What's the Point of any breed? Controversial

Just because we choose not to work our pets, does not mean that they cannot do what they were bred to do. I dont hunt with my RR but many people still do.

that makes me think two things:

1. what percentage of wolfy dogs end up in rescues? I don't know the answer to this, but I bet it's not the highest.

2. I suspect that the breed that has the most percentage of inmates is the Staffie, you can almost guarantee they'll be one in every rescue centre. Although I suspect greyhounds run them a close second. For the sake of argument, let's say that Staffs are the most re-homed dog, would you then be of the opinion that that breed should stop?

I suspect nobody can prove any figures, so it's probably only guesswork.

Well you hav to look at how many there are in total, about 4000+ registered? at a guess anyway. There are usually dogs looking for homes on the NIS site, there have been plenty in "general" rescues too, of course they are the only ones we hear of, so many more as with all dogs will be passed on without the breeder or welfare's knowledge. So in a numerically small breed, personally I feel the incidence is high.

Staffords etc... whole different ball game Phil, there were 12,167 Staffs registered with the KC last year, thats without all the Staffords that are not registered and the "Irish" ones etc.... I think that reflects the number in rescue being significantly higher than most others, plus the fact they are not in fashion and are dumped with ease it appears.

If you are looking at percentages as opposed to numbers then yes there are a quite high percentage of these crosses in rescue, along with many of the other designer crosses.

Pedigree breeds tends to be Staffies & Labradors by percentage

By numbers again Labradors(one lab rescues that there are 45,000+ KC labs bred every year & an equal number of unregistered-making nearly 100,000 labs bred every year ) & Staffies. Of course a lot of the "Staffies"in rescue are actually crosses which does bump up the percentages & numbers

Excellent post.

Another thing to consider with your question, Efes123, is if the dogs are no longer doing the jobs they were bred for and have instincts for, e.g. herding dogs, hunting dogs, etc. and are kept as pets only, is that fair on them?

I suppose it's all guesswork and opinion ;-)

Out of curiosity, I did a search on this site under the dogs needing homes. Out of the 5,000 plus posts here was only one hit for inuit, and only 16 out of over 21,500 posts (2,155 threads) for the whole of the rescue section. That's fairly low figures, especially against 116 for Staff. So taking your figures of 4,000 and 12,000 all being equal and averaging the figures. We should multiply the inuit figure by a factor of 3 to make it equal the staff. That would give us 48 for inuits, against 116 for staffs, less than half.

I know it doesn't prove anything, but it is a fair sample, and large enough to be significant.

Hi LS,

Ah, a completely different, but equally interesting question. This would be moving well into the world of morals, and that's a place I try to steer clear of on boards. You're welcome to open that can of worms on a new thread if you want, I wish you luck.

It isn't anything I have particularly strong feelings about, to be honest, I was just throwing it in. I think you can't go too far wrong with exercise, love, food and mental stimulation with any dog. Bit like us really.

That's a bit like me, well apart from the exercise, not to keen on that

Just curious, what are you basing that on? I just looked at the Blue Cross, and out of the 13 pages of dogs (62 individual dogs) I found:

Terriers: 2

Staffs: 3

Rotties: 4

Collies: 3

GSD: 2

Inuits: 0

There were a couple of GSD x Huskys. But if I include them I'd have to up the above figures by a factor of at least 4.

so a NI then?

A consideration, but with that argument surely they could be classed as Husky crosses, or GSD crosses. There were certainly more GSD crosses that just the specific GSD x Husky.

But if we count crosses, there were about 15 terrier types, 12 collies, and 5 or 6 GSDs. Odd that there were only pure rotties in there. God knows how many lab type crosses, probably close to 20 or 25, really difficult to tell. And how do you count a GSD x Lab? Is that one each, or do you just pick one.

Anyhow, I'm off to the pub, so have fun.

So 48 Inuits out of a possible TOTAL alive of what, less than 5000? thats a HUGE percentage Phil, it really is, with the stats I have provided for registrations of Staffs last year, thats almost 3 times the amount of Staffs bred and registered in one years as opposed to the entire Inuit population.

You must also consider the Blue Cross do not take in strays, we have read that there have been NI's picked up as strays too, so again, 3 Staffs is a minute number given how many there are.

You need to look at breeds that have very low registrations, and how many of those are in rescue.

I wonder how many NI's are described as gsd or husky crosses by rescues.There is a wide variation of types of NI and so I can see many that end up in rescue will just be classed as a cross

There was an NI brought into the rescue kennels i was working at some time ago, she was put in the book as a GSD x Husky. She was extremly affraid so I fostered her to help her regain her confidence, and then she went to a great home straight from me.

No, please read it properly. There's 16. As there are three times as many staffs I multiplied the figures by 3, giving 48 against 116 staffs. A LOW percentage.

Well done you. I hope she's happy

Still high Phil given the amount in total, too high really.

and you have no stamina!!! They havent stopped serving yet!

Yes she was for the time she had left, sadly she was one of the unlucky ones that died suddenly at a very young age :-(

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