brotymo
Well-known member
I was thinking on the trouble that cavalier's are in last night, and about how puppy buyers can put pressure on breeders by demanding that the breeding protocols be followed. It all sounds good in theory, but it is no more effective than those email forwards I get that have a plan to lower gas prices. (If you've never gotten one, the theory is that as consumers we can lower the cost of gas by boycotting a particular brand. Don't go to those stores to buy gas, just boycott them, and they will lower prices to attract customers, in effect lowering their competitor's prices. This won't work, because only a handful of people might actually do that, and it will only work if everyone quits going to that brand of store). This is the problem with puppy buyers being the ones to effect the changes for cavaliers. Only a handful of people will be knowledgeable enough out of any year's crop of potential puppy buyers to ask the right questions. If they turn their back on a particular litter due to breeding, someone else will take their place. The vast majority of people, unless they've already learned the hard way about a breed (or are just obsessed, or nuts like all of us) will have decided they are getting a dog, that they want a particular breed (maybe they like a neighbor's cavalier, or they heard that they are friendly and good with kids) and just buy a pup from the newspaper, or from someone they heard has a litter, or one in a pet shop. Since most people don't know about the intricacies of the health tests needed, they will accept that the vet has checked the parents as evidence that the puppies must be healthy. The vast majority of puppy buyers fall into this category and always will (which is why puppy mills are surviving and thriving). This is because they don't know better, and even as some are educated, the buyer market is a turn-over crop of new people all the time. Repeat or knowledgeable buyers, I would wager, make up a very small minority of the people looking to buy at any given time.
Anyway, my point is not to discourage the educated consumers from demanding the best, it is to say that more must be done from the top. Until the Kennel Clubs in their respective countries change the rules that breeders must follow to register puppies, then nothing significant or drastic enough will change. The changes will be small and focused among a few ethical breeders, who I wager produce only a tiny percentage of each year's "puppy crop". So, I think one big problem that needs to be addressed is, how do the rules get changed? Of course the research must go on, and the education of the public must continue where it can, but ultimately, the Kennel Clubs hold the cards here (in the form of registration papers) and can either save the breed or doom it to failure.
Anyway, my point is not to discourage the educated consumers from demanding the best, it is to say that more must be done from the top. Until the Kennel Clubs in their respective countries change the rules that breeders must follow to register puppies, then nothing significant or drastic enough will change. The changes will be small and focused among a few ethical breeders, who I wager produce only a tiny percentage of each year's "puppy crop". So, I think one big problem that needs to be addressed is, how do the rules get changed? Of course the research must go on, and the education of the public must continue where it can, but ultimately, the Kennel Clubs hold the cards here (in the form of registration papers) and can either save the breed or doom it to failure.