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Greeders vs. Breeders

Hi John,

I’d like to suggest you write about shunning the “breeders” of the so-called designer breeds.

I see a number of these mix-breeds coming through my obedience classes and am amazed at how intelligent, well-educated people can fall for the half-truths and lies from these “breeders”.    They claim they are producing hybrid vigour by mixing the breeds, which of course is not the case. They mix Labs and Goldens with the non-shedding Poodle, and say all of the puppies will be non-shedding. They say they are developing a new breed Golden Doodles (Golden/Poodle mix), Puggles (Pug/Poodle mix) and the latest I’ve heard of, Whoodles (Wheaten Terrier/Poodle mix) for well over $1,000/puppy. I know responsible breeders of quality, pure-bred dogs who sell their puppies for less and produce litters far less frequently.

There is an over-population problem of dogs (and cats) – otherwise our animal shelters and the rescue groups would not be so busy.  If only responsible, caring breeders were allowed to produce litters, there would be no rows of shelter cages full of unwanted dogs in every major city.

With your column, you have an excellent opportunity to educate the general public so I’m hoping you’ll act on my suggestion.

-Diane

Dear Diane,

I don’t want to hurt the feelings of the good people that opened their homes and hearts to the dogs produced by people with qualifications little better then the ability to tell the difference between a male and female dog and perhaps the imagination to think up a clever marriage of breed names but nor do I want these con artists to think they’re fooling any of the real professionals in the dog world. If we had our way these profiteers would be out of business tomorrow. I now use the term ‘greeder’ instead of breeder for these and any other profit driven or substandard producer of dogs, pure bred or not and I find I have to use my new word a lot in my work.

This next sentence will no doubt raise some hackles amongst the guilty. Greeders are just puppy mills with sometimes better living conditions. No more thought goes into their concept of breeding then that of puppy mill owners. The wretched thing is that some greeders are decent likeable people that just don’t know the harm they do and people buy from them because they appear to care. Some do, but whether they have horns or not, I think they need to be marched down to their local shelter and start holding in their arms the million plus of perfectly good mongrels that are euthanized annually in North America because they’re producing the same thing; mutts. As owners of greeder dogs well know, a mutt is no less loveable then a pure bred dog, but nor is a shelter dog less loveable then a greeder dog and greeders must shoulder a good part of the responsibility for the annual horrendous loss of dog lives.

Suffice it to say I agree with you and wish people wouldn’t support them. For anyone interested, I’ll take the time to provide direction on how to find a good breeder or pick a good shelter dog. Both of these groups need the public’s support.

  • John Wade

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