I had a quick read and there are already quite a few things in this article that bother me:

If this is the point he's trying to make then I don't understand why you've posted the link as PDE was about the state of Pedigree dogs as a whole, not just show dogs, which includes BYB's and PF's. Or does it?

2 years difference isn't really headline news, plus the bit in bold shows how the "evidence" is already skewed.

A huge generalisation here with no real evidence to back it up, which really sums up most of this article tbh. He's just another member of the GP with an opinion and very little unbiased, scientific evidence to back it up.

I do agree with his first sentence though:

I posted a thread about that blog post here
http://www.dogsey.com/showthread.php?t=165144

Couln`t agree more........

Somewhere amongst his blog , he repeats several times the phrase "sanctimonious baloney"

I think that describes the article to a tee!

Two years difference in life expectancy might not be 'headline news' to you Rips but to me and to many other people on here two years more with their dogs is important.

rune

exactly

rips, i posted that article in response to you and others asking what i ment by saying we might end up in a situation where puppy farmed dogs were healthire than dogs from expert breeders

his style might not be the best but he does at least reference studies

how often on here and other places are people advised to go to good breeders who health test their dogs?
it sounds like a no brainer but where actually is the evidence that theses dogs are more healthy??

now Im not knocking people who do health test and try and do their best, I am just worried that it is begining to look like current breeding methods may not actually the best and these breeders have been ill informed by the breeders that have gone before them

In the lifetime of a dog 2 years is a very significant difference
add to that the simple fact that insurance companies charge less for crossbreeds than they do for pedigrees, and way more for some breeds. Is that bexause insurance companies are nice, or wrongly informed? Nope its cos in their experience they have found crossbreeds on average cost less than pedigrees to treat

So it is possible that all the good work done by health testing is being badly offset by the damage done by very restrictive breeding and line breeding in a closed gene pool

He often epitomises the old adage about when you are pointing the finger at someone, you are pointing the other three back at yourself. I read his blog daily and often think to myself he makes some good point but my goodness he's a self righteous pillock.

Yes very true
But people often like to focus in on the tone of something or the spelling as a smokescreen to take away from the good points in something they cant actually argue with

as a percentage of life-expectancy, it's quite significant.

Two years difference on a life expectancy of our average life-span is a lot less significant than on the life expectancy of a dog

I will add though that on a quick read of the link, it is more a soap box exercise than something that could widely be accepted as a serious discussion piece - which is a shame

I haven't got an opinion about the blogger---but I do have an opinion about anyone who thinks that 2 years is not important.

rune

That's the point, two years is highly significant on a relatively short expected life-span so his point is valid. It's just a pity that his writing style tends to lessen the impact of the point he's trying to make