(Extreme Content Warning): Dog Breeder Produces Litter After Litter Of Deformed Pups

[Scootaloo]

5. Just an extreme example of the entire concept.

Dogs with flippers are really no different from dogs with inverted faces. Or dogs with tiny legs and too many vertebrae. or dogs with constricted craniums.

You know. Pugs, dachshunds, king charles cavalier spaniels?

To say nothing of the problems with dogs suffering from gigantism. Or extreme breed-specific neuroses. Or the conditions caused by deformed hip-spine conjunctions.

You know, great danes, border collies, and german shepherds?

Or the utter inability to give natural birth. Or having faces so long they effectively blind the animal. And of course, skin so baggy and saggy that fungal infections are standard and the eyes can't close properly

English bulldogs. Collies. St. bernards and bloodhounds.

I know a lot of DU'ers probably own these dogs, or others like them, and love them very much. That's good, I'm not knocking your dogs, or you for owning them - I mean they're there, and they need the love, so good on you.

But if you ask me? We need to move away from this sort of breeding, "designer" dogs, and extreme variations, all built around some weird "show standard." Intentional inbreeding needs to be stopped because it's as dangerous to dogs as it is to humans (ask a dalmatian about their kidneys.) The first concern needs to be viability and health of the animal, rather than conformity to some ever-more extreme 'standard" that results in balloon-headed animals that can't breathe, have seizures, and can't breed without coupling devices and caeserian sections.