Mye folk ikke vet om hunder.
Her er et innlegg fra en som begynte med Schäferhunder, og som fulgte oppdrettsmoten med "flying trot" på hundene. Dette gjorde at de ikke kan hoppe, og at mellomhendene er avlet i filler (kollaps). Hundrevis av anerkjente Schäferlinjer er ødelagt av dette.
The dogs I grew up with were herding dogs, and we loved them but we needed them too and they worked every day bringing cows and sheep in among other things. Because of those dogs, when I became home based I decided to raise German Shepherds and I did what most people would do if they were serious about it. I researched the current champions and I began to attempt to acquire dogs from those that I was impressed with. But we don't rely on dogs or horses for survival anymore. They are a hobby now. We don't measure their worth anymore using their health and soundness because we rely on them for our own survival. We use them to wow us now, to excite us, and they gain desirability by competing in "events" we have designed now where we reward the owner of the animal that excites us the most.
There is a standard for German Shepherds, and not everything that recent breeders have done has been awful. But when I started this new hobby, I ended up learning a few things that are horrifying. Breeders winning at specialty events were breeding for a "flying trot", and we got so carried away that the dogs we ended up with had a hard time walking at one point. If you could get them running like a race horse though they looked good. A dog spends at least half of its life walking though. They couldn't jump either. Can you imagine a German Shepherd that can't jump? You had to own one of these dogs though before you could understand certain things, and at that point too you had spent a fortune getting to understanding that in certain ways these dogs are just a bit fucked.
And then a second reality takes hold, if you want to play hardball with the big boys and win anything ever you will need to breed dogs like this. So you might not think it is all that bad that the first dog you bought can't jump because you are busy focusing on the winner's circle. The first dog I acquired that was bred for a flying trot had such a horrible temperament though that I ended up having to put her to sleep. The second dog I acquired had pasterns that were collapsed, I ended up having to put her to sleep too. When I brought her home at 4 months I took her to the vet to get her some "supplements" because the breeder said that she had "soft pasterns" and I was told that soft pasterns need a few supplements and they outgrow it.
My vet crapped herself when she saw the puppy. She told me that this had nothing to do with soft pasterns, this was collapsed pasterns. She did everything she could to help me help that puppy too, but there wasn't a supplement known to mankind that could fix it and it is hereditary. The breeder of that puppy has continued to breed her champion stock too. I have now witnessed two other breeders that were newbies like I was have even worse things happen to them than buying a puppy they had to put down. They have had litters of puppies that they have brought into this world with collapsing pasterns and then they must put them down. They did it, now they must deal with it...but they really didn't do all of it. Someone wasn't honest with them.
It is heartbreaking, and you can breed away from it but you have to know it is there and the people with the champions are reluctant to tell you any shit like that.....that there is a limit to the perfection here! Perfection is always a facade, but it is a facade that usually earns big bucks for the individual who can project it and in the end it will likely cost someone some big bucks to attempt to acquire it.