Are well meaning breeders breeding problems into our doodles?

[DeeDee and Sheila]

I put this discussion on the debate page and didn't receive any replies, so I'll try it here on the forum.  I am hearing about many doodles that have tummy problems.  This HAS to come from the poodle side in my humble opinion, because I've owned a couple labs and have never even heard of a lab that wouldn't eat anything, including panty hose if given the chance.

Then Sheila had Perthes disease, basically getting her hip socket cut off bc of a genetic blood disease whereby the blood wasnt reaching up to the hip bone.  Breeder paid costs up to the price of the dog/ or I could have sent 7 month old Sheila back to breeder (not an option in my book).  Luckily only one hip was involved, 2 would have been over $5000 in expenses. This disease CANNOT be tested for, period.  But it occurs in many types of small dogs and my daughter who is a vet cried w/ me when she heard Sheila had it.  It involved a horrible operation at U of Illinois that almost killed Lil Sheila. Then we had 4 mos of swim therapy 2x/week at the U of Illinois, which was costly and was a 3 hr round trip for treatment. She still uses only 3 legs sometimes when tired and then I give her a pain pill.  It was a nightmare.

The breeder told me she would pull Sheila's mom off the breeding line, the dad was already retiring but had bred hundreds of puppies, so we didn't thing it was him.  But she didn't pull Sheila's mom off the line as promised and she is still breeding Sheila's mom , although with a different sire. She is also using a male puppy from THAT breeding as a future breeder. I asked my daughter and U of I and they said they know it's genetic, but they don't know if its due to a recessive gene or if it could be a gene from just one dog.  My daughter's opinion is that the breeder is "playing with fire" and her undergrad degree is in genetics.

I am disappointed about this and wonder how a good, sturdy breed is going to be built if breeders do these things (and this was a reputable breeder).

What do you dkers think?

 

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

I don't want to know.......

[DeeDee and Sheila]

OK.  Present status after a tearful afternoon.   No lawsuits, on either of our parts.   

The stance of a certain group of ALD breeders (I am not naming which group, committee, whatever it is) is that Perthes is not genetic, or hasn't proven to be in some scientists minds.  We agreed to disagree on that.    I told her how Sheila's life is still compromised by Perthes, limping, yipping sometimes when she runs after a ball,  and about the recommendation by U of I that we buy a treadmill since Sheila still has very little muscle in her affected leg. I asked that whoever the group is  to please please reconsider and keep we clients and dogs in mind when they make decisions about our dogs.  She totally understood and said that ALDs are a very young breed in the making and there will be mistakes, changes of mind, etc.   

So I've written this as carefully as possible bc I know that it will be read by many people.

But I would suggest that some of these clubs, groups, organizations, etc. place some actual clients or veterinarians/geneticists on their boards in order to get another point of view.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

 I hope no one or dog has to experience what you have.

I appreciate and heard your point of view.  I applaud that you eloquently came forward to stress your case and make others aware.  May you and Sheila find many more happy days filled with peace.  May  all breeders hear this discussion and if in doubt, leave it out until more research is done. 

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

DeeDee, I just started reading this discussion, my heart is broken for you and your Sheila, it has also brought forth many questions I have about my Daisy's breeder and how sorry I am that I didn't do more research before we made our choice. Though I would not change anything now, I love her so much and at 19 months it appears she is healthy, what you had and continue to go through is a fear every doodle owner of BYB must fear, to have that fear from a reputable breeder I feel is worse. 

It would see though that she is trying and I hope she comes around and no longer continues to use Sheila's parents for breeding.

It is nice to have you back here, we have all missed you. Since our membership is so large it is clearly hard to be missed and you were.

[Lorraine Bromley]

Until breeders must be registered and policed this will always be a problem! This is intentional and unintentional ignorance by both breeders and pet owners. This will always perpetuate as I see no hope in changing the practices of society with animals when they can't and don't change the way children are protected.

[Linda, Webber and Seda]

FYI:

This statement was copied from the International Australian Labradoodle Association ethics section.

 

"I will breed the Labradoodle and Australian Labradoodle responsibly and keep proper records of my breeding stocks offspring, as much as possible, with any genetic defects I might be notified of noted in my records. If I am made aware that a mating that I have done has produced a puppy with a life inhibiting genetic defect I will rearrange my breeding program to reflect responsible breeding to avoid future mating with that breeding pair to each other."

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Apparently the pair will not breed to each other. So that is following the ethics section.  It does not address that some things might be passed on from one parent.

[Pat and Traveler]

When I was looking for a puppy, I found a couple of breeders who wouldn't let prospective owners see the puppies, claiming that people tracked in diseases, etc.  I was curious and contacted one of these breeders, saying I would be uncomfortable just handing over bunches of money without seeing the puppies, the mother and maybe the dad too.  I got back a very snippy reply about how they guessed I just wasn't a good fit for their fine operation.  I agreed wholeheartedly!  When I got Trav, we took basic sanitary precautions before seeing the puppies--such as hand washing and such, met the puppies, the mom and the dad.  I know the mom was really the mom because, though the puppies had been weaned, Trav tried to snatch a little milk snack from her when he saw her.  :)

[Carol Brand]

Yes, I see this a lot from certain types of breeders.  I understand that a breeder doesn't want Parvo brought onto their property, but it begs the question....  So do the breeeder's family members and dogs NEVER leave their property?  I know that Doodles don't go to shows and that the majority of Doodle breeders don't compete with their dogs in performance events, but do the breeding dogs ever go camping or hiking or just for a walk around the block?

 

When I have a litter, people are asked to bleach the bottom of their shoes and leave them outside the door.   Hands are washed with an anti bacterial soap.  To date I have not had an issue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pat and Traveler]

Carol, your precautions before allowing people to see your litters are just good sense.  But I wondered the same things--do the owners and dogs stay inside for weeks?  Don't the puppies go off-premises for vet visits, at least the neutering part?  It just makes me a little suspicious when a breeder refuses to let potential owners see the puppies, or the environment where the puppy was raised AT ALL--no matter how cute the pictures may be.  That sounds more like puppy mill than sanitary concerns. 

[DeeDee and Sheila]

I agree with that.  It is a hard job being a breeder.  And the bigger the operation gets, I think the more strict the breeder has to be.  But the pups need interaction too.  And certain areas of the country have more germs.  When I loved in NC, my huge lab had to be dewormed 4x/yr because nothing ever gets cleaned out of the soil.  Here in the middle of IL we don't have to do that. They test first to see if it is needed at all.

I left Sheila for "training" which even the breeder stopped doing.  Sheila was basically crated for large parts of the day and trained very little.  I paid a fortune, and Sheila will not let strangers near here.  Poor breeder.  Her dogs got parvo and giardia from that place.  The girl was also a groomer, and when I got out there I could see she wasn't a clean type person.  The breeder got rid of her pronto!

[DeeDee and Sheila]

Oh how CUTE!!  And the mom was probably like, hey I'm done buddy. Yes, you were really smart to do that.  I think the pups need to be socialized at a certain point anyway.  I think alot of the problem with this breeding is they are trying to make the doodles to small.  I DO think they are moving away from this.  I love big ole Trav.  I always had big dogs before and although they need exercise, I think on the whole they are way less maintenance.  I love Sheila though.  Don't get me wrong.  It's just if I get another . . .