So where are the other 74 percent coming from? Well, breeders. You can find virtually any breed of animal in your local shelter — purebred or mixed — but consumers continue to pay hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars for dogs from breeders. You can never forget that breeders are still trying to run a business at the end of the day, so it is only in their best interest to advertise the benefits to owning a purebred, and even perpetuating the myth that certain positive attributes cannot be found in shelter dogs.
Ironically, the Humane Society estimates that 25 percent of dogs in shelters are purebred. Many puppies who come from puppy mills suffer from serious health problems as a result of reckless breeding. Two months later the facility was raided and all of the dogs were removed from the breeding facility. When a representative from the AKC was questioned as to just how many breeders have AKC registered dogs in the country, they admitted that they did not have those figures.
How much will it cost to care for a new animal companion? As you begin your research, here are some things to consider: Puppy mills Puppy mills are commercial breeding facilities that mass-produce dogs and cats in cat mills for sale through pet stores, or directly to consumers through classified ads or the Internet.
Animals in puppy mills are treated like cash crops They are confined to squalid, overcrowded cages with minimal shelter from extreme weather and no choice but to sit and sleep in their own excrement. Animals suffer from malnutrition or starvation due to inadequate or unsanitary food and water. Sick or dying animals receive little or no veterinary care.
Adult animals are continuously bred until they can no longer produce, then destroyed or discarded. Kittens and puppies are taken from their mothers at such an early age; many suffer from serious behavior problems. Backyard breeders Backyard breeders are also motivated by profit. Breeders who are reluctant to show potential customers the entire premises on which animals are being bred and kept.
Consequences of breeding For almost 4, years people have been breeding dogs for certain traits—whether it be a physique ideal for hunting pests like badgers or a temperament suitable for companionship. But the vast number of modern breeds—and the roots of their genetically caused problems—came about over the past two centuries, as dog shows became popular and people began selectively inbreeding the animals to have specific physical features.
Over time the American Kennel Club AKC and other such organizations have set standards defining what each variety should look like. To foster the desired appearance, breeders often turn to line breeding—a type of inbreeding that mates direct relatives, such as grandmother and grandson.
When a male dog wins numerous championships, for instance, he is often bred widely—a practice known as popular sire syndrome pdf —and his genes, healthy or not, then are spread like wildfire throughout the breed. As a result, purebred dogs not only have increased incidences of inherited diseases but also heightened health issues due to their bodily frames and shapes, such as hip dysplasia in large breeds like the German shepherd and the Saint Bernard, and patellar luxation, or persistent dislocation of the kneecap, in toy and miniature breeds.
How did we get to this situation? But by the early 20th century, when dog shows became popular, the bulldog had acquired squat, bandy legs and a large head with a flattened muzzle. This altered figure makes it nearly impossible for them to reproduce without assistance, and the facial changes cause severe breathing problems in a third of all bulldogs. Large head size and short legs are part of the written standard, so Serpell believes these standards would have forced the bulldog into extinction if breeders did not rely on artificial insemination.
Despite the negative effects of controlled breeding, animal science experts point to the value of selecting for consistency.
Remember that the intention was to produce a lot of food, but cheaply so that it would be available for everyone. This has resulted in intensive farming systems, such as in pigs and poultry farming, where the animal products should be produced with as little costs as possible.
So fast growth or more eggs with less feed. This has gone very well for many years and breeders really thought that there would be no limits to the genetic improvements as production increased linearly. Unfortunately, in the 's it became more clear that there were also some negative consequences of strong selection for performance traits. For example, broilers started to show metabolic health problems due to the fast growth, laying hens started to have increased bone fractures because they couldn't manage sufficient calcium intake to deposit into the increasing number of eggs, dairy cows and sows started to show reduced fertility during the high production period.
This is illustrated in figure 6, where the trends in calving interval, body condition score, milk production, days to first insemination, non-return rate, and mean number of inseminations needed per pregnancy are represented as predicted transmitting abilities PTA. These PTA are especially used in the UK to indicate what part of the breeding value is transmitted to the offspring.
Since those problems became apparent selection pressure has shifted from mainly performance to much more attention to animal health and reproductive performance. This shift has been the trend in all farm animal species. In the figure with the example from dairy cattle this shift in attention has started in the early 's as can be seen in the flattening of the slopes. Quick Search. Hit enter to search.
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