My sig pictured dog is perfect in health.
Temperament wise, shrug she is what she is.....should I breed her? She is beautiful, don't you agree?

 Quote: Patti Neelans

So that means if faults can be avoided and since ALL dogs have faults, then NO dog should be bred. Correct?

Ethical breeders do not breed the health faults they CAN see and CAN avoid.

Deliberately breeding a dog with a known health problem is not what responsible breeding is all about.

It's weird how this seems to be some way-out inconceivable concept ....

Yes ethical breeders DO breed health faults they can see. You are correct that there are things you cannot see. BUT, every dog in some way does not meet their breed standard and not every dog passes ALL the health clearances for their particular breed. Going back to the no perfect dog point. You have to take your dog's faults, whatever they are, weigh them against that dogs attributes and then if you choose to breed then choose a dog to breed to (to the best of your ability) that doesn't duplicate your dogs faults.

But again genetics are NOT an exact science. There is always the push for the perfect dog in all ways, but that will NEVER be achieved. Even the dog that wins every seiger show they enter, or the dog that wins Westminster have faults.

Again I challenge any of you to show me the perfect dog in all ways and/or show me a breeder that has not EVER bred a fault.

 Quote: patti neelans

Yes ethical breeders DO breed health faults they can see. You are correct that there are things you cannot see. ... Again I challenge any of you to show me the perfect dog in all ways and/or show me a breeder that has not EVER bred a fault.

Ah .... you are looking for the "rare" breeder who has never deliberately bred a dog with a genetic health problem?

Are you serious? NO they do NOT.


By ensuring you have located a good breeder who cares more about her dogs than making a dollar, you also ensure that your dog is a fine specimen of his breed, has excellent bloodlines and is as free of genetic complaints and hereditary diseases as the modern world can make him.
from http://dogs.about.com/cs/before/a/ethical_breeder.htm
I think that would include not deliberately breeding dogs who have them.

The best way to avoid genetic health problems is to choose a reputable breeder.
from http://www.ehow.com/about_4740727_dog-breeders.html

There is no manifesto for ethical breeding that does not include screening out genetic health conditions.

Maybe it's just me --- but I'm surprised that this point actually has to be argued.

No Patti.
No on every one of your 'points'.
But in particular on the health clearances. I would not even TALK to a breeder about taking one of their dogs if I felt they short changed any of ALL the health clearances.

Cassie is in perfect health though. And beautiful. Nice very high prey/play drive. Good structure, agile as a cat.
Think I should breed her?

Any breeder who has bred for any length of time has knowingly and unknowingly bred faults. It is impossible to breed a faultless dog.
All dogs have good and bad attributes. You just have to weigh the good against the bad. My assumption here (and I may be wrong) is that many of you have NOT bred dogs. it is not as easy as you think to find the perfect dog to breed or breed to.
You have to decide what attributes in your breed that you wish to breed for and breed for it. If you have the dog the meets the majority of your criteria then you have to do your best to minimize the faults that that dog is guaranteed to have. That is why I made sure that I bred to a dog that had his CERF and had completely non-dog reactive personality. i was doing my best to breed for what I wanted to see in the breed and what I wanted in my particular dogs, and minimize or dilute the faults that my dog did have. This hapens EVERY day in dog breeding. Their is NO way to avoid it and perpetuate a breed in any form.
I have had ONE dog in three litters that has severe dysplasia (or any dysplasia that I know of). Not overly bad in a breed that this is one of the most common faults or problems. There was no way for me to have done anything else to have avoided dysplasia. All the dogs have OFA clearnces here in American and the imports in the lines have clearances from their Country of origen.

Randy, I have no idea. I know nothing about your dog.

 Quote: patti neelans

Any breeder who has bred for any length of time has knowingly and unknowingly bred faults. It is impossible to breed a faultless dog.

No. You can type all the words you want, and add "known and unknown" and stop typing the word "health" (but I quote you with copy and paste: Yes ethical breeders DO breed health faults they can see.) --- but no.

"Any breeder who has bred for any length of time" has NOT knowingly bred dogs with known genetic health conditions.

No, they do not.

 Quote: patti neelans

BUT, every dog in some way does not meet their breed standard and not every dog passes ALL the health clearances for their particular breed.

There is a WORLD of difference between a dog that doesn't exemplify the breed standard, and one that can't even pass all of the health clearances for their breed. There isn't even any correlation between those two values.

There is room for some imperfection within the breed standard, and a dog who's back is a little long or who's head is a little small, big or whatever, isn't going to have their quality of life compromised or pass on traits that will negatively effect progeny.

Passing all of the health screening is the BARE MINIMUM of expectations when breeding dogs. Everything else comes after that.

You keep saying "perfect dogs" and mentioning the breed standard. No dog is perfect, but at the very LEAST should be healthy!

Darn,
I thought Cassie would pass your minimum standard at least.
Hey her peds are nice! Did I mention that? Her Grandfather, and fathers brother was some kind of ring/sport champion or another.

Does that help?