Ethical Breeders Charter General Chat

I would advise some type of review system for those breeders.
Most likely people who have gotten a pup from them.

When I bred dogs I, and most of my friends and fellow breed club members, would have had no difficulty fulfilling those criteria.
Do you think some kind of star rating system might work? Though I see one problem could be getting sufficient new owners to log on to Breedia to provide a rating from purchasers.
I would expect any reputable breeder to be a member of at least one breed club.
I would also suggest that even more important than how often stud dogs are used is that they should only be available to approved, appropriately health tested bitches.

Looking forward to reading other views on this.

Re. Commercial breeders.
This is one reason why I mentioned breed club membership, as all the breed clubs I have been a member of have a code of ethics which you sign to say that you will abide by. Also, you need to be proposed (and often also seconded) by existing members.

[My bold]

OK so this is going back more than a few years, but there was then a main Griffon Breeders club, and all lesser breeders [in the eyes of the "top" breeders] had to kowtow to the "expert" knowledge of those "top" breeders. You know the type - more CCs than anyone else, puppies they bred or which were sired by their stud dogs which all ended up champions - blah blah blah.

It was an open secret that there was not only HD in the lines of "the" - ahem - "most respected" breeder, which was strongly disputed by her, and then there was a sudden number of puppies born with clefts - all traceable back to one particular stud dog. Only they were not registered as they were euthanised at birth and all knowledge of them was, so the breeder/s thought, hidden. Only you cannot hide such things in a breed circle which was not that large, Griffons never having been that many.

But the word got around and a breakaway Griffon club was formed with the aim of trying to get some sort of data base of the background of not only HD but now this problem of clefts. This was way before computers but one of the members of the breakaway group was a mathematics professor, so knew what he was doing.

I am not sure what eventually happened as although things were still going strong, I left the UK a couple of years later.

But on checking with the Kennel Club a few months ago, I was horrified to find that the main "top" breeder at that time was still registered - actually her kennel name, not her as she is probably long gone but her daughter took over so it is now in her name.

And no doubt there are still puppies being born with HD and clefts from the original line, and no doubt it is still being hidden from general knowledge.

So you see there are ethical breeders and then there are "ethical breeders" who will lie through their teeth to hide any imperfections that their champion dams/sires produce.

When I was looking for a JRT I contacted the KC & was given a list of breeders near to where I live, but I was not happy with several breeders because of the living conditions where the bitch/puppies were kept, also several of the breeders had docked their puppies tails & claimed they were from working stock, I also contacted the JRT's show dog club, on their list was 1 breeder that was AKA registered & was also on the KC list so I contacted the breeder & that is how I got K9, however when I wanted another JRT to breed K9 with, I went back to the breeder where I got K9 from & he gave me a name of a breeder that was also AKA registered & between both breeders I was able to have a puppy that was not related to K9.

Most breeders don't keep a list of people who had their puppies, so brother/sisters uncles/nieces, aunts/nephews are often mated without their owners realizing, to provide a good list of breeders is not going to be a simple thing to do.

I've never bred dogs but as someone who in the past 2 years has bought a Shar-Pei and a Miniature Schnauzer, the most important thing for me was to see their pedigree.Because there are no reliable health tests for Shar-Pei looking at the pedigree and tracing the bloodline back at least 5 generations is vital. Knowing (or believing) that European bred Pei are healthier that their American counterparts I eliminated any breeder who had American Pei in the bloodline. After searching for months I found a Hungarian breeder with a pure European line ... Georgie's dad's pedigree is Serbian and Russian and her mum's is Hungarian and Russian.

@Malka I do know of whom you speak (as you know the friend I travelled to shows with for about 20 years had a couple of Champion Griffons), and remember those breakaway skirmishes. You are right, the affix has passed down through the family. (Quite a few of that generation have passed now). I never realised that the problems were so widespread though.
@6JRT's This is the big advantage of KC registered stock, the dog's breeding and health test records are recorded, and can be compared with the line you intend using. Big problem though - you still need the experience to know what lurks there - see Malka's and Barbara's posts for example.
@Azz After giving it more thought, I'm not sure that breeding more than 3 litters a year is always unethical. If I were thinking of having another Beagle, the reputation of the three quality, fully health tested kennels I might think of approaching approach could be diminished by this rule.
The words 'can' and 'worms' spring to mind!

I`m assuming this is directed to those who have unregistered dogs (i.e KC) as Carole points out , the benefit of an official registration is the data base they hold.

All good points Azz, but most ethical breeders will already be adhering to this .

It must have been wider knowledge than I thought then if you know of whom I was speaking, as I have never mentioned either her name or the name of her KC affix - and nor will I. No way will I open myself to a possible libel action, which had happened to someone in the past who tried to take action because their pup, sired by her top stud dog, was so badly crippled with HD.

But it was knowledge through Griffon breeders only at the time, not general knowledge, and most of the "top in crowd" would never admit knowing anything about it, hence the breakaway groups, the main one trying to get a data base was, IIRC, the Northern Griffon Breeders Association, but I have no idea whether that is still going or not.

Long time ago, but if it is still known about in Griffon circles then it must still be happening.

SIGH

I've no up to date knowledge. I'm going back a long way too!

@Jackie no the breeders themselves don't keep records of who they have sold the puppies to, if they sell one puppy to owners in Scotland & lets say they bred their dog when old enough & they sold a puppy in England & they then bred from the dog so on before to long they will be mating related dogs.
If a puppy is going to be used as a breeding dog then they should have a list ie paper trail of who as bought the rest of the litter & who as bought the previous litters, but a lot of the time the breeders don't keep records at all.
There's a web site advertising both bitches & dogs up for mating, majority of these say dog/bitch as full health check - dog as sired 6 litters - dam as had 4 litters no dead puppies, basically its an on line dating agency for dogs, all says dogs are KC registered, this is where interbreeding occurs as no paper trail, just because they are KC registered don't mean they have right temperament, colour size etc to breed with.
One example 3 year old stud poodle has had 6 litters, KC registered as passed all health checks, dates still available in December 5th 17th & 28th £150 per mating.
There does need to be tighter control when breeding/selling KC registered dogs/puppies.

Personally I would say 1 litter per bitch but only on every 3rd season.

@Azz Couldn't say for sure, but this was only intended as an example. I was just trying to say that in popular breeds some of the best breeders do produce more than 3 litters a year.
However, would be very interested in what others think - especially those that show.

My limit was one litter per bitch every eighteen months with each one only having two litters.

The only exception was the bitch my mentor gave me on breeding terms [she just wanted one puppy for her] as she had already had one litter and suffocated them all by laying on them within two days of their birth. I had her on the understanding that I would not leave her alone with her puppies, so she had two litters with me, making three in total.