Posted on 04/09/2007 8:36:12 PM PDT by kellynla
You consider extrapolations based on 1400 responses to be “making up numbers” ?
This isn’t a conspiracy theory.... thousands of dogs and cats are dead and dying.
At the very least not tried to backyard breed — anyone worried the dog mated with neighborhood mutt worries me.
For anyone else reading this: PLEASE SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR PETS !!
If you don’t know the first thing about your breed, dog/cat breeding, dog/cat genetics, health testing, breed-specific health and temperament risks and conditions, canine/feline biology, nutrition, appropriate mate selection, unbiased and accurate conformation evaluation, temperament testing, breeding for the improvement of the breed, gestation, whelping, puppy/kitten rearing, puppy/kitten home screening, forever homes, having homes lined up BEFORE you even do the breeding, puppy/kitten purchase contracts, training, permanent return-to-breeder and replacement for genetic defect clauses, health guarantees, vaccinations, and a host of other required areas of knowledge and expertise, THEN DON’T BREED YOUR PETS. If you don’t know all of these things, then you have no business breeding or bringing into the world more future-unwanted animals who will ultimately be killed at animal shelters.
I’m so sorry for your loss. It will hurt for quite some time, unfortunately. She obviously had a good long life with you, and you gave her a peaceful passing.
I’m convinced that it’s a good idea to let other pets in the house see/smell the deceased pet. They know what death is... and when they can see and smell their friend no longer breathing, then they know that pet isn’t coming home again. They will still grieve, but at least they won’t be confused or longing for them to walk in the door.
Have you ever had a dog come up to you while you’re sleeping and hold their nose right in front of your nose or mouth to detect whether you are breating or not? When I euthanized my German Shepherd, I brought my other dog into the room to let her see, and she went right to his nose and buried her nose in his nostril and took three long sniffs to see if she could detect his breath. When she couldn’t detect his breathing, she came over to me and curled up behind my legs. When I took her home, just the two of us, she never once went looking for the Shepherd because she knew he was gone forever.
This is commonly done, but as you now know, it is wrong. The best shot at duplicating a beloved dog is by repeating the breeding of that dog's parents (the breeding that produced the beloved dog). But even then, genetics are such a roll of the dice, you never get a very good "duplicate". You can get close, but it's like winning two lotteries in a row to get a close duplicate.
We bred her. We were trying for cock-a-tzu’s. We have already taken her to 2 vets, 2 because the first wouldn’t X-ray her. I live in the deep deep country and we watch her but my cousin let her out accidentally about a week after we bred her and we were trying to cover all possibilities.
btw, the doctor said it was a false pregnancy. We may try again next time. Normally dogs don’t walk the miles it takes to get to my house. My dog roams free because really theres just nowhere for her to go.
My dog gets the best care we can give and ever since this food scare she has had 2 strip of bacon and 2 eggs every morning and a steak at night. basically she’s following the atkins diet like I am. haha.
The vet sent us home because he was in surgery. We are just glad she’s ok. The doc saw her this morning and gave her some medicine for an infection but she had a false pregnancy.
It was a false pregnancy. We had family and friends all lined up for a puppy who are saddened. These were planned puppies.
Cock-a-tzu’s were what they would have been. :-(
Good grief Kelly, I wish I would have read the rest of this post before I kindly tried to tell you that Don’s post was sarcasm. I take it back - the “kindly” part.
Like Don said, you’re clearly the one with the reading comprehension problem, not to mention that huge chip on your shoulder. Step away from the keyboard while you take a chill pill. Your keyboard personality leaves a lot to be desired.
Wow.
Ignore: ON
A feature FreeRepublic could sorely use at times.
I echo what AZCarolyn said: poor cocker breeders have ruined the breed in general. There are tons of puppy millers in the cocker world thanks to their popularity due to movies like ‘Lady and the Tramp’, etc.
If you’re not going to get an adult dog from a shelter (which is always my first recommendation), then no matter what the breed, you have to research and find a good, ethical breeder. But some breeds have a higher percentage of bad breeders due to their popularity as a breed.
In general, if you go to the AKC website and look up the statistics to see how many of each breed are registered each year, the higher up the list (i.e., the more popular), the higher the percentage of puppy millers and backyard-breeders. Getting a puppy from either of those sources is a recipe for extensive, expensive, and potentially deadly health problems, not to mention temperament problems.
So as AZCarolyn says, if you ever get a Cocker, find a good breeder. And of course knowing the definition of a “good breeder” takes research in itself. :-)
The increase in ARF cases observed by Banfield included cases during the recall period (early Dec '06 - early March '07), but BEFORE the recall was even announced (on March 16).
In other words, their numbers were not related to any over-reactionary panic caused by the announcement of the recall. So your premise about the numbers being skewed by panic and over-reaction is false.
I'm all for a rational, logical, scientific perspective to be applied here. But we also need to keep each other in check when we apply false premises to our logic. Sometimes, many heads are better than one.
My reservation about the timeline that everyone is focusing on is that Menu Foods apparently does ROUTINE, QUARTERLY taste tests, and it has been stated that the taste test cited in this timeline was their routine quarterly testing... not testing done in response to complaints.
So I’m not ready to hang them yet about the taste-test issue and the timing of it, and the supposed failure to act (”while more pets were dying”) while they completed taste tests, until the investigation is complete and it can be proven one way or the other whether the taste-tests were, in fact, their routine quarterly taste tests, or whether they were in response to complaints about the food.
If it is determined that these taste tests were in direct response to complaints, then the red flag is going to go up (even higher than it already is).
Also, even if these taste tests were in direct response to complaints, the CFO who sold his shares did so on DAY 1 of the taste test, so he wouldn’t have even known the taste-testing was deadly.
In other words, it’s hard for me to find a clearly sinister motive here... Not to mention that securities sales are monitored and it would be way too easy to connect these dots if it were true... and he would end up in jail. Greed is one thing, but not many people are willing to risk jail, and a CFO certainly knows the ramifications of unlawful Insider Sales.
By the way, does anyone have any suggestions out there for helping a fat dog lose weight? My Ursa is officially a chubbette now, tipping the scales at 88 lbs. Small for the average rott, but Ursa is quite petite and at her best weight at 75 - 80lbs. She gets a lot of exercise, and we've restricted her calories (we even had her thyroid checked). Prior to the rat poison in the dog food (I'm now making her food) I was feeding her Science Diet (which I've been told is too grain-heavy for pets. )
We buried our beloved Katie in her favorite backyard nap spot, under the camelia bush. She was 14. It has been 2 years and I still miss her. We have 2 other cockers, but Katie was the best.
She would always lay at the door waiting for me to come home whenever I went out. The few times I went away for the weekend, my husband said he had to bring food and water to her, because she would not desert her post. She loved me and I loved her although she was supposed to be our son’s dog.
I’m sorry for your loss, I know how much it hurts.
May I ask why you are trying to breed a mixed breed dog? Do you know anything about genetics? You don’t get a “Cock-a-tzu.” It doesn’t work like that. You get a mixed breed dog. Nothing more. These so-called designer breeds (Labradoodles, Puggles, etc.) are a marketing scam to get a ridiculously high price for a plain-old mixed breed dog.
For example, people who try to breed Labradoodles (Labrador x Poodle) think they will get characteristics A,B,C from the Lab and characteristics D,E,F from the Poodle... every time. But genetics don’t work that way. In very very simple terms:
Puppy #1 may get:
A,B,C from the Lab, and D,E,F from the Poodle
Puppy #2 may get:
B,D,F from the Lab, and A,C,E from the Poodle
Puppy #3 may get:
A,D,E,F from the Lab, and B,C from the Poodle
Etc.
Contrary to popular (ignorant) belief, cross-breeds are a crap shoot and they do NOT produce the happy mixture of HALF Cocker Spaniel and HALF Shitzhu, let alone the specific half that you want from each parent.
The specific breeds that exist today took hundreds of years to refine, through hundreds of generations of breedings to establish their specific breed characteristics. There is no such thing as a “Cock-a-tzu” as a breed, and your results will be nothing more than a litter of mixed breed puppies. They’ll be cute, of course, because all puppies are cute. But Puppy A may be entirely opposite of Puppy B.
You might as well go to the nearest shelter and pick up a litter of random mixed breed puppies. They will have the same degree of consistency as your intended litter.
(Disclaimer for any geneticists reading this: Obviously I’ve left out a lot of details here, including dominant/recessive genes, etc.; I’m just giving a Readers Digest version.)
There is only one reason to breed any dogs -- to better the breed, which includes for show...
Cockers came to have a bad reputation because of people doing BYBing and not paying attention to size, disposition, coat, and so much more -- the last thing they need is to be bred with anything of another breed. BagCam is right about that... a mix is a mix is a mutt....
What really upsets me about this is these are the very puppies that will end up in a shelter somewhere, vaccinated up the ying-yang and in poor health to be either euthanized or someone who does rescue will try and find a good home... check petfinders sometime, you'll see what I mean.
I hate to be cruel, but someone has to be blunt here... and BTW bacon and eggs does not make a balanced diet for any dog... I don't trust and wouldn't feed the cheap stuff, but I also would not feed bacon and eggs to my dogs, they get a nice, healthy, raw diet.
Please, if your dog is not pregnant and doesn't deliver, please do not breed her in this manner... keep her as a beloved pet, which is all she should be to you -- or any of us who do not spend the time and money to show and to learn what all is involved in breeding good quality dogs.
Thank God.. please don’t breed her like this again.
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