Debbie Meier Posted April 13, 2009 Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 Eileen, I'm not trying to give any free passes, just pointing out an instance where volume may not indicate a mill to me personally, though I'm willing to accept that some people won't care and consider volume a mill regardless of intent, and that's fine. My post was more in reference to the original thread "difference between a commercial breeder and a puppy mill" then directed at the GS breeder sideline, just referring to her as an example of if she was operating under the same pretense of the breeders I referred to I would be hesitant to call her a mill, I was not defending her. Deb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdarling Posted April 14, 2009 Report Share Posted April 14, 2009 HERE is a link to a CNN article about the poor breeder that sold the puppy to the Bidens. I feel so sorry for her and her 90 dogs, I could almost puke. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BorderCollieMom Posted April 14, 2009 Report Share Posted April 14, 2009 geeze 84 dogs?? thats crazy!@ even if she does have 2 swimming pools for them it must be difficult to take care of all of them? How does she know whos breeding with who??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1sheepdoggal Posted April 14, 2009 Report Share Posted April 14, 2009 DNA testing no doubt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Debbie Meier Posted April 14, 2009 Report Share Posted April 14, 2009 How does she know whos breeding with who??? Probably one of the same ways the horse, cattle or other livestock producers do it, either one male with the females or no males with females (most likely), track heat cycles and hand breed once or twice based on ovulation and a bunch of documentation. A tease male that only alerts when the female is ovulating is a helpful tool also. Heck, she might collect and AI everything to prevent injury or STD's between males and females, wouldn't surprise me if she ultrasounded to confirm pregnency and numbers. The same processes we did for breeding horses could be applied to a dog breeding business. Deb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bc4pack Posted April 15, 2009 Report Share Posted April 15, 2009 Well I guess the Federal Gov't is importing from the European 'puppymills' putting out GSDs and Malinois... aka commercial kennels... I really think the 'puppy mill' numbers are blown waaay out of proportion. I don't assume if you have more dogs than I would or if you breed more than I would, that you are a 'hoarder' or a 'puppy mill'. Commercial breeder has become a dirty word these days... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smokjbc Posted April 15, 2009 Report Share Posted April 15, 2009 As far as comparing the Biden puppy breeder to someone like Carol Rose- I think there are problems with both but at least the Carol Rose colts will most likely go to performance buyers and be tested out regardless of whether they are good enough to be top colts for her. Plus, her mares are producing one colt each a year, not 6-10 pups or so. However- I do alot of http://fuglyhorseoftheday.blogspot.com reading and it's depressing how many colts in general are being produced and how many decent horses are selling for nothing at the auctions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Debbie Meier Posted April 15, 2009 Report Share Posted April 15, 2009 Regarding the puppy mill numbers, talking to our inspector the other day we got on the subject as to how many dogs would end up flooding the system if the mills were shut down, she shook her head and said that your not going to believe the numbers at some of the mills. She stated that 1000 at one site is quite possible. I don't know if that is an abnormally high exception, or if that is on the high side of typical, but it makes 80 seem like nothing, it's easy to end up with 20 - 30 just with a hobby breeding program when you want to keep some to test and train. When you think of some of the mill pictures multiple dogs in 6 x 6 or smaller pens, some stacked, in buildings that are 60 to 80 foot wide by 100 or so long, how many can they pack in there? Deb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosanne Posted April 15, 2009 Report Share Posted April 15, 2009 This breeder is 10 minutes from me. I've used her swimming pool (it's open to the public for $10 a dog). Her main address in Spring City is a residential house and several outbuildings. The dogs are in kennels. They appear well fed but the runs are small dirt runs. There is a lot of barking. She maintains/co-owns several locations though, and sells several hundred dogs a year. From the looks of the residence and kennel runs, I would not consider her a "reputable" breeder, but rather a large scale BYB. This blog has a lot of information; http://abbyk9.blogspot.com/search?q=biden Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lambert Posted June 13, 2009 Report Share Posted June 13, 2009 Doing nothing so I just read through this thread. Very interesting look at our "Dog Culture". It really got me thinking. To most of us our dogs are extension of ourselves. I won't say we value them as children but we don't really view them as animals either. Hence our reluctance to buy them from someone who breeds them as if they were... "animals". I know I would have no objection about buying say a Quarter horse from a an operation that kept 88 brood mares and a carefully chosen number of top stallions. The mares might have been shown as reining or cutting horses and have titles and the stallions certainly would. So far pretty comparable to the GSD commercial operation under discussion. Professional staff would work with and handle the foals and at some point in the first few years of that youngster's life I would buy him and feel I was better off then if I had made a similar purchase from a back yard breeder with one mare. I wonder why we consider dogs so differently? Why is having a professional make the determination of who gets bred to whom better then having some fond owner of a novice dog make the selection? Please believe that puppy mills and most commercial breeders are not where I would go for my next dog. But this is a reflection of the quality of these breeders, not on the concept that only someone who breeds for love can make a good breeding. Interesting thread. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliepoudrier Posted June 13, 2009 Report Share Posted June 13, 2009 I wonder why we consider dogs so differently? Why is having a professional make the determination of who gets bred to whom better then having some fond owner of a novice dog make the selection? Please believe that puppy mills and most commercial breeders are not where I would go for my next dog. But this is a reflection of the quality of these breeders, not on the concept that only someone who breeds for love can make a good breeding. I think you're misinterpreting the idea that many folks here have expressed. Most of us don't think very highly of backyard breeders either (who by your definition would be the fond novices breeding for love). What most of the folks here believe is that the experts are the people who are working with the dog in a real working situation (for border collies, that would mean stockwork), and those are the people who should be breeding. I don't think anyone believes that with a high-volume operation you can adequately evaluate your breeding stock (note: in the working border collie world, titles don't mean much), and you certainly can't judge the efficacy of your breeding program if the offspring aren't being similarly judged by real work. If you're producing a hundred pups a year, for example, and you place only a small fraction of those in working situations, you don't have enough data to determine if the cross you made was a good one from a working standpoint. In the case of German shepherds, I still think you'd need to spend time proving your stock beyond just shoving them in the show ring. J. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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