No I didn't miss your point---but you missed mine which Dawn didn't, For goodness sake stop wittering and go back and READ what I wrote.

Obviously you feel that breeding dogs with deformities is OK if they are just supposed to be lap dogs. I don't.

rune

Neither do I, were did I say that,

So you agree, a springer with deformed legs in not a good thing.

p.s........ will stop wittering now, and go and read where you found that the KC standard says its OK to have bowed legs.

I think ANY dog with ANY kind of real deformity is a bad thing. As I would hope EVERYBODY does. No excuses that it is OK because they are not expected to do much---thats appalling! One of the things they are expected to do is give birth and they often can't do that.

I question what that deformity may or may not lead to and I would like proof that the legs cause arthritis or similar MORE than the straight legs on dogs expected to do the same amount of work do.

To go round in a circle---my experience has been that it is the hard running/jumping/general living which causes the arthritis and it happens whatever the shape of the body. Some dogs which look as if they ought to be riddled with it (my little crossbreed in the picture as an example) are free and some who look well put together suffer badly.

Human athletes often end up with it.

So two different issues----I don't like any bred in deformity BUT I'd also like PROOF that it is an issue. There doesn't seem to be any except anecdotal---and my anecdotal 'evidence' points to the lifestyle being a cause of the arthritis.

rune

just out of interest, how many dog breeds cant give birth naturally, i know some bulldogs cant, and some chihuahuas.. but what others?

I guess I think of 16 as fairly normal. I have not yet lost a dog before that age.....

Found this while I was checking which breeds need help----apparently Scotties, Pugs, Pekes and several others.

This leads on from that and is taken from an Australian report in 1999 (they were well ahead of us!)

It won't allow me to copy but makes interesting reading

http://sydney.edu.au/vetscience/rese...ogbreeding.pdf

rune

Some of the several others can give birth naturally, but are known as prone to whelping problems. Some I know are Boston Terrier, Japanese Chin, Yorkshire Terrier, French Bulldog, Chihuahua, Pomeranian . . . many of the smaller guys.

Ruby

What are the "problems" though? Borders are notorious for having interia when there is just one or two pups, thats not a "deformity" or any physical defect. That would also be a possible cause for many small breeds who only have one or two pups as a normal litter. Not so much with bigger dogs as they tend to have bigger litters. (generally speaking) Livvy's grandma had intertia with only one pup. Livvy's mom had 8 not a bit of trouble.

I believe much of it in the smallest breeds does have to do with inertia, and much of that is caused by small litter sizes, although anecdotally I understand inertia difficulties and difficulty in whelping can run in lines. In English Toy Spaniels (King Charles in the UK) and Boston Terriers the head size is often cited as the difficulty.

In regards to small litter sizes and focusing on inertia, however, keep in mind that some of the smaller dogs - JRTs for example - have higher litter number averages than breeds of similar sizes probably due to selection that took just that into consideration.

Discussion about inertia and whelping difficulties on a genetics list I am on pointed out that selection for good whelpers at the beginnings of a breed, and then on through, would make a difference, just as neglecting to track lines and weed out pups from lines/bitches that had difficulty whelping where reasons were not so obvious as a singleton pup.

Ruby

Watch the PDE programme and have a look through some of the show threads on here and you'll get what I mean.

Show breeders were burned at the stake on PDE for line breeding and creating hereditary health problems, yet there was no mention of the working breeders who do worse by line breeding and more often than not NOT health testing!

I'm not totally against line breeding btw, it does have it's place, but too often people use it as a short cut and there is no short cut to experience imo.