I've been SAVED, errr she's been saved. PYR found

[babalubird]

I'll bet she's a cute little fluffy ball of white. Pyrs are just the cutest pups.

Connie

 

[walkswithdog]

I talked to Animal Control. According to the county's definitions here they meet the minimal standard of care. Clean food, clean water and shelter.

Many livestock guardian breeders do not socialize their pups, because they believe if they bond with people they will not bond with stock. He can also argue that he only penned them up to show them to people. Not true but try and prove it otherwise.

We do have people watching the group to remove any more unwanted pups that he cannot sell.

It has to be separate people or he'd twig to it. That's okay, the many faces of rescue are out there now watching.

We will catch up what he doesn't sell.

Livestock guardians, Pyrs, Komondors, Anatolians and Maremmas are often bred like livestock, minimally handled. While it's not true that they won't bond to stock if socialized, there will and probably has been in his history a pup that wanted nothing to do with livestock after having bonded to people.

That's NOT profitable or desireable in a purpose bred dog. And while I don't approve, I can see why someone with no real behavioral background is going to think that they'd all be like that.

I still run across every day, if I socialize him, he won't be protective, etc.

It's not true. A well socialized animal is more capable of intelligent protection and the confidence necessary to do so well. While an unsocialized dog makes more noise it is more widely likely to be immoderately territorial, make more fear based noise, and appear to be the more protective. Noise does not equal action. And when an unsocialized, untrained dog makes choices many times they CHOOSE the wrong target out of fear.

Noise is not the same as ability, or the confidence to actually do something. Noise is noise. It may scare off the unknowing. It may result in either good or bad bites. But it's a loaded gun you spin and hope.

Same with the guardian breeds. Socialization isnt what makes the dog ineffective, that dog was not going to be good with stock because of it's nature. People would LIKE guarantees. If I don't socialize it with people it will be good with and guard stock. With a borderline pup, that will maybe make a difference. With one that doesn't have it, it doesn't matter.

And while I did offer to take a second, he wasn't going there. You have to be careful not to upset the apple cart if you want to pick up all the apples.

Do I wish that he lived differently? Certainly. Have I seen worse? Yes.

At least there's a safety net there for the rest.

These aren't being raised as pets, they don't know any different and while there certainly are better lives hopefully awaiting them. They are not unwell. They've been wormed and vaccinated. They are exceedingly well fed.

Clean and sleeping with Momma seems to suit Mac just fine. Grooming and riding in the car sort of sucked.

I don't have to like it, and I don't. But the laws in rural america are quite minimalistic. Wherever they are treated like livestock, they're going to live different lives. Their father was a big calm, certain, healthy quiet observer. Not interested in leaving his goats and chickens to see a stranger.

We have a net for them, they'll actually go to good homes whether as lgds or pets or into foster care.

LGDs have good lives, lives they actually prefer to lead, many totally unfit to live within a home. They have a need to do what they were designed to do and you can't put that square pegged one into a round hole.

There are those that make grand pets, but you can't make one, whose mind is made up, become something that they are not. They're far too intelligent, large, loud and in the wrong environment destructive.

Should fewer be bred certainly. They aren't livestock and most people who do take one in as a pet abandon it within two years when it develops it's full range of adult behaviors, if not sooner.

But then most people who breed shouldn't be breeding, or nine million wouldn't die this year.

These guys are just part of the overall self-centeredness of man. I can breed it, I will breed it. Not for the development health and protection and longevity of the breed, but because it gets me money, makes me feel good, etc.

They're better than some, worse than others.

Breeding fluffy to make pet puppies without a thought of health testing, temperament testing, or breed standard isn't any more right.

We will do what we can. I've volunteered with the nearby and distant pyr rescues as a transporter, foster and evaluator. I'll add these guys to the breed rescues I work with.

I can do that. And I can create some part of the safety net to save more.

And that will help more than just Mac.

The answer is not more laws. It's the slow movement toward education. Toward another way of thinking. But you won't get to old school, you won't get to the selfish, no matter how many laws you pass. People will breed Fluffy because Fluffy is theirs and they WANT to. They don't think beyond that, they don't test, they have no standards, they don't think anything bad will happen, ever, to the pups they have bred, or those puppies' puppies.

And yes, I bred ONE dog, once, my service dog Tanis, to get the next service dog from her lines. There were nine puppies, I kept them all to five months. I kept four. I sold the others, altered to pet homes where they still are - I know we keep in touch. At nine none have bad hips or elbows, neither did either parent throughout their lives. Not one of the pups was intact or ever bred. The pups were from parents who were in the standard, who were health tested and Tanis was a working GSD.

Never before and never again have I bred. And those are the only conditions under which I would breed.

Last time I mentioned breeding Fluffy, I got asked. So this time I answered before I got the PMs.

There are ways to breed without being part of the problem. But that doesn't even begin to apply to most dogs being bred.

God bless the responsible breeders, they are rare as hens teeth.

 

[bwebb7]

my sister has owned and shown Mastiffs for 9 years-she bred her 1st litter last year and sold them all with contracts-neuter at 2 years and if for ANY reason you cannot keep him you are legally obligated to call her first!
She does have on owner that is just coming back from "hard times" and thier puppy will be going back with his family at the end of March. She took him back in October and has fed, trained and vetted him for those 6 months. If at the end December she wanted to rehome him, she was not obliged to keep him any longer. She opted to give the family 90 more days as they thought they would be in a better place at that time. After much communication over the last few months (as in her screening process) she decided that Sanuk's family were just that-Sanuk's family. We are going to a show in Raleigh at the end of this month and his family will collect him then. (they re-located from Fl to Ohio in November.
All of her animals are health tested (and passed!) and she does interview, and deny some of her potential puppy buyers.
I am very proud of my sisters approach to Mastiffs. She is responsible for all of her animals and doesn't breed unless she wants a puppt for herself!