Jump to content
BC Boards

An innovative approach to puppy mills


Donald McCaig
 Share

Recommended Posts

Dear Doggers,

I don't understand how a sheepdog's pedigree can tell you much unless you've seen some/many of the dogs in it work. Donald McCaig

I will let others speak to that if they wish, but personally, I just want to get to know the ancestors - and then I can start a conversation about working style.

 

On another note, pedigree data would help tremendously with tracking health issues.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 197
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

That's just it Donald. You see dogs work and you look at their pedigree. With time and experience, you start to see patterns in certain traits in related dogs. I like to research pedigrees of dogs I see at trials and clinics in more depth when I get home.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My dream is for most if not all dogs in the registry be sequenced (full genome).

 

Pedigree research would be more interesting if longitudinal data was more accessible. To me it's more interesting/valuable to see how all the offspring from a dog or bitch are working. When we are looking at possible crosses, not only is the working ability of each important but also what each produced.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Doggers,

 

When I travel to a new region, I'll hear of important dogs I've never known previously. Some of these dogs from the top handlers will be bred across regions but almost all offspring will stay - say - in New England or the Pacific Northwest or . . . .

 

That isn't so different in the UK where regionalism has a similar effect. Many years ago I was talking with Johnny Bathgate who'd just judged a trial. "How many of these dogs grandparents have you seen work?"

 

"Oh, about 95 %".

 

When Viv Billingham gave her first US clinic she startled me by identifying the parents of our beginning dogs by their work alone.

 

But it isn't the pedigree, it's watching a zillion good sheepdogs - then the pedigrees might tell you something.

 

If I were going to breed a bitch, like Mark I'd be far more interested knowing the stud's offspring and/or what sort of bitches helped him produce the toppers.

 

Donald McCaig

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm coming to this party late but want to add my kudos to the ABCA for doing this!

 

As others have said, it's not a limit being enforced on breeders but it will be a very useful tool for buyers. I'm sure there will be a few exceptions of good breeders who produce more than 30 pups a year, and some lousy ones who produce fewer, so people will still have to do some homework. (I'm sure some of the higher volume breeders will simply choose to sell some unregistered pups as well in order to stay off the list -- it seems to be the nature of some people to try to scam whatever system's in place, even if it's a good one.) But it will still make it much easier for people to get an idea of whom to be on the lookout for, even if it's not a perfect plan.

 

Well done, ABCA!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry to drag this back up, but I was thinking about something the other day. There is a way to find out what stud dogs are used the most in the UK. Do we have something similar here in the U.S.? It occurred to me that focusing on litters registered places the spotlight on the owner of the bitch, but there's a male in there somewhere too, and wouldn't it also make sense to look at who's studding dogs out repeatedly? In other words, a single male dog could sire way more than 30 puppies a year, but the owner isn't held accountable for all those breedings/puppies, and yet they do contribute to the numbers registered. It's high volume from another perspective. Does that make sense? But aside from the ethical question (what constitutes too much?) it would be nice to be able to track what dogs are being used over and over just from a "popular sire" genetics standpoint.

 

J.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Going back to the OP, rated than hit on an arbitrary number of pups registered, would it not be more reasonable to provide the whole list of registrations and number of litters per breeder and then let those interested in the data make up their minds for themselves?

 

So on the proposed benchmark of 30 how much less reprehensible would it be considered for a breeder to register a total of 28 pups from 7 litters than for another breeder to register 31 pups from 5 litters (assuming every pup in each litter is registered)?

 

What constitutes high volume? The number of attempts at producing pups or the actual number nature decides will be born?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Computers can only spit out the information you want if, before you entered the information, you had programming in place for the info you want to be retrieved. In other words, you have to already have the category you want to retrieve in place before the info was fed into the computer. So to update for something like that, after you have the new programming in place, someone would have to reinter the old data in all the right places.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, but no one said it is in an electronic form appropriate to easily generate and keep updated the full list some think would be trivial to do.

The preface that strikes fear and loathing in the hearts of every IT person: "All you have to do is ..." usually followed by something that isn't remotely simple to do, if even technically feasible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does it matter how the list is generated as long as it is accurate?

 

I'm not saying what people are asking for is not worth doing. I'm saying that the attitude "it's easily done" may not be appropriate without 1st hand knowledge of how the current system works (which none of us posting here has). Don't have the attitude that in this electronic age every system is up to the same level as Google or every group has the same number of IT personnel to provide a system with the instant search results we get from Google.

 

Be proud that a small group of volunteers (your peers who are freely offering their time and effort for the benefit of our breed) are doing what the large registries will not do. Don't immediately piss on their efforts as not being good enough for you. Especially considering it's the same few volunteers who are doing the work while you get the benefits.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The owner of the dam is the breeder. That is the person who registers the pups. It's usually the person who initiates the breeding and who derives income from sale of the pups. Two things follow from that IMO: the system was set up to be breeder-centered, and the blame or credit for the breeding falls basically on the breeder.

 

I personally don't think there would be much value in a listing of sires who produced the most pups. I don't think it's self-evident that the owner of the sire was "at fault" for agreeing to the breedings. That sire may have a lot to contribute to the breed, and acting as a stud does not interfere with his livestock work the way frequent litters can prevent a bitch from developing and demonstrating her working ability. Also, the ABCA Board was very concerned that this list of highest quantity breeders not be misinterpreted by the public as a list of our most experienced breeders -- i.e., a list of the breeders one should look to when seeking to buy a border collie puppy. To ensure that it would not be interpreted as an official "ABCA list of breeders" -- something we are often asked for -- we had to append some pretty harsh language to it. I don't really think it would be appropriate to append such language to a list of popular sires.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that the overwhelming majority of our membership is not computer-centered. When we sent a survey to the members several years ago asking what services they would like to see from the ABCA, fewer than a handful of the hundreds of responses requested online access to pedigrees, or online access to anything. It is not something they would utilize. Most of them want registration application forms sent to them by mail, rather than downloading them from the website. The computer-savvy folks here on the Boards are not typical.

 

The ABCA is not perfect. There's room for improvement, and there are many things that we would like to be able to offer our members that we do not now offer. But to me this would not be a high priority item.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...