Tasmanian Devils and Bad Breeders

I love feeding my dogs a raw diet. I truly and honestly believe that it is the best, most biologically appropriate diet for dogs, and that many digestive and skin issues can be cleared up with a raw diet.

What I don’t believe, however, is that raw is a magic bullet. This puts me into direct conflict with certain segments of the raw feeding population, who will tell you that raw fed dogs won’t ever get rabies, can’t contract parvo and don’t get cancer.

I take issue with all of this (mainly because it flies in the face of logic), but I actually get fairly pissed about the cancer claim.

Feeding your dogs a raw diet means that they can’t get cancer? Huh? Where’s the science behind this, I asked, and was told ‘well, wild animals don’t get cancer, and that’s because they eat a raw diet’.

That’s where the Tasmanian Devil comes in. If you’re like me, you hear ‘Tasmanian Devil’ and you think of the Looney Tunes cartoon character. In actual fact, they’re a “carnivorous marsupial found only in the wild in the Australian state of Tasmania” (thanks, Wikipedia). Since May of 2009, Tasmanian Devils have been on the endangered species list because of DFTD – Devil Facial Tumor Disease.

DFTD is a form of contagious, tumorous cancer, manifesting originally in facial lesions and lumps, which later spread to the entire body. DFDT spreads like wildfire, and has resulted in up to 100% fatality within Tasmanian Devil populations.

Apparently, Tasmanian Devils never got the memo about how eating raw meat was supposed to keep them cancer free.

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I got a call this morning from a woman in the Toronto area.

She just rescued a French Bulldog puppy from a Toronto area animal shelter — an eight week old puppy, no less.

The couple who bought him discovered at the end of the first week that one of them was dreadfully allergic to the little guy. They called the breeder (who is located north of Toronto, someplace – I’m still getting details on names), and asked if they could return the boy. The breeder REFUSED to take him back. Didn’t want him, not their problem, you bought him, you keep him, and have you tried rescue?

Unable to keep the pup themselves, and being both new to the Toronto area and not native speakers of English, the couple were unsure of their options for placing the puppy, and dropped him off at their local animal shelter

Thankfully, someone who works there is friends with the adoptive home this pup ended up in. She already has a Frenchie, and was thrilled to take another. She called me this morning to see if I knew anything about this so called breeder, and if I could help her to try to read his tattoo. I told her that there’s a good chance he’s an import, and she’s going to see if she can find out anything from the paperwork that was turned in with him.

Apparently, this is what now passes for a ‘breeder’ in the Toronto area. So much for standing behind your dogs, and supporting your owners. So much for integrity, or concern for the puppies you’ve produced. So much for ethics. This pup is young and cute, although he already has some behavioral issues. The older dogs, the dogs who bite, and the French Bulldog crosses that we’re seeing more and more of might not be so lucky.

For breeders like me, who in it for the long haul, we’ll be here cleaning up the messes of these new ‘breeders’ long after they’ve moved on to the next designer dog du jour. Let’s just hope they move on soon.

Unbelievable that this is now what passes for a ‘breeder’ in Ontario. It makes me sick.