Shouting at the Telly

[bunn]

I just rewound the Crufts that was vaguely playing on the TV in the background to see if it said what I thought it did, and it did.

1) Labradoodles, what great hypoallergenic dogs they are and shortly to be recognised as a breed*

but dwarfed by:

2) Loon presenter1 : 'you do a lot of work for dog charities don't you'
Loon presenter2 : 'yes, I bred my collie and gave 1 of the pups to Mountain Rescue and 1 to hearing dogs for the deaf'*


*hang on, that's a crossbreed. They don't breed true do they? And the allergenic thing is a bit of a gamble because of that. Also it's not the fur that people are allergic to, it's the dander. So if people are breeding crossbreeds hoping they might not shed, it's because they don't like the hoovering.

* because, obviously, there is a huge shortage of border collies. Collies are *never* put to sleep ALL OVER THE BLOODY COUNTRY EVERY DAMN YEAR BECAUSE THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH HOMES FOR THEM!

Now to try to write a polite and reasoned email to the BBC...

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

a) possibly, but they are a long way from achieving it stably - and the big question a lot of people are asking is why not breed a slightly calmer strain of poodle, rather than breeding a cross which will take many years to stabilise? The answer seems to be that people think poodles look wussy, and the name 'labradoodle' is considered cute.

The labrador is a gundog: so is the poodle. In theory they should have similar temperaments, so why the crossing?

I would have had no objection to a well informed article on the breeding of the labradoodle, but this was very, very misleading. Only one presenter even used the word 'dander' and she got it wrong (dandy, she said) - the main presenter said that it was the shedding of hair that was the problem, which is just not true.

b) yes, there is a demand for excellent working collies, but it is a small and specialised demand, and as with most breeding for a specific use (eg greyhound racing) produces a lot of duds for each top quality working dog.

We really need collie pet homes to accommodate those 'duds', and there is a significant shortage of homes, because the very attributes that make a collie an excellent worker are the attributes that make a dog a difficult and demanding (and extremely rewarding and intelligent) pet. The same attributes mean that that sort of dog can really suffer mental anguish if it has to be kept in kennels for any length of time. (My Mum's dog Ronnie is one of those. You can still see the marks on his face where he smashed himself against the Dogs Trust wire over and over, when he was surrendered at the age of 8 months by his owners because he kept trying to round things up).

The chap I mentioned is *not* an expert collie breeder: he is a Blue Peter presenter who just happens to have a collie. No mention was made of the collie's bloodlines, and the overall impression given was 'hey, if you have a collie and you breed it but can't find homes for the pups, there are charities that need them'.

This is simply not true, and it is the kind of thing that encourages people to breed dogs when they have no idea what they are doing. Like the farmer who bred my mum's other dog, Smudge, as a sheepdog. He then chained her in a barn for a year - no exercise - no training - when she proved not to be interested in working sheep.

Seriously, the fact that a dog is of excellent pedigree does not mean it is a valuable animal. It means it has an increased chance of being a good one, but it could still be a complete whittle. If you go on bloodlines, Mollydog should be a prizewinning racer: she ain't. She has about 4500 half-brothers and sisters, all of them bred in the hopeful search for a champion racer, and most of them dead already because they weren't.

I believe that if the TV is going to talk about something like dog breeding, which is a problem area in this country, it should make some sort of effort to explain the realities and not encourage idiots: this coverage did the exact opposite, by portraying back yard dog breeding as easy and normal.