What role, if any, should the government have in regulating dog breeding?

Making dogs suffer is a cruelty I won't abide.

 

Wish I had the answer. Not sure how it would be regulated enough to stop it or what parameters they would use to deem a particular cross breeding unethical. Do they stop cross breeding altogether? No more Pomskys? Doodles? How do you even correct the Frankensteins that exist like today's version of a pug or Frenchy?

Today's pug is almost unrecognizable from their ancestors.

 

Animal cruelty?

 

English Bulldogs come immediately to mind. As a result of the judging standards for the breed the dogs are prone to respiratory problems almost directly attributable to selective breeding for standard.
English bulldogs suffer significant health issues from breeding practices, study warns

 

It's awful but I don't know what to do about it. Just try to encourage adoption of rescue shelter dogs and try to decrease the demand for pure bred dogs. I've only ever had rescue dogs and they are the best dogs. It's win/win/win. You give a dog a badly needed good home, you get a great dog, and you don't pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for it.

 

Great example. English Bulldogs can't even give birth naturally. Golden Retrievers are known to develop cancer. Labradors as well, and prone to hip dysplasia. Yet these three examples are very popular dog breeds without regulation, just breed standards. If somebody wants it, somebody will make it. This guy obviously doesn't care about the quality of life he is creating. A lot of breeders don't. If anything, he should be charged with cruelty to animals but I don't know what role the government should have in pet breeding.

 

Rescue dog owner here. That second part isn't always true.

 

Very true. My sister in law decided to adopt an old "sweet" chihuahua based on a flyer at Pet Smart. Fast forward and he hates everyone (but thankfully is tootheless), refuses to be potty trained, and has caused her other animals to be stressed out. I love rescues but it isn't all peaches and cream.

 

The issue with so many of them is they spay/neuter them at too young of an age. This is for understandable reasons, but I think it messes with development of the animals, including brain development.

We have a 75 pound brindled mutt that is as sweet as can be in the house, but is completely and udderly afraid of everything in the world and that anxiety manifests in aggression.

We did all the appropriate socializing. Puppy play groups, beach and city walks, etc. Then at around 9 months, he just went cray cray.

 

Nothing is always true. But you can find a great dog at your local animal shelter.

 

100%

Don't mean to dissuade anyone from going that route. It's just a risk, but so is getting any dog from just about any where.

 

Cross breeding has been going on for hundreds of years. Today's breeds are due to someone in the past crossing breeds to obtain certain traits from each parent breed.

My Brittany named Spider is here today because a couple hundred years ago an English nobleman was invited to hunt pheasants in the Brittany region of France. The Englishman's dog of choice was a Pointer the French nobleman's dogs were French Spaniels. One of the English Pointers bread with a French Spaniel and the offspring turned out to be better bird dogs than either breed. Upon returning home the Englishman further bread them with other Pointers and Setters. The result was the Brittany Spaniel. Although a pure bred Brittany Spider dog owes her existence to cross breeding.

 

Waaaay back on NYPD Blue Sipowicz got a lesson in how English Bulldogs are bred (manually, because they can’t do it themselves), and he said “I guess that’s what all the tail-wagging is about.”