Thread: I must be getting old and cynical

Originally Posted by Ducdog

Same here, any surplus from a litter ( should the be any) is put back into the dogs , yes I charge $1700 for a pup and I have a HUGE waiting list, I have a dog coming in from the UK late next year ( should he be good enough ) and semen coming in from Sweden within the next 2 months, none of which is cheap.
As for the health testing for labradors, this can only be a good thing, and I do question people who don't want to health test, isn't it better to know of any issues rather than breed blindly.

Far more useful to analyse how breeders created those issues. Learn from that and don;t do it again rather than institute a bogus testing regime that keeps Vets driving Audi's. HD for instance, tested for years. no change in the incidence, no change in which dogs produce it, but the bullshit "We test" hoodwinks the public to keep the money flowing to the vets and breeders. How about someone work their dogs hard and use their skill and judgement as stock people to breed? Then you'll get the type of dogs again gracing our fields that Jim Clarke, Leon, and more produced and in the case of Gaskin and Whitehead, continue to produce. You don't test for what is not there. So when I see someone "testing" I get real nervous about what they themselves believe is there. Show dogs, of course, MUST be tested, even with tests that can;t tell you anything.... why? Because their handlers haven't done a damn thing except look at paper to evaluate their dogs. If they spent time on the hill, and I don't mean a few duck shooting sessions each winter, I mean work the bloody dog. People asked me "What testing has Brick had"? My answer "Every fucking hill from here to Hawkes Bay! If there was anything unsound we'd have seen it. The only people that need to test dogs in a vet clinic are the ones who need to look very hard at themselves... because it means they are breeding and selling dogs they haven;t tested properly for themselves on the hill. That's a clue to these dogs not being working dogs right there!

As you may tell from my tone... I lament the decline in old fashioned dog people who evaluate dogs where dogs should be evaluated... under extreme and harsh conditions in the field, where no dog with a weakness can hide it., compared to today's metro-sexual "I can sell the whole litter if I say they hunt" bullshit photos of a dog sitting ne3xt to a deer or duck and "tested" is just so much bullshit it should be on "Fair Go"!

Today's rant over.

(and to think I didn't say "Don;t piss on my boots and tell me its raining once.)