(Good thing I’m not a vet, huh?)

We wouldn’t use the northerntool to debark a dog, though, would we.:)

http://www.northerntool.com/we....._200326354

For the record, dear commenter, I have been involved in rescue for over a decade, and running a private rescue group for several years out of my own home. Don’t tell me about animals who need rescue.

Secondly, your “all the puppies and kittens” argument is irrelevant (regardless of how incorrect it is to begin with). Your initial comment was as follows:

“Mandatory spaying and neutering. I have a problem with the word mandatory. Makes my neck hairs stand up. Still for the plain average Heinz 57 variety house pets, if mandatory spaying/neutering at no cost to the owner,would not be such a bad deal.”

You referred to my beloved companions as “plain average Heinz 57 variety house pets” and suggested that the government interfering in their medical decisions (raising the risk for prostate cancer, osteosarcoma, ligament tears and spay incontinence) was just fine and dandy as long as there was no $$ involved. After all, they’re just “plain average house pets” so who cares, right?

As for your “just my opinion” comment, when proceeded by the suggestion that you will MAKE your daughter see the light about circumcision, ‘scuse me if I don’t immediately accept your declaration of universal understanding.

In the future, you would do well to refrain from referring to ANY dog as “plain average house pets” regardless of parentage, or you most certainly risk offending the vast majority of readers.

There is also the advantage of a MUCH lower probability of homozygous deleterious recessives, which is thought to be a major cause of inbreeding depression.

A fairy tale heavily promoted by puppy mills breeding “designer” mutts, but not supported by much of anything. The only automatic benefit you get simply from crossing widely separated lines in the absence of health screening, is that the pups will have a more diverse set of immune system alleles than either of the parents, which does mean a stronger, more flexible immune system than the parents had. But if they both had weak immune systems to begin with, you might still wind up with a dog whose immune system isn’t anything to write home about, compared to a well-bred purebred.

And yep, I mean killed. Euthanasia is done to ease suffering, not because of space, or because a shelter does not have a good volunteer base in place to accomodate newborns, pregnant animals or orphans.

I’d recommend you pick up a copy of Redemption. The decision to kill baby animals or young healthy animals is just that, a decision. It ONLY stops when those in charge make a fundamental change in thinking and determine that such actions are unacceptable. Waiting until the pieces are all in place etc, and hoping it will someday not happen somehow DOES NOT WORK.

Also mix breeds do not always get the best of both worlds in terms of health and personality. They may in fact get the worst behavioral traits of both parents with health problems from both sides. Christie had a great blog entry on this subject about a month back. Hybrid vigor is a very real thing, but if a mix breed has poorly bred, unhealthy, unstable parents, it’s no magic bullet.