The discussion on pedigrees is fascinating - I spend too long on World Pedigrees!! It's great to go back so many generations - and yes, so many of them are related as soon as you go back a few years, which I'm sure is not healthy
On the main topic - self regulation did not work, so something else had to happen. I think there are a lot of good points here - although compulsory registration is going to cause a nightmare for rescues initially, as many dogs will just be dumped; long term it will solve a lot of problems. This will drive many of the BYBs and puppy farmers out, which is what is needed.
I'm disappointed with Professor Bateson's comment about breeding for the competition ring - only a fraction of the Cavaliers bred are from show breeders, dogs from other breeders are not free from the same health problems, and often the BYBs and puppy farmers are just as guilty of doing close matings, they don't care whom they are using or what they produce, and the pedigrees are generally totally false anyway.
Sins you made some good points :xctly:
I do wonder how this can all be enforced - but can only hope that it will do good in the future.
Health guarantees are very difficult - how can you predict what will happen in the future with a living being? Also you don't know how a puppy carer will look after that puppy. I agree that if the breeder has done all the health testing - parents and puppies -
and carried out matings based on the results### and a vet check just prior to the puppy leaving home, this is all I can understand that they could do. How do you guarantee that the puppy will not have a stomach upset, if their new family change it's food too quickly? How can the breeder be liable for that?
###{which is where the Accredited Breeder Scheme falls down, as long as they've done the screening it doesn't matter what the results show :yikes A Labrador can have the worst possible hip scores, but as long as they did the testing, they can still mate it and register the puppies...}
Most responsible breeders give informative puppy packs, usually some of the food the puppy is currently eating etc, but you can't make the new puppy carer do anything.
Sadly some rather unsrupulous BYBs and puppy farmers, are actually marketing their unregistered puppies by saying that it's only the Kennel Club registered puppies that have these dreaful health problems, their dogs are all healthy :yikes Of course, people always fall for it...
Until we manage to educate puppy buyers, we will always have problems - so many still only care about buying a cheap puppy that is immediately available and they don't want to travel...
I think that although this will do a lot of good, it will also perhaps create an underground market, where this type of buyer will be able to buy their cheap puppy...
Sorry this may be a bit rambled, putting down things as they occur to me and I'm being "told" that it's teatime!!
