#i hear u sayin u dont breed for profit but ppl out there doing three times the work for the same pay my man

[fjordfolk]

i think what bothers me most about the anti-testing sentiment in norwegian breed communities is that testing doesn’t mean exclusion, even when results aren’t perfect

if we had widespread HD screening we could breed by index, which is made to rely on overall probability and average breed quality rather than individual scores on individual dogs

genetic CEA testing will literally let you breed an affected dog with minimal health risk to the offspring (they’ll be confirmed carriers, and that can be worked with). the same with MDR1.

every time this topic gets brought up, people start howling about the effects of exclusion on the gene pool and more ‘important factors’ like the strength of the rear or length of the back and how pressure from buyers to breed only perfect dogs will force breeders to drop stock that’s otherwise valuable and I’m?

you’re the breeders. when prospective puppy buyers need information, they come to you. and «one parent has poorer hips but comes from a line of good scores and paired with a good partner, the puppies have a higher than average chance of having healthy hips» sounds like a far more trustworthy answer than «we don’t need to know because even if it does have bad joints it’ll probably be okay for at least a few years.»

you’d think we test our dogs to death by the way many breeders in this country cry about it, but the fact is that many shelties - especially females - have one (1) eye screening at 8 weeks and call it a day. in Japanese spitzes, it’s a single squeeze around the knees and that’s it, the dog is healthy and good to go.

i’m tired.