pet connection

One of the most talked-about pet articles this week is the New York Times piece on Japan’s fixation with cute little dogs and the problems caused by make-a-quick-buck breeding, especially breeding for a single “rare” trait without considering health issues:

Rare dogs are highly prized [in Japan], and can set buyers back more than $10,000. But the real problem is what often arrives in the same litter: genetically defective sister and brother puppies born with missing paws or faces lacking eyes and a nose.

There have been dogs with brain disorders so severe that they spent all day running in circles, and others with bones so frail they dissolved in their bodies. Many carry hidden diseases that crop up years later, veterinarians and breeders say.

An interesting read, and generally an informative one. But the idea that “inbreeding” — used in this piece to describe both inbreeding and linebreeding — is causing these problems is not entirely correct. You can breed a Lab with hip problems with to a Siberian husky with hip problems and you’re going to get puppies with hip problems — the idea that “hybrid” cures all ills is as wrong as it is prevalent. (Hybrid being incorrect anyway, since none of the currently faddish designer dogs are hybrids — they’re all just dogs. Hybrids are the result of matings of two different species. Mules are hybrids; labradoodles are still just dogs.)

The problem in Japan — and the problem here in the United States as well — is that people who have no knowledge of the potential for breeding in health and temperament problems go ahead and put dogs together anyway. Good breeders have their dogs certified clear of genetic defects – this costs a lot of money, by the way — and don’t breed animals unless they’re certified healthy and have good temperaments besides. They also know that two healthy dogs who are known to carry a certain condition — the “merle” coat pattern is the classic example — can, if bred, double up on their recessive gene to produce dogs who are blind, deaf or worse. (That’s why in breeds such as Shelties, reputable breeders do not breed merles to merles.) You need to know the genes you’re messing with before you start breeding.

The ignorant, clueless, careless or just plain greedy don’t. As I’ve said before: Buyer beware. Especially when it comes to the little dogs, who have big problems when it comes to health.