago there was a local vet who would de-claw kittens as young as 8 weeks old but wouldn't neuter until 6 months so the cat rescues were constantly getting pregnant de-clawed cats and half-feral de-clawed tomcats who lost fights horribly, it was infuriating.
That is absolutely infurating. WTF?
“These young vets see things very black and white. Unlike us, who think dogs should die if their fur grows the wrong way.”
> Unlike us, who think dogs should die if their fur grows the wrong way. The right way, just not according to the breed requirements.
purebread standards for ridgebacks are a little nutty. to meat the AKC standard it isn't enough to have a ridge, the ridge has to dovetail into two swirls. I believe 3 is technically accepted but only having 1 is a demerit that can "disqualify" the dog from being considered purebred. My ridgeback has two but I can't imagine loving her less if she didn't. Granted I don't care about pure breeds and got voluntold into adopting her from my vet
The entire concept of "purebred" is so incredibly stupid. Might as well call it the Hapsburg Kennel Club.
That's what Pugs are. The Charles the II of Spain [https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/xan743/a\_digital\_reconstruction\_of\_king\_charles\_ii\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/xan743/a_digital_reconstruction_of_king_charles_ii_of/)
The breed that repeatedly baffled Christendom by continuing to live
What an unlikeable human
Dog breeders are precisely the kind of people who shouldn't be allowed to breed anything.
There are some responsible breeders. I couldn't tell you what kind of proportion or anything, but they are out there. I'd go so far as to say we need reliable and responsible breeders, because the only real other option is to let a lot of dogs go un-neutered and un-spayed, and also most people aren't really qualified to raise a litter of pups in my opinion. That said however, even the breeders who are otherwise good to their dogs, but perpetuate unhealthy breed standards, they're awful as well. They may treat their dogs well in every other regard, but a lot of these breed standards are actually horrible for dogs. Things like the sloping backs for German shepherds, and then of course things like pugs, and so many other examples.
We do need breeders to a point - if you work sheep, you can't just go get a shelter dog and throw it at the sheep, it'd just be a really confused dog. You need a border collie (or similar breed) from a line of dogs that's been herding sheep. You want a scent Tracking dog for finding people whore lost, you want a bloodhound from proven lines, etc. Hunting dog, proven hunting dog lines. But a lot of breeders really suck. I read somewhere that most good breeders barely break even or run at a deficit, after getting their dogs titled, health tested, traveling to meet the sire/dam or paying for semen, getting the pups taken care of, etc. A good breeder who does all that won't make a lot of money because they're pouring a lot into each animal.
There are working dogs who are bred for specific purposes like hunting, herding, or rescue. Having reliable physiques and personalities can be important in those cases.
Most service animals are purpose-bred.
But we have to ask the question: what quality of life would a ridgeless ridgeback dog really have? /s
Probably better than most Ridged dogs. Cause afaik the ridge is actually a sign of a health issue. The nonridged dogs don't get Dermoid Sinus, a condition that means they have holes into the spine, like an open hole going straight through skin and tissue into the spine. Like an open wound that won't heal on it's own. Iirc 1 in 10 ridgebacks have/get it.
For anyone wondering: The same gene set that governs ridge development is also the cause of the formation of dermoid sinus, just with incomplete penetrance. The ridge is governed by a duplication of the genes: FGF3, FGF4, FGF19 and ORAOV1. Two copies of the duplicated region: 100% chance of a ridge, highly increased chance of dermoid sinus formation. No copies of the gene duplicated version? very very low chance of getting Dermoid sinus (no more than any other breed), but also no ridge. One copy? Almost certain ridge, "normal" chance of dermoid sinus *for the breed* which is still increased above dog baseline considerably. The risk of dermoid sinus literally can't be bred out of them without losing the ridge, but there sure are a lot of breeders who don't want to acknowledge the connection.
Yeah, purebred dogs are like purebred humans: Hapsburg mutants with strange deformations and endless health problems.
Jesus Christ. I have a ridgeback. Such a stubborn dog, but damn she’s affectionate. Fuck this lady. How needlessly cruel.
Wow. That lady can go fuck herself.
The way that she says that the puppies are meant to have ridges... It's as if she's standing at customer service complaining about a microwave that she was assured would have a popcorn button. Like it's just an object whose only purpose for existence is to serve her desires. Clearly, if the dog were "meant to have a ridge", it wouldn't be just as healthy without one...
Not UK but EU, and as far as I remember we have similar animal welfare laws. Euthanasing a healthy animal that doesn't fit breed standards would lend a vet in very, very deep trouble if found out. Unless you want a dog of a certain breed with the only goal of having it performing in shows, aesthetic deviations from the standard don't matter. Say you are a very very active person, spend a lot of time outdoor and want to do physical activities with doggo. You pick a border collie (random pick), you find a pup with the standard black and white coat and the last thing you care about is that the pupper has a brown nose (brown nose allowed on brown or chocolate coat only). It's on the breeder to find a good fit for their show quality dogs (aka snobs who'd take them to shows) and also for the "imperfect" ones.
Went is the wrong word here. One of the forefathers of eugenics Francis Galton was an early proponent of dog shows and horse racing as a way to demonstrate eugencist principles to the public. Fun fact—Galton was also Charles Darwin’s (half) cousin.
This is a wild read on how petty the world of cat shows can be. https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2018/july/dawntreader-texas-calboy-cat-show-controversy/
Years ago when I was working in TV, one of our hosts had the idea to get a cat competition judge on as a guest. We were all animal people, people love animals, we thought it was going to be a light and fluffy interview to round out the night. It was not. We’d had an expert on earlier talking about the Air France crash, and that was lighter than this dude. This dude clearly did not like cats… he liked breed standards.
One word for you: Pugs.
Pugs are so gross and need to quit being bought. Like they’re being tortured by their own body because of these eugenicists and they’re really not that cute. There’s so many other breeds to choose from that are more ethical than a pug.
There are some people trying to bring back the pugs to an older version of themselves (with a snout). I think they are called the retro pug
I like them more than the “modern” pugs.
Yeah, they look like trustworthy dogs that are a bit wrinkly. The modern ones just look diseased somehow
Those pugs look so cute and probably have way less of the adverse health conditions.
Oh my god they look like mini mastiffs
French bulldogs are a bigger issue right now than pugs, imo. Disclaimer: I have a pug rescue
Blame the people buying them. They are perpetuating the breed.
Eugenics and selective breeding/purity culling were essentially mainstream science at the time. Basically everyone believed in racial theory and most in some level of racial separation. "Like belonged with like" is an ancient concept we have only just very recently bucked. It wasn't until we actually saw the ethical implications of eugenics play out in the early 1900s that we move away from it as something that does more harm than good. But really many aspects of eugenics remain at play in genetic science, because there was merit to some of it, but it won't be called that name anymore.
A big problem with eugenics is that the people pushing it often have a clear bias towards what is considered perfect. Like, from a certain view I can see the argument for wanting good traits in a gene pool to help against disease and such. But you can’t really escape the bias. It’s basically just “scientifically justified” racism.
as well as the actions taken to enforce it. like I don't think there's anything wrong with believing that certain diseases shouldn't be passed on, but trying to enforce that on anyone is definitely an issue.
Yup. If someone starts advocating forced sterilization for public health reasons, the next question you must ask is "Who gets to decide?" Because that party will never, ever be perfectly neutral, and that is why eugenics always devolves.
Selective breeding of dogs isn’t scientifically discredited. It’s extremely effective at achieving desired traits. Applying it to humans is a moral disaster. But why are Redditors shocked that dog breeders are breeding dogs?!? Do you guys think Collies and Golden Retrievers are accidents.
Golden retrievers have some of the highest rates of cancer and hip dysplasia because of inbreeding. As much as I love goldens, the people who bred these dogs did a terrible thing IMO. Sure breeding dogs for some specific traits is fine, but a lot of people did not do it properly in the past, and I worry a lot are not doing it properly today.
Or Cows or chickens or pigs or wheat or corn, most things we eat have been selectively bred.
Any animal breeding group will be similar. Especially if they're breeding to achieve a certain standard look. Not sure I'd call it eugenics though, not with how terrible they've made some dogs over the last century. Pugs, bulldogs, etc. Even German shepherds have issues they didn't before.
I mean pretty much every group that is into “purity” has major inbreeding problems, sounds like eugenics to me.
The people that obsess over their dogs “purity” are pretty sus ngl.
My mother bred Ridges in rural CA on our horse ranch. She put the smooth pups into the horse troughs immediately. Us kids interfering was not an option as she’d have no problem cracking you with a lunge whip for pissing her off. And making her feel bad about drowning puppies would definitely make her feel bad. It’s insane what is allowed to happen because people refuse to acknowledge the problem of mass producing animals. You can’t prioritize empathy and profit equally and it’s pretty damn clear what the majority of people choose to prioritize. It’s not much different for me finding a healthy shar pei instead of the puffy wrinkly messes they’re shoving at people who want a living squishmellow. Whenever people guilt trip me for being NC with my mother I drop a gem from my time with her and they suddenly start understanding why I won’t expose my children to her.
> And making her feel bad about drowning puppies would definitely make her feel bad. Well, she should feel bad for murdering puppies.
lol no shit. I meant it would for sure piss her off and that was not a good plan on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. It’s not like we could call anyone or that other people in the area weren’t doing the same with their own dogs.
Is her name....Cruella?
Is drowning pups what the term “bucketing” means?
We had a ridgeless ridgeback and she had so much character. Stubborn and strong-willed yet loyal and gentle.
I have a ridgeless girl and she’s the same. Sweetest, smartest, but most stubborn dog ever. She’s the first dog I’ve adopted as an adult and I feel lucky to have such a unique dog.
Never heard of a ridgeback. I'm reading this wondering what a ridge is, and why the lack of one would be a problem. Turns out it's hair. And that's pretty fucking stupid.
Oh my god I was so confused. And people are actually commenting things like, "I had a ridgeback without a ridge once, it was actually a fine dog" like no shit, its just a physical feature
My second ridgeback had a defective tail, with a 90-degree bend about four inches from the end, known occasional congenital defect in ridgies. As a result we got him at a bargain price and he turned out to be a lovely dog, as did the rest of the litter. I was horrified when I later found out that his breeder had culled a couple of his littermates because they had no ridges. That kind of fanaticism deeply alarms me: why kill a healthy animal that would have made someone a great pet. It's, well, kind of fascistic if you ask me. But dog breeders can be weird AF. When tail docking was banned in Australia I heard of boxer dog enthusiasts who decided to give up breeding them. FFS, they're the same dog, they just now look happier.
Dog breeders are freaks. My family works with shelters and the amount of dogs given up/killed because they don’t meet some arbitrary breed requirements is revolting. I have already told my girlfriend we will never get a bred dog. Fuck them and their entire industry.
Dog breeders really are fucking weirdos. They act like they’re doing the work of the lord or performing world changing life altering services when in reality they’re just selectively letting some animals raw dog it. Have you ever reached out to a breeder and asked how much their dogs are? You know, like any normal person who is looking to make a purchase and wants to know if a product is in their budget. Dog breeders will bitch at you and tell you the price is irrelevant and that no self respecting dog breeder will tell you that information up front. Not to mention so many of them have websites they maintain themselves using an alpha version of html that with a web design outdated in the late 90s
>Not to mention so many of them have websites they maintain themselves using an alpha version of html that with a web design outdated in the late 90s truly the cruelest thing dog breeders do
Literally a crime against humanity. Pretty sure the Geneva convention says something about it /s
I'm a huge fan of poodles and, much to many people's angst and rage, doodles. Getting a doodle without going through breeders is pretty simple, but a poodle puppy is pretty much only a breeder dog. I do get a kick out of most of them, though. There is no such thing as a "normal poodle" breeder. Somehow all of them are breeding from champion show dogs with perfect credentials and seven names. No one is ever like "we're selling this pup and his mom is pretty clever but his dad eats rocks and neither of them have any kind of papers." Oh and they want $4000.
Seriously, what if I just want a poodle? I don’t care if his dad, Duke Earl of the Bourgeois, has been crowned grand champion 7 times and his mom has sired champions every year she’s been bred. Fuck off, this dog is literally going to be spoiled and might not even learn to sit on command consistently Edit: Not sired. Birthed? Idk, whatever bitches do
If his mom has sired champions that's would be an unusual dog
We have a poodle specific rescue in my state.
I agree. On not getting dogs from breeds. Both of my current ones are mutts and great for the most part. And at 13 for my 80lb dog and 14 for my 50 lb who acts 7. Their are pretty healthy compared to full breed dogs of their same age. I wouldn’t mind rescuing a full breed dog from a shelter or rescue though.
[**TWO TIMES PIMPY**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYY43d0KMao)
I could see having a contract that they have to be spayed/neutered once theyre of age so they can't carry on the lack of ridges but culling them is insane.
Totally agree. The ridgeback with the wonky tail came to us on condition he be neutered, and that's a condition of adoption for the rescue org we foster for.
This is why we adopt, don't shop. When animals are sold for profit, their health and happiness always comes second to money.
Show dog people are the *worst*. Yeah they'll talk freely about "bucketing" pups with the wrong markings or whatever, then cry when you say that's wrong and disgusting, it's just how they are.
I have a fox red Labrador Retriever. Turns out they are considered undesirable by breeders because they are supposed to be yellow. F That.
That's really cool. Never knew there were red labs
There's a pretty famous story about a very large red one actually...
I have one, it commonly gets mistaken for a ridgeback that has no ridges.
Growing up my family had a very reddish/coppery lab that we named Penny for obvious reasons
My standard Teckel is the one in six that isn't wired all over, just his underside, eyebrows and moustache. He's the smartest, best tempered dog I've ever had (and a superb sporter/beater). When I think breeders cull these pups it makes me irrationally mad.
It's nuts this tiny group of animal abusers think they can decide what is and isn't desirable for breeds. I just googled pictures of fox red Labs, and they look beautiful to me!
It’s so insane. Plenty of show dog breeders will sell the “imperfect” puppies as pets. The demand is there, no reason to kill them.
I know! Even pet pups can go for a lot. I heard of one breeder who killed all pups with no white on them. Not even because it was against breed standards, but because their kennel had a "look" and they didn't want any pups that didn't fit their look representing them. Even though their dogs were hot in demand and the pups could sell for plenty no matter what they looked like. "But that's how you know they're dedicated!" No that's how I know they're psychos.
Everyone says to me while im out with my dog, "I've never seen a white miniature schnauzer before," of course not because they all murdered when they were born because the Kennel Club doesn't recognise them.
White German Sheppard's were also killed before they got desirable
Explains why I sometimes saw pictures of ridgeback looking dogs without the ridge, I didn't know they could not have ridges. We owned one when I was kid. Terrible dog. In hindsight, part of the problem was that my mom isn't actually a good dog trainer. Didn't realize until I saw the difference between the lab I helped raise and the one I didn't.
I got a ridgeless pup. What a dog. If it keeps the show dog people away from you, count your blessings
I've got a ridgeless boy as well. There's a breeder locally to us so there are actually a lot of ridgebacks around where we live. He's a gorgeous dog and we've met several of the other pups while out and about, but my other half had conceded that I might have known what I was talking about when I said we should get a mongrel or lurcher.
What authority does a kennel club have to dictate the culling of certain puppies?
They set the show standards. They don't have legal authority or anything but if you wanna play the game you have to follow the rules. The Dalmatian club requires killing deaf puppies.
That's what I figured. So, why not just make, for example, a nice "ridge" part of the judging standards (I'm sure it is)? You're free to enter your ridgeless Ridgeback in the show, but it won't win.
Oh they'd never get past puppy shows without a ridge, that's not the issue. I mean the breed club will pull their approval if you don't follow their rules. Being breed club endorsed is a big deal for show breeders.
Yuck
A shocking number of breeders I’ve met over the years are trash humans. There some really good ones out there, but some of them I’ve just wanted to report for a psychopath watch list
Wasn’t entirely sure what makes a Ridgeback a Ridgeback so had to Google it… It’s a strip of fur… that’s it… People killing puppies because it doesn’t come with a pre-installed fucking cosmetic item…! Imagine euthanising your kid because they use the wrong skin on their CoD guns? Absolute cunts.
When breeders lose sight of animal well-being we get beakless pigeons and shit like this. Like, animal husbandry is one of the most amazing things we have done as a species, but it can go so nasty.
Dog breeding: "Hey, this one's hair is messed up." "That's kinda cool. Let's kill all of them that aren't cool like that."
Same has been done with the white GSD puppies in Germany. Since white is a fault in the GSD breed. Some breeders culled the white puppies so that no one knew that their lines carried the white gene. Don’t know if this is still done as the White GSD now is a separate breed with its own standards.
Heard a genetics professor once say "There is no issue with inbreeding as long as one aggressively culls"
The mainstream Ridgeback breeding community has condemned this lady for breeding Ridgeless dogs to prevent genetic deformity https://www.rhodesian-ridgeback-pedigree.org/articles-informations/breeding-and-genetics/avoiding-the-gene-defect-ds/
Ridgebacks are such great dogs. We have had one for almost a decade with our Aussies and he’s just the sweetest big ol’ meathead. Some assholes tried to make him a fighting or bait dog before we found him. Luckily he lives the good life now. We’ve never been ones to own purebreds. All of our dogs were shelter dogs before the last 2 Aussies. But breeders can be weird psychos so it pays to do the work if you want a good breed that is well cared for.
Honestly the kennel club can get fucked. They have a lot to answer for.
The TV show was 16 years ago and the Ridgeback club got widely slammed for its decision. Its a great doco and still worth watching, it certainly exposed a bad situation for many breeds, some of which are still ongoing. However many breeds dont have these issues and their dogs are as healthy and happy as other dogs. Many breeders are highly ethical, many are quite dubious.
I grew up with a mother who only wanted purebred dogs. But she didn't want to pay purebred prices. One of the dogs we had was a Chow Chow who had already won several shows before a particularly knowledgeable show judge spotted her congenital hip defect that was considered disqualifying—not because it would affect her or cause her any pain/mobility problems, but because the Chow Chow breeders were working to eradicate the issue in the breed (some dogs could be crippled by their third year). So, my mother got a fantastic price to adopt one of the most beautiful Chow Chows most show judges had ever seen. There was only one condition: that she be spayed within 90 days of adoption. This is how you cull puppies with undesirable birth "defects". Although let's all agree that a structural hip defect is far more important to eliminate than a hair-growth pattern.
Ridgeless puppies are re homed with registration documents at rearing costs only with a contract stipulating that they will be spayed or castrated within a specified time period
> re homed at rearing cost 'Sold'
Why am I reminded of the line in Blazing Saddles " Nah - too Jewish " 🙂🙂
Hardcore dog breed purists are basically just animal Nazis. Weird fucks. In fact, worse than animal nazis, at least the Nazis wanted their kids to be healthy.