[]
This morning's NY Times Magazine has a pretty decent article
on designer dogs, with a particular focus on "puggles." It
also looks at large-scale breeding operations and provides a
pretty decent, I think, overview of the arguments for and
against.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/ma...l?ref=magazine
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

If you can't say it clearly, you don't understand it yourself -- John Searle

Melinda Shore wrote:
[]
This morning's NY Times Magazine has a pretty decent article
on designer dogs, with a particular focus on "puggles." It
also looks at large-scale breeding operations and provides a
pretty decent, I think, overview of the arguments for and
against.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/ma...l?ref=magazine

I just read it. By far the most intelligent article on dog breeding and
people's relationships with dogs that I've seen anywhere.

"Janet Puistonen" wrote in news:Lqnxh.876$da1.51
@trndny03:

Melinda Shore wrote:
[]
This morning's NY Times Magazine has a pretty decent article
on designer dogs, with a particular focus on "puggles." It
also looks at large-scale breeding operations and provides a
pretty decent, I think, overview of the arguments for and
against.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/ma...l?ref=magazine

I just read it. By far the most intelligent article on dog breeding
and
people's relationships with dogs that I've seen anywhere.



With some incomprehensible quotes that are likely to go unnoticed by the
general public:

"A Kentucky woman breeding Maltese and Yorkshire terriers told me that
Yorkies never struck her as ideal family pets anyway; they’re
intelligent but overly bossy. She also breeds Morkies now and was
pleased to find the smartness of the Yorkie and the sweetness of the
Maltese."

This has got to be one of the more ridiculous statements I have come
across in a while. The "sweetness of the Maltese"? They are known for
being not only not sweet, but actively UNsweet, with people, kids, and
other animals. This statement is left standing without any info to
offset that.

Among other things, I caught this one:

"Conscientious designer-dog breeders are surely creating reliable,
healthy, perfectly well-adjusted pets dogs truly bred for the work of
the family, as one Labradoodle breeder puts it, rather than for moving a
hundred head of cattle, fighting bears or flushing rats from mine
shafts."

Which, in my experience is patently untrue. I have, of course, worked
with countless designer breeds from irresponsible breeders (as well as
purebreed dogs from irresponsible breeders), so I'll leave that part out
of my next statement. I have also worked with a number of designer breed
dogs (specifically Labradoodles and Goldendoodles) who came from
breeders who were ostensibly doing everything right: i.e. checking for
health issues in their lines, socializing the puppies, breeding dogs of
sound temperaments, etc who had major issues that made their role as
"pet" very difficult indeed. In fact, some local trainers and I have
working theories that one of the side effects of Labradoodles is
difficulty with housebreaking as well a a propensity for barking issues
(not the leat of which possible seperation barking even in the face of
proper handling).

So, to say that conscientious designer dog breeders "surely are creating
realiable, healthy, perfectly well adjusted pets" has simply not proven
out as far as I've seen. That doesn't mean that they couldn't at some
point, but not enough is known, IMO.

While I think this article is more balanced than any I've seen so far, I
still think it weighs heavily on the side of designer dogs just in its
use of more inflammatory language being applied to the pug breeders, and
limiting the debate to "they're just jealous", "No, THY'RE just
jealous", rather than really exploring the nature of responsible
breeding as it could be applied to *any* breeding program.

I liked that she opened a small window of dialogue to the unreasonable
expectations of asking dogs to be something other than dogs, and I'd
have been very interested in reading more about that.

But then I woke up cranky today for some reason, so don't listen to me.
I'm all bark.

Tara

In article 6,
Tara wrote:
While I think this article is more balanced than any I've seen so far, I
still think it weighs heavily on the side of designer dogs just in its
use of more inflammatory language being applied to the pug breeders, and
limiting the debate to "they're just jealous", "No, THY'RE just
jealous", rather than really exploring the nature of responsible
breeding as it could be applied to *any* breeding program.

Really? I thought they did a good job of debunking the
notion that these cross-breeds are superior dogs (that stuff
about puggles being dogs that will run away and be unable to
find their way home from a block away cracked me up). And
they clearly made the Puppy Haven breeder look like a dope.

But then I woke up cranky today for some reason, so don't listen to me.

Okay! I went skijoring yesterday for the first time in two
or three years and had a very big blast. I would have gone
sledding today but pipes froze in the west wall of the house
overnight and when I thawed them out this morning water kind
of exploded everywhere, so the plumber's here and may be for
hours and that kind of put the kibosh on heading out to the
woods. Still, the skijoring was fabulous enough to keep me
cheerful for a bit longer.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

If you can't say it clearly, you don't understand it yourself -- John Searle

(Melinda Shore) wrote in news:eq5cjr$m8q$1
@panix3.panix.com:


Really? I thought they did a good job of debunking the
notion that these cross-breeds are superior dogs (that stuff
about puggles being dogs that will run away and be unable to
find their way home from a block away cracked me up).

It cracked me up too, but that was couched *only* in terms of the
equally Frankenstein-ish purebred breeders' opinion. That perspective
was only presented as "he said/she said", and didn't end up debunking
anything, as far as I could see.

And
they clearly made the Puppy Haven breeder look like a dope.

Oh, totally. But they made the purebreed breeders look even *worse*,
imo. Now, there are definitely bad on boths sides, certainly, and I
don't disagree with that being shown, but while he was being a dope,
immediately following, the "who wants to kill a puppy" comment, she
shows a purebreed breeder doing just that. Tipped the scales a bit too
far, IMO.

But then I woke up cranky today for some reason, so don't listen to
me.

Okay! I went skijoring yesterday for the first time in two
or three years and had a very big blast.

AWESOME!!!! Congrats!

I'm sure at least a part of my cranky mood is the fact that I've been
freezing cold for a solid week now (outside in 20 deg weather for 8-9
hours a day) and NO SNOW IN SIGHT. If I have to freeze my ass off and
walk around with an "ice cream headache" on a semi-permanent basis, I at
least want to be able to go sledding once in a while. Dammit.

I would have gone
sledding today but pipes froze in the west wall of the house
overnight and when I thawed them out this morning water kind
of exploded everywhere, so the plumber's here and may be for
hours and that kind of put the kibosh on heading out to the
woods.

Damn. What crappy timing. Hope everything works out alright.

Still, the skijoring was fabulous enough to keep me
cheerful for a bit longer.

I bet. Who'd you take out?

Tara

In article 6,
Tara wrote:
I bet. Who'd you take out?

I took out Crow and then Eclipse. I'd never skijored with
either of them, believe it or not, and I wanted to see how
they'd deal with the weird equipment, being on their own,
and so on. Crow was a little hinky for the first 1/2 mile
or so but eventually got into it, but Eclipse was just go go
go from the start. I fell a couple of times with Crow and
she thought we were having a party in the snow. Playtime!
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

If you can't say it clearly, you don't understand it yourself -- John Searle

Tara wrote:
(Melinda Shore) wrote in news:eq5cjr$m8q$1
@panix3.panix.com:


Really? I thought they did a good job of debunking the
notion that these cross-breeds are superior dogs (that stuff
about puggles being dogs that will run away and be unable to
find their way home from a block away cracked me up).

It cracked me up too, but that was couched *only* in terms of the
equally Frankenstein-ish purebred breeders' opinion.

Well, she could have selected labs or goldens as her comparison breed, since
they are among those being "crossed," but it wouldn't have made as much of a
point, since neither of those breeds has an exaggerated and physically
impractical feature such as a flat face or a build that makes it difficult
to breed.