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Topical Insecticides and Reproductive Health in Dogs

Be cautious about using topical insecticides on breeding dogs, lest they get “Homer Simpson Sperm” syndrome!

I spent Sunday at a very interesting Canine Reproduction seminar. The session, which lasted roughly two hours, was presented by MiniTube Canada, and was a bargain at $15. Unlike a lot of corporate seminars, this one was not geared solely towards selling you equipment, although there was discussion about the equipment the company makes (primarily semen extenders and shipping containers). Our presenter was Dr. John P. Verstegen DVM, MSc, PhD , DECAR, Minitube’s director of small animal reproduction. Since I’ve recently had my first transcervial insemination done on a bitch (Delilah), it was impressive to hear Dr. Verstegen say that he estimates he has performed more than 19,000 of them over the course of his career.

Dr. Verstegen had a lot of interesting information to share, but something interesting jumped out at me during the portion of the seminar devoted to the topic of managing sperm count in the male dog. Dr. Verstegen mentioned a study he had taken part in examining the effects of topical insecticides (ie; flea and tick treatments) on the reproductive health of the male dog.

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Do you breed for temperament?

As some of you may have noticed, we’ve started a new rescue. French Bulldog Last Chance Rescue is primarily devoted to the idea that every dog, even those with a history of being very bad Frenchies, indeed, deserve to get one last chance at rehabilitation.

This is an essential point, since many rescue now have closed their doors to French Bulldogs with a bite history. Some of this is simple logistics – it’s hard to find foster homes willing to take on a Frenchie who might try to quite literally bite the hand that feeds it. Some of it is likely liability related.  At any rate, Last Chance Rescue aims to give all French Bulldogs on last chance at a new life, but it does make me consider the issue of temperament in our breed.

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Breeders Behaving Badly

Mindy Holmes, of Maplecreek Corgis

Mindy Holmes, of Maplecreek Corgis

 

I sometimes feel like I’m spending a lot of my time defending my fellow breeders, in large part because almost all of the breeders I know personally really are ethical people who love their dogs and their breeds. I also defend conformation showing, which I know seems trivial and superficial to anyone outside of the fancy. It’s a sport I have mixed feelings about, but at its best I enjoy it as a fun way to meet with friends, have a look at their dogs, and maybe take home some ribbons.

At its worst, however, showing becomes a world filled with shady, amoral behavior, none of which seems to have anything to do with the well being of the dogs, and most of which has to do with greed, ego and money. When at its worst, it becomes hard to defend either showing, or the breeders involved in it.

This would be one of those ‘worst’ situations.

From the Herald Tribune:

A recent criminal case based in Venice reveals a darker side of the $330 million American dog show industry where greed and ultra competitiveness can lead to allegations of cheating, corruption and vindictive acts.

Venice dog breeder Melinda “Mindy” Holmes, 48, was arrested this month on a felony extortion charge in the falsification of a champion show dog’s veterinary records and demanding money to keep those records hidden.

The allegations have rocked the Greater Venice Florida Dog Club, of which Holmes was a member in good standing for several years.

“I’m just in shock,” said Rita Figg, a founding member of the Venice dog club when she learned of Holmes’ arrest on Feb. 12. “I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before.”

According to sheriff’s reports, Holmes in 2009 first threatened to release damaging documents about a Pembroke Welsh corgi, named Ty, bred by AKC judges Rutledge and Nash Parker of North Carolina unless they paid Holmes $18,000.

The Parkers claim Holmes fraudulently changed Ty’s veterinary records to show the dog had been cosmetically altered through surgery, which would prevent him from competing and could permanently damage the Parkers’ judging and breeding careers.

 

The Corgi involved in this case, Champion Happiharbor Saddle Lane Ty, is not just any show dog, either – he’s the number four ranked Pembroke Welsh Corgi in the country. Ty was exhibited at Westminster this year, but while Ty didn’t place in the ribbons this year, he has numerous prestigious wins in his past, including Best in Specialty Show.

The article doesn’t specify what surgery it was alleged that Ty had had performed on him, but it’s possible that none of his wins would have been awarded if it was proven that Ty had received cosmetic surgery.

The Pembroke Welsh Corgi breed standard states –

A dog must be very seriously penalized for the following faults, regardless of whatever desirable qualities the dog may present: oversized or undersized; button, rose or drop ears; overshot or undershot bite; fluffies, whitelies, mismarks or bluies.

I assume that Holmes was threatening that Ty had one of these ‘serious’ faults corrected. Holmes, who breeds Corgis under the “MapleCreek” prefix, was the breeder of Ty’s dam. She and the Parkers had apparently done breedings together in the past.

More from the Herald Tribune:

The Parkers, according to arrest documents, paid Holmes $3,000 to keep the falsified records private, but refused to give her $15,000 more she demanded.

Then, a month before this year’s Westminster show, Holmes reportedly e-mailed Ty’s vet records to the dog’s handler to discourage her from showing the dog. Breeders often own the dogs, but handlers are the ones who present the dog in competitions.

….

Reached for comment in North Carolina, the Parkers would not discuss specifics of the incident beyond what was in the police report. But Rutledge Parker said he and his wife fear further retaliation by Holmes.

“I’ve never dreamed of something like this happening. I don’t know how to react to it,” he said. “This was all about money, and that’s clear from the police report.”

Read the rest of the article here.

 

How many is TOO many?

Bunny's Boys

Bunny's Boys - crappy resolution still capture from my new video camera

Here’s a Frenchie Friday question – How many litters are TOO many litters?

We debate this question all the time – what’s that magic number that tips someone over from ‘reputable’ breeder to ‘not so reputable’? Is there even a magic number – or should there be?

There’s a HUGE big name kennel out west (not Frenchies), who has an average of six to eight litters per year – in a breed with fairly large litters.

Is that too many litters?

What if I then add that they feed raw, employ a full time staff of three to care for puppies and adults, have an ‘open door’ kennel policy, and a huge waiting list for available puppies?

Still not good enough?

What if I mention that they have literally DOZENS of Best in Show wins, multiple BISS wins, Westminster group and breed wins, International Champions, etc? Are they still an ‘un reputable breeder’? Or would you even call them a puppy mill?

What if, instead of six to eight litters, they had ten to twelve?

What about the small breeder who only has one to two litters, but they’re raised in a garage, barely socialized and won’t see new people until they either go to their homes or hit the show ring?

Are those two litters still too many litters, if their breeder can’t or won’t care for them properly?

Does it matter if their breeder has multiple champions and shows every weekend? Does it matter if they’ve never shown any of their dogs, and don’t even register their litters?

Can you have four litters per year if your breed only has two puppies, or is just all about that number? Can you have three litters if you didn’t breed the year before?

Personally, I care more about the way that the pups are raised than I do about numbers.

For Frenchies, I want to see pups that are home raised, with tons of exposure to people and sights and sounds. I want them to be clean, well fed, and well cared for. I want to know you’ve got homes waiting, and won’t be trying to dump un sold puppies on Kijiji when they get too old. If you’re doing all of that, I don’t have a ‘number’ – although I do think that there’s a number, beyond which, it’s almost impossible to achieve all of that, or at least to achieve it well.

Of course, all of that is just MY opinion – what I really want to know is, what’s yours?

Labradoodle Lamentations

The original creator of the Labradoodle now says that he regrets ever having created one of the world’s first “designer cross breed dogs”.

From The Guardian Newspaper:

If Wally Conron had known what was going to become of the labradoodle, he wouldn’t have bred the dog in the first place. It was 22 years ago and Conron, now 81, was working as the breeding and puppy-walking manager for the Royal Guide Dog Association of Australia when his boss set him a tough task. A blind woman from Hawaii had written asking if it they could provide a guide dog that would not shed hair, because her husband was allergic to it. “I said, ‘Oh yes, this will be a piece of cake. The standard poodle is a working dog, it doesn’t shed hair, it’ll be great.’ I tried 33 in the course of three years and they all failed. They just didn’t make a guide dog. Meanwhile, the woman in Hawaii was getting older and the boss was getting on my back.”

Conron decided there was one possibility left – take his best labrador bitch and mate it with a standard poodle. They created three crossbreed puppies that needed to be boarded out to be trained and socialised, but nobody would take them – everyone wanted a purebred. And that’s when Conron came up with the name labradoodle. “I went to our PR team and said, ‘Go to the press and tell them we’ve invented a new dog, the labradoodle.’ It was a gimmick, and it went worldwide. No one wanted a crossbreed, but the following day we had hundreds of calls from people wanting these master dogs.”

The labradoodle proved to be a brilliant dog for the blind, and the woman in Hawaii was happy. Job done. So what was the problem? Ah, says Conron, it’s how the dog has been used and abused, and sold under false pretences. “This is what gets up my nose, if you’ll pardon the expression. When the pups were five months old, we sent clippings and saliva over to Hawaii to be tested with this woman’s husband. Of the three pups, he was not allergic to one of them. In the next litter I had there were 10 pups, but only three had non-allergenic coats. Now, people are breeding these dogs and selling them as non-allergenic, and they’re not even testing them.”