Error rate - dogs placed as pets who eventually get bred against their breeders’ wishes and spay neuter contract. Rate for truly responsible breeders is very close to zero.

I’m not sure what you thought I meant, but it obviously must have been something else.

The WSJ debunking is good and you may want to look it up.

Sally (who has a pretty solid math and mathematical modeling background)

The best estimate, and the one I use as a bellweather, is Merritt Clifton’s Animal People estimate, which is nicely done. He pegs it currently at 4.7 million, a slight uptick after many years of steadily going down. He believes that this is due to problems with pit bull overproduction.

He discusses the numbers, in detail, in an interview on the Best Friends web site. It’s worth looking up.

As for hurting responsible breeders, personally, I believe the collateral damage of eliminating purebreds and working dogs is unacceptable in and of itself.

Hope it works —- reached it via his blog:
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/

In the end, is that number meaningful? I’m not sure. Just because something is theoretically possible doesn’t mean it happens. But I am sure that it’s a great way to illustrate the potential damage, the worst-case scenario, if there was zero population control, hopefully in the form of s/n or carefully selective breeding.

Thanks!

Why does this matter? Because as we have asserted here time and time again, you cannot fix a problem until you’ve defined exactly what the problem is.

His findings are interesting. He traced the oft-repeated “one cat and her offpring” can produce 420,000 more cats back to what most credit as being the source (the HSUS, which, when interviewed, said they weren’t the source, admitted the number was questionable and agreed to take it off their Web site … must run to check).

The WSJ then looked at a more realistic estimate for one cat’s potential outlook, and came up with numbers starting as low as 100!

Check out the story, from last October.

For me, it IS a matter of feeling badly for responsible breeders. I don’t have a problem with mutts and I think the gene pool could do with a dose of diversification. If the number could be zero by outlawing breeding (which wouldn’t work) and the collateral damage was purebreds declining to near-extinction, I’d support it, and I think it would do more good than harm. However, that won’t work and its a thoroughly unrealistic legislative tack to pursue.

As I believe we’ve beaten to death, responsible breeders are not really the issue here, and I have no idea what you mean by “error rate”, but I assure you that when gene pools get REALLY tight, whatever you mean by that rate is going to go way up.

The “output calculation” is intended to be an estimate of what is theoretically possible with a single unspayed female and I acknowledge that most real-world cases will be different - but I suggest you take a look at some backyard breeding operations or places where dogs openly roam and there is no s/n before you dismiss it as an unrealistic possibility. My point is that a single irresponsible breeding operation, intentional or not can be responsible for MANY unwanted dogs down the line for generations.

Second, it isn’t a matter of feeling badly for the responsible breeders. It’s a matter of feeling badly for destroying breeds and gene pools.

Third, while no one can absolutely control what happens to a dog one does not own, the “error rate” with responsible breeders is extraordinarily low - low enough that some are concerned that gene pools in many breeds are actually getting too tight.

Finally, your calculation for the output of an unspayed female dog is way too high for a number of reasons, most notably because for each litter, for each generation, on average, 75% or better of those puppies are going to get spayed.