I see the people arguing about this going in every different direction. It seems the people against it are against government interference in anything or they think a dog has a right to have a litter of puppies. There are both good and bad things about the bills. I of course write so much I couldn't just respond to someone elses blog so all my thoughts on it are going here.
First everyone needs to realize how many unwanted dog there are in the US. It is a huge problem. Everyone who owns a dog seems to think its their god given right to breed a dog. Only the best of the best should be bred and if people knew how to look for a good breeder the puppy mills and back yard breeders(byb) would make no money so they would have to quit producing badly bred puppies on such a massive scale. there are so many things that go into looking for a good breeder that thats a whole other post I guess I'll have to write soon:)
The last statistics I saw for the Lorain county pound were something like 500 put to sleep(pts) and only something like 200 adopted out. That is pathetic. Yet you see add after add of dogs for sale in the paper because some one thought it was a good thing to breed their dog. What made that dog better than any other dog out there. Unless its proven in the field or ring nothing made it better.
The odd thing about this is if you look at other countries they don't all have this problem. Europe doesn't have mandatory spay and neuter laws-its not even that common to alter pets over there, Yet there are not millions of homeless pets there. Why is this? For them education seems to have worked. they also don't have puppies being sold in pet store. I think that alone may make people think pets are something important and its not just like going to the store to buy a bag of bread.
So the law would be great in the fact that it would lower numbers of puppies some bad breeders produce. But I think there is an even bigger problem that will come up after the law is in place.
First the bill has some exemptions for not having to alter at four months. But all the exceptions are things you will not know about a dog at four months! You don't get points on a three month old puppy! So if your planning on showing-which is already expensive-you now also have to pay the fine for having an intact dog. So you being responsible and trying to improve your breed has you being fined.
I also do not think early alter is safe. the risk of sexual organ cancers are there but its a very very small risk. In large bones breeds like rotts and dobes early altering is linked to bone cancer. While testicular cancer is a threat its usually an easy fix-bone cancer usually isn't seen until a dog is running around and a leg shatters. theres not much time left after that point. I have always let my personal dogs fully mature before altering them. Of course you also have to be very careful but I'd rather watch my dog like a hawk than risk loosing them years early. I also think its stunts their personality. They stay in puppy stage forever. people will argue you don't know this but we have taken in and altered a lot of dogs over the years at all different ages and this is my personal experience. ***Any rescue gets altered asap,I don't have enough trust in other people to hand them an unaltered dog who has usually already been through hard times.
http://www.doggonecalifornia.org/LongTermHealthEffe
ctsOfSpayNeuterInDogs.pdf
http://www.caninesports.com/SpayNeuter.html
http:
//www.doggedblog.com/doggedblog/2006/05/its_just_that_t
.html
(I
have to add here that even if it is healthier to wait for most people
its better to alter early because a lot of people are not responsible
enough to handle an unaltered dog)
Another problem with it is that the puppymills and some of the byb's will have the money to get a license or pay the fines. So what good does it do? Some people already think a license means its a good breeder but a license actually means you are buying a dog from a mill. to get a license you can't have your dogs together and all in the house with you-they are kennel pets. That is not were you want to buy a puppy from-its actually what needs stopped and to be made illegal. You want a pup to come from a home were the dogs are treated like family-not breeders.
So in California in ten years the only place to get a dog will be from a puppy mill-unless they go out of state to find a good breeder.
What can we do
1.)EDUCATION-
Tell everyone you know about dog rescue and responsible dog breeding. If its as little as printing off a responsible breeder checklist to give to someone looking for a puppy you've done something. the more millers and back yard breeder who don't get money,the less there will be.
2.) KNOW ABOUT GOOD BREEDERS
If you are going to buy a dog and not rescue at least know were to get that pup from. Its good to know anyway so you can inform your friends and family if they bring it up. I am going to post a link to a list of what to look for but there are some basics. First does this person prove their dogs-are they shown or worked? What makes them better than any other dog out there. What genetic disease can they get and are they health tested? Not just the vet saying ok but actual OFA or eye tests etc. Why does this person breed? the only reason should be to improve the breed. So if they breed more than two breeds,or even worse two breeds together,they are not a good breeder. How many litters are there a year? Do they interview you or just let you hand over money and take the pup? And one of my big ones is are they involved in breed rescue? No one should breed if they can not accept responsibility for all the pups they will produce and if they really care about the breed they will be involved with fostering or placing the breed even if they were not their dogs at any point. If a person says they don't support rescue or that its better to buy a pup from them then they are probably not in it for the betterment of the breed. A breeder will not approve everyone for a pup and often an older rescue can work with the potential owner.
link to checklist(and a great forum for anyone wanting to join one)
http://www.chazhound.com/forums/showthread.p
hp?t=787
3.)Get INVOLVED WITH RESCUE
So many people have the room for fosters or a rescue yet they go buy a puppy to raise and then breed so their kids can see life. Instead take your kids to the shelter and let them see what you do to really help something that needs you. teach them to help in a way that actually is a valuable life lesson. If you really insist on the kids seeing pups be born then foster a pregnant dog.(I don't know why so many people are stuck on their kids seeing puppies be born-I see this all the time and people are so adamant about it). If you are approved as a foster vet costs are usually covered and the rescue will work to find the dog a great home.
4.) WORK ON GETTING LAWS ENFORCED
Work on getting puppy mills and bad breeders shut down. If you see abuse report it. Get the word out about the place. Sadly usually nothing is done but the mroe you tell people about it the better.
5.)TRY FOR NEW LAWS THAT WILL ACTUALLY STOP MILLS
No more puppies in pet stores. This is what needs stopped. There is no good pet store that sells dogs. No good breeder would ever release puppies to a store to be sold to just anyone who had the cash. All they care about is the money. Any pups form a store should be altered and this would be legislation to pass because none of these dogs are going to improve the breed. So many flea markets in Ohio sell puppies to-write them and make them stop this.
And honestly this could be soo much longer. the bottom line is that yes,99% of the people who breed dogs should not be breeding them. BUT if you look at the good breeders out there many would not be able to breed anymore because they are not in it for the money and they don't breed all the horbrile ways that make it possible to be a USDA kennel.
All this law is doing is making it look like puppy mills is the place to buy a dog from-this is exactly what should not happen. Its the mills and byb's we need to go after.
This mess with the dog food companies has been a long time coming. Many people feed their dog whatever they find at the grocery store or the food they see on tv the most. None of them are good dog foods-it is rare that you find a good food at a grocery store or one that advertises.
Any food with fillers is not a good food-all you are paying for is fillers that will pass through your dog. These fillers also contribute to allergies,hot spots, and numerous other problems dogs have. Corn is obviously the biggest one used and probably one of the worst but some of the supposed good foods like science diet contain not only corn but peanut hulls! Never feed a food with corn in it.
**First here is a list of great links to look into if you want to find your dog a great food they can thrive on for years to come.
http://www.dogfoodproject.com/index.php?page=main
>the dog food project has to be one of the best overall dog food sites there is out there. It is laid out pretty well with pages on what to look for in a food and what to avoid. thee is also up to date news on the recall list.
http://www.greatdanelady.com/articles.htm
the great dane lady has some more good food reading on it.
*And a great forum can be a great help when deciding on a good food. You can talk to people who have already gone through looking for a good food and see what worked or didn't work for their dogs. If you don't wnat to join you can always skim the posts in the dog forum and get a idea of what is good.
here is the link to a great dog forum
http://www.chazhound.com/forums/
And here is a link to the food section on that forum
http://www.chazhound.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=39p>
How to pick a good food
*Were are you buying your food at? Many pet stores do not even have a decent selection or anything worth buying. pet supplies plus seems to have the most high quality foods if you can't make it to a specialty shop.
*Look at the ingredients. Does it start with corn? If so its not even a decent food. The first ingredients should be meat sources. here is a comparison.
Bad food-this is benefulls ingredients for anyone wondering
Ground yellow corn, chicken by-product meal, corn gluten meal, whole
wheat flour, beef tallow preserved with mixed-tocopherols (source of
Vitamin E), rice flour, beef, soy flour, sugar, sorbitol, tricalcium
phosphate, water, animal digest, salt, phosphoric acid, potassium
chloride, dicalcium phosphate, sorbic acid (a preservative), L-Lysine
monohydrochloride, dried peas, dried carrots, calcium carbonate,
calcium propionate (a preservative), choline chloride, vitamin
supplements (E, A, B-12, D-3), added color (Yellow 5, Red 40, Yellow 6,
Blue 2), DL-Methionine, zinc sulfate, glyceryl monostearate, ferrous
sulfate, niacin, manganese sulfate, calcium pantothenate, riboflavin
supplement, biotin, thiamine mononitrate, garlic oil, copper sulfate,
pyridoxine hydrochloride, folic acid, menadione sodium bisulfite
complex (source of Vitamin K activity), calcium iodate, sodium selenite.
Here is a good food to compare it to-this is EVO red meat large bites
Beef, Beef Meal, Lamb Meal, Potatoes, Egg, Sunflower Oil, Buffalo,
Lamb, Venison, Beef Cartilage, Natural Flavors, Herring Oil, Apples,
Carrots, Garlic, Tomatoes, Vitamins/Minerals, Cottage Cheese, Dried
Chicory Root, Ascorbic Acid, Lecithin, Rosemary Extract
You should be able to tell some huge differences just by looking at sheer size of the ingredient list. You quickly realize all the extra preservatives and fillers are not needed. Do you see anyadded color to the second food? Does your dog care if his food is yellow? All the extra stuff in the first food effects the dog. weather it contributes to allergies or the dog is jsut overall slowing down and aging prematurely.
*what does your vet say? This is always something you have to take with a grain of salt. While watching the news last night there was one vet who had it all right and seemed to have some real nutrition knowledge while the other vet said theres nothing wrong with feeding a dog a corn based food-definitely not someone you want in charge of your dogs nutrition! But you also have to realize that vets do not get extensive nutrition training in vet school. they only know about it if they look into it on their own or attend separate nutrition trainings not sponcered by a food company. We have all seen science diet or sale in the vets office-they are often who sponcers the nutrition training at vet school and its not much more than feed our food. Its sad but there are vets out there who do know better. its up to you who you take your pets to but don't let them talk you into feeding a junk food because they said so-the vet doens't always know best.
*were is that food made at? With the big menu recall we all suddenly realize most dog foods are made with the cheapest ingredients a plant can find-this is not the kind of plant you want to buy from. So look at were your dog food is made,do they use all US grown ingredients? Do they actually make the food in the US? Purina is opening a huge new plant in china-I wouldn't touch their food with a ten foot pole. Look for foods that have their own plants or plants that don't make thirty different foods. Also look at recall history. Recalls will happen no matter how many checks are done or how careful a plant is. What you want is a plant that doesn't hide things from customers but comes out right away and says"stop feeding this we have a problem". Guesses are this menu recall killed over 3,000 pets-if they would have said after first hearing about problems that the food should be avoided thousands of those pets would have been fine. But they are in it for the money-not the pets.
Cost and dog food
Cost is a big issue in dog food. Many people think if they spend a lot they are getting the best food. Take science diet-its a horrible food full of fillers and not made from human grade ingredients yet vets recommend it and its very expensive for the junk that goes into it. Same with purina,eukanuba,iams etc. none of these foods have good ingredients.
Take me and what I used to feed my dogs for example. For years we fed pedigree. When someone would tell me it was a bad food I would argue with them till I was blue in the face. I thought my dogs were healthy and i also thought 20$ for 50 LBS was already kind of expensive. I finally found out costco was marketing a corn free diamond under there kirklands name that was 40LBS for 20$ so we decided to give it a try. Not only did it end up saving us a lot of money but my dogs are healthier now than they ever were on the pedigree.
*the pedigree was 50lbs for about 20$
the kirklands/diamond was 40 LBS for about 20$
you would think we would run out of kirklands faster than the pedigree right? Nope! With my four dogs a bag of fifty pound pedigree barely lasted a week While a forty pound bad of diamond wold last almost three.
This is the difference fillers make. If a food is full of fillers you have to feed so much more food than you would with a good food. There is also less poop all over your yard because the dog actually uses what it eats. So with my dobe I had to feed five cups of pedigree a day. on the diamonds/kirklands I fed about 2 cups a day. I have recently switched to canadie a even better quality food and now he eats about one and half cups a day. So buying an expensive food actually saves you money-the trick is knowing if its expensive for the right reasons.
Is it an expensive food because you are paying for advertising or is it expensive because it has human grade ingredients and the research and development actually goes into the food not trying to make people buy it.
As far as the health issues go there was a dramatic change. I had thought my dogs were healthy but I couldn't have been more wrong about that. I had been told by my vet that allergies are just a part of a dogs life-that there isn't much to do but bring him in and give him shots or pills or whatever he wanted to try him on at the time. My other dogs had kinda dull hair but I didn't realize this untill I switched foods:) I had taken in my dads eleven year old dog I thought was on her last legs and the food change completely turned her around. She was like a puppy again and I know if she had stayed on the filler food she would not be with us right now. She is a very healthy an happy fifteen yrs old right now and going strong.
Foods to look into
* Canidae: Canned food packed by Evangers. Kibble made at Pied Piper in Texas.
they also ahve a great website
http://www.canidae.com/ be sure to look throught the testimonials,also has a store locater.
*Eagle Pack: Canned diets made at Menu Foods but have not been recalled
and do not contain Wheat Gluten. Dry diets made at their own plant in
Mishawaka, IN.
*Evangers: They have their own cannery
*Merrick: Has their own plant for all products
* Solid Gold: It is unknown where canned diets were made. Kibble is made in the Diamond Plant in Sacramento, CA.
*Timberwolf Organics
*Wellness/Old Mother Hubbard
*there are more great foods out there than this-just do your research.
Foods to avoid
I will also say that I have always stayed away from canned food but now even more so.
Avoid any food with corn in it-especially if corn is the first ingredient.
pedigree
purinas
nutro(if this is all you can get its ok but for the money it could have a lot better ingredients)
Dads
benefull
old roy
gravy train
*this list really is endless,it could go on and on. But those are some of the names that come up often.
Raw
I heard last night on the news that people should cook their pets raw food-that kind of defeats the purpose of feeding raw! Cooking takes all of the good things out of the food. I do not feed raw and won't claim I know everything about it but I will put up some great links to it. Many people have fed their dogs raw for years and I have only heard of one dog getting sick from it ever. Many people go ewww when hearing about it or ask won't the bones hurt them but it really is the best thing you could give your dog. every dog I have seen on raw has been the picture of good health and no kibble can beat it. Raw bones are good for dogs-it is cookedbones that splinter. but that said it takes lots of research to feed correctly so if you have the stomach look into it.
http://www.rawfoodlife.com/barf_faq.html
http://w
ww.dobermantalk.com/showthread.php?t=235
http://www.flickr.com/photos/illonahaus/sets/872344/>
http://www.hare-today.com/
************One last comment on purina since so many seem to feed it.
purina is not a good food. Not only are the ingredients not good but the advertising is disgusting. there life long study commercial makes me want to pull out hair. What they say is a life long studied proved dogs fed purina lived longer-what they fail to tell you is the dogs that died early also at purina. Its a sickening misleading commercial.
Not to mention the plant they just built in china.
