Originally Posted by Belle Noir  This may sound strange... But the best and most responsible breeders cull in every litter. Culling is removing from the breeding population. Every pet quality puppy that is sterlized is culled from the breeding population.
If we want to be blunt, you're talking about killing.
It's a horrible thought, but if more breeders had to put down their defective dogs, maybe they would be more careful about their breeding practices. Both Collie breeders and Dane breeders can breed together merle dogs, producing a litter where each puppy has a 1/25 chance of being blind, deaf or both. But they will do it, and they have rescues there ready to take in their defective puppies. AND worst of all, it's not against their CoE.
Maybe if these breeders had to kill the puppies they produced with no eyes, they would be less likely to deliberately produce puppies like that. But since there are white dane rescues and white collie rescues that step in and take the responsibility off their hands, why should they?
Even worse, they get praised for insuring the defective dogs they should have never produced in the first place "found loving homes". When the responsible thing would have been to not breed such a dog in the first place.
The same thing goes for boxers, because flashy is what wins in the ring, so people breed together two dogs with a lot of chrome. This makes a litter of 1/4 white puppies which are usually deaf. Once upon a time these puppies were killed. (Not culled, but KILLED) at birth. Now you have white boxer rescue taking in these mostly deaf dogs and these breeders don't have to be responsible for what they produced, because there are rescues that are willing to clean up after these so called reputable breeders messes.
In the yorkie, you have born blue puppies. A lot of breeders recommend that these born blues be put down at birth, killed.. because of their long term prognosis of ill health.
We see here on this board, at least one born blue that thus far is in perfect health.. But from what we have all been told, this is a rarity.
If I were a breeder, I would not hesitate to euthanize a born blue puppy. Yeah, I would feel like crap if it turned out that the whole born blue thing was a lie, that they didn't have any inherited health risks due to their color. But I would not regret it, because I was doing what I thought best at the time. Is it wrong to euthanize an animal that may be suffering? Especially if it is suffering because of genetic problems that may be related to their color?
I don't think it is.
I do think it is wrong to kill a puppy because it's got white feet, or chest, or stripe (Any solid colored breed). Or to kill a puppy because it was born the wrong color with NO accompanying health problems (parti, gold and chocolate yorkies).
But I also think it's a responsible breeders duty to euthanize, to kill, since we're not mincing words, puppies with genetic problems, be they deafness from being born white, eyelessness from being born from two merles, puppies paralysed by spina bifida or puppies that will starve or drown from cleft palates or any one of a number of genetic problems.
But killing for color is just wrong and sad when the color doesn't equal a genetic defect. |