Future of Purebred Dogs
Most Kennel Club breeds that exist today were chosen from existing land-race breeds in the late 19th century. How those dogs appear now however have been customized to fit within the breed club's chosen description of them. To do this, required selective breeding and rigorous culling. This created a genetic bottleneck that some people think will render breeding from closed stud books not viable. Suggestions for improvement have included outcrossing (opening studbooks) and measuring and regulating inbreeding. There are some breeders who take care to ensure that the dogs they breed have not been bred to too many other dogs so that the genetic pool does not shrink from everyone breeding to a popular sire. There are a great deal sadly that are merely breeding two "papered" dogs assuming that is all they need to do.
Books on choosing a puppy advocate for "purebred' dogs, as long as they come from breeders who are willing to invest the time and money in producing healthy dogs that they are willing to guarantee. "The difference is that purebred breeders know what to expect", writes Chris Walkowicz in The Perfect Match. Stephen Budiansky in The Truth About Dogs writes, "It is true that the standard criticisms leveled against inbreeding are not always well informed from the point of view of modern genetics." He continues, "Curing the problems that inbreeding has engendered in purebred dogs will require more subtlety than either most breeders or their more vocal critics have so far displayed."
Hungarian ethologist Vilmos Csányi sees purebred dog breeders, in efforts to meet breed standards, increasing the extent of inbreeding and thereby reducing the breeds' desirable attributes; "This process appears to be unstoppable," he says.
However, science continues to get better and enables breeders to test for genetic diseases. Where breeders were only able to detect afflicted animals in the past, now DNA tests can be run and only animals without affected genes can be bred to produce stronger breeds. Many breed clubs fund research and the future looks bright for preventing genetic diseases.
Some types of pedigreed dogs are frequent targets of Dognapping (the crime of taking a canine from its owner) the profit from which can run up to thousands of dollars.
Read more about this topic: Purebred (dog)
Famous quotes containing the words future of, future and/or dogs:
“We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“The most remarkable aspect of the transition we are living through is not so much the passage from want to affluence as the passage from labor to leisure.... Leisure contains the future, it is the new horizon.... The prospect then is one of unremitting labor to bequeath to future generations a chance of founding a society of leisure that will overcome the demands and compulsions of productive labor so that time may be devoted to creative activities or simply to pleasure and happiness.”
—Henri Lefebvre (b. 1901)
“When dogs no longer eat excrement, then human beings will no longer practice favoritism.”
—Chinese proverb.