I completey agree, but being a greedy so and so, I want health /temperament and looks in my package,

Do you not think you can get all 3 in your choice of dog, if you feel you have to choose one , or two out of the whole package.

I dont understand why some seem to feel it its OK to settle for part of the whole, instead of looking for a breeder that provides all three

Excellent post, Azz, I totally agree.

I am not into pedigrees as you know Jackbox, but theoretically I would say that yes, you should be able to have your cake AND eat it ... in other words, get all three. But IMO it is not possible - I mustn't go off topic too much here, but this is why I personally am not into pedigrees - BECAUSE I think it to be impossible to have all 3, whereas I know I have all 3 three with my mutts!

Sorry - I am straying off topic, except to say with a closed gene pool, especially a small one, it is IMPOSSIBLE to have health, it goes against the law of genetics.

in some breeds it is not an option, and as Chesky2000 has stated on another thread, her breed has one of the smallest , yet has no major health issues.

its not the size of the gene pool, it what it consists off.

Some of the larger gene pools are riddled with problems, you only have to look at the most popular breeds , with gene pools that are overflowing, the Labrador, the Staffie, the GSD , the Boxer, the Springer, the BC and so on, having large gene pools has not helped them in any way.

Ethical knowledgeable breeding does that, regardless of the gene pool.

Have to disagree completey with all you have said,

I dont understand why you think its not possible to get a breeder of pedigree dogs that takes the care to breed dogs free from breed health issues , good temperaments and looking like the breed they are meant to be.

Regarding the law of genetics, how do you explain, healthy dogs from breeds from small gene pools, surely with that logic, they would be all dropping like flies from over breeding

I wonder if there's a way to get insurance companies to share data on claims per breed.

Then again they're bound to have weighed up which breeds end up needing more treatment (higher risk) than others - maybe we could run through their quote system but just change the name of the breed and see how the quotes vary?

Would make for interesting reading

Agreed, I was just trying not to be anti pedigree! IMO, ALL gene pools are bad. You can ethically and knowledgeably breed all you like, you are still mating too close relations, which is bad, bad bad. I work in a hospital as a medical secretary and we have a lot of genetic problems cropping up because of the practice of certain cultures of first cousin marriages. This almost always results in genetic and other problems - and that is "only" first cousins. With dogs, it is extremely common for closer relationships, mother/father, brother/sister, and it always astounds me that these are accepted as being perfectly OK and normal. Dogs are mammals and no different from us - it is genetically unsound practice to inbreed, and yet as I say, it seems to be perfectly acceptable. It has astounded me for many a long year.

Why do you think it is so much more expensive to insure pedigrees over mongrels or crosses? It is not just about the value of the dog!

Of course you are always going to have the odd exceptions - but would you exclaim in horror if you lost a boxer at 10 years ago? Maybe you would, I know nothing about boxers, but when we lost my Hal at 10, I had several people say to me "oh he was a good age". No he was not, 10 was an appallingly young age to die at, he should have lived to 13 or 14. Our next door neighbour's beautiful GSD is a cripple, at only 6 years old, they have had to build a ramp for him to get in and out of the car, and he came from good, sound ethical breeders. Again, I know little about GSDs, but I am assured he is a good pedigree.

There is! All those years ago, when we were looking into wolf crosses, in the early days of the internet, my husband dug up a lot of information about breed statistics and health. Insurance companies have indeed weighed up which breeds have the most and the higher claims, and these breeds will be weighted in terms of insurance, varying between different insurance companies. Age of course comes into it. Tai's insurance was put up 28% by Tesco, just because he was a year older. We have changed to another company, and saved ourselves almost that much over and above Tesco's quote.

But these 'claims' will never be true. Not all pedigree dogs are insured. There may be more GSD insured than Boxers, therefore stands to right there would be more claims made by GSD owners.