The bad thing about dog breeding was and is now mostly on changing the nature and odd characteristics of dog breeds.
A few dog races nowadays aren’t like Canis lupus, the dog ancestor.
Dogs with “cute faces” – with round eyes and small snouts – are becoming incredibly popular.
It’s because people love their sweet look.
To put it simply, breeding is nothing more than the mating of dogs to produce offspring who meet specific criteria in terms of appearance, character, and abilities.
Breeding is fundamentally different from untargeted reproduction or mating as it occurs in the wild.
Breeding is always a targeted intervention by humans in the dog’s gene pool.
Negative Effects of Dog Breeding
In the past, only successful working dogs were used for breeding. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer dogs have the opportunity to work in their original job.
Today, performance is no longer the order of the day, but the new breeding goal is above all “beauty”.
This is often associated with a human-made, absurd appearance that can limit functionality, such as breathing and mobility.
Classic examples of torture breeding are: too huge or dwarfed, too long and too dense fur, too short a nose with too little open nostrils, too strongly arched forehead with too frontally standing and open eye sockets, too big and heavy head, too heavy body and changes in the Angulation of fore and hindquarters.
These are all physical changes that mostly have a negative influence on the well-being of the dog and therefore often also have a strong influence on nature.
Besides, beauty champions are usually allowed to cover a lot, which in turn leads to an impoverishment of the gene pool.
These males often distribute defective genes in the breed, which are duplicated in line breeding and can manifest as hereditary diseases.
That is why some people Stop Dog Breeding.
Is Dog Breeding Ethical?
The beginnings of breeding go back a long way.
While dogs still mated more or less wildly a few hundred years ago and there was a correspondingly great variety of mixed breeds, humans noticed relatively quickly that one or the other dog was responsible for certain things was particularly suitable.
Even without genetic or hereditary knowledge, it was clear.
If I breed two dogs that are “good” to each other, then the chance increases that the successors will also be “good”.
Inbreeding, people use a specific dog that has particularly desirable characteristics.
This is when a human thinks “why dog breeding is good” but actually was not.
Every targeted breeding has advantages and disadvantages from a needs-based point of view.
The advantages are that the desired traits can be passed on in a targeted manner so that the offspring are “predictable”.
A stable breed will not produce any outliers (apart from a few crazy exceptions): a Labrador will behave like a Labrador, a livestock guard dog like a livestock guard dog, and a greyhound will be like a greyhound.
The inherited properties are just as fixed as the optical ones.
Dogs are prepared accordingly and react in a breed-typical manner in certain situations.
A widely used breeding method is line breeding, a form of inbreeding.
This method puts the animals at a greater danger of breeding dogs by genetic defects and diseases.
These deviations are a direct result of inbreeding, that is, crossing family members with one another.
This is done to maintain and enhance certain traits, the breed characteristics.
Natural selection whereby diseases or weak animals do not reproduce is excluded by breeding.
After all, man determines the continued existence of the animal.
You Shouldn’t Buy a Dog From A Breeder
The motivation to share your life with a dog can be varied, and when it comes to the question of “mixed breed or pedigree dog”, opinions differ.
With a mixed breed, you don’t know what might become of the adorable puppy.
If you don’t know the parents, the little creature can grow and grow, and in a few months, as an X-Large dog, need a lot more space than we imagined.
Or the unknown dad is ambitious when it comes to hunting, and his puppies also become enthusiastic hunters, which his new owners may find too exhausting.
Who does not know the example of the healthy mongrel who was allowed to sleep peacefully in his basket in old age and who only saw the veterinary practice from the inside for the necessary vaccinations?
Although mixed breeds certainly have greater genetic diversity than pedigree dogs, there are also unlucky ones here who have inherited the “defect genes” from both parents and are regular customers of the vet.
In short, most mixed breeds are surprise bags with a potential for surprises, ranging from excellent to very sobering.
In a pedigree dog, many characteristics, such as size, appearance, average age, and behavior, are reasonably predictable.
But unfortunately, this is not always the case (anymore), primarily when the breed consists of a gene pool with few variants.
Inbreeding depression can have the following effects:
- shorter life expectancy
- more prone to autoimmune diseases
- increased incidence of hereditary diseases
- less resilient (personality problems)
- smaller litters
Final Thoughts
Overbred dogs can have some characteristics.
Brachycephalic purebred dogs usually have a bred round or short-headed shape and a short, flattened snout.
To achieve this flat face, the nose (except for a small remainder) people bred out of these breeds over years of breeding.
The health consequences are fatal: Pugs, French and English bulldogs or boxers often suffer from breathing difficulties and thus from a lack of oxygen.
Besides, the nasal cavity and the mucous membranes are reduced in size, and the temperature regulation is impaired as a result.
Particularly during exertion or on hot days, this can lead to a collapse and, in the worst case, death from overheating.
The rounded head also results in the deformation of the jaw and teeth.
Because it is common for overbred dogs to suffer from a shortening of the upper jaw, you shouldn’t breed your dog.
Let’s say, when a pug snorts so snarling, it is no longer cute.
