[nq:1]@attbi s71:[/nq] [nq:2]The big difference, Popular sire syndrome exists just, [nq:1]My question,

Judy:

[nq:1]My question, and one that Sandy (surprise!) didn't address, is what does Schnauzer (specifically minis, as that's what we were origially discussing) breed culture dictate? Would a responsible breeder is likely to sell uncropped dogs?[/nq]
I've kind of left this whole discussion but jumping back in (and not as a breeder or much of an expert) just FYI..

Schnauzers, like boxers, can be shown in the US either cropped or with natural ears. I can't tell you if there has ever been a US champion miniature schnauzer with natural ears. I just don't know. I do know that there are many with natural ears that have titled in all performance events. And some of them have come out of show lines.
My previous schnauzer had natural ears - and I do mean "natural" and not the "proper drop" ears. He was adorable and as far as I could tell, his ears seemed to work just fine. The two we have now are cropped - and cropped well enough that conformation people will come up and ask who did them. They are also, of course, adorable. The cropped ears are easier to clipper and to keep plucked and cleaned. Drop ears on schnauzers (like drop ears on most any other breed I've had) do trap some moisture and require more vigilance to avoid infections. But for me, it's a toss-up.

Our breeder (who does show) will not sell a puppy that hasn't been cropped. Her puppies do not leave until after thirteen weeks - and by then they are cropped. She may not have decided yet which puppy (s) she is keeping and won't know for sure until she sees how the ears turn out. Secondly, she doesn't want years later to see one of her puppies (or for them to be seen while carrying her kennel name) with badly cropped ears because they were done by someone else. Thirdly, since she does not breed with the proper drop ears in mind she also doesn't want her dogs out there with bad drop ears.
There are show breeders, responsible breeders, who will sell uncropped dogs. Even if the dogs aren't going to their new homes by cropping time, they may (by prior arrangement) leave a specific puppy uncropped. It is my guess - just from what I have heard by hanging around them - that the default is to crop. They wouldn't leave a puppy uncropped just because it would be one less expense for them. It probably isn't terribly unusual for a pet quality puppy to be sold uncropped if that's what the buyer wants.
There is increasing discussion among the miniature schnauzers breeders about ears. There are some states that are at least considering banning cropping. While the vast majority of schnauzer show breeders would prefer (and I'm not stating that vehemently enough) that schnauzers continue to be cropped, there is some discussion about how it will affect breeding programs if they have to make a change. Since no one (okay, maybe "few") in the US has been breeding with producing a proper drop ear as a priority, if a change is made breeding programs will have to adapt.

And as has been mentioned many times in this thread, you can't change emphasis on one feature without considering how it will possibly affect others in unknown ways. To that end, there has been a fair amount of discussion going on with breeders from the UK about what it takes to produce a proper ear - and even what one looks like. If you haven't been breeding for it or trying to produce it, it may be difficult to look at a four, eight or even a twelve week old puppy and know how it's going to look eventually.
So, the fact that Skansen will sell uncropped dogs isn't, in itself, a red flag. And it only seems fair that if they don't crop your dog that they should/could charge you less.
There are just so many other reasons to be not only concerned but outraged about the Skansen operation.
Judy

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Sandy in OK:

Popular sire syndrome exists just as much in working lines as
[nq:1]in show lines, but it tends to be for more prepotence for work instead of more prepotence for a certain ... much or more inbred than the show dogs. I know breeders who freely breed brother/sister, sire/daughter, etc. in working lines.[/nq]
repeat after me: "in my breed"
."
[nq:1]That's simply untrue. Probably the most successful working doberman breeder in the world never bred on a huge scale and ... The only large-scale breeders of Dobermans in the U.S. are two very well known puppy mills House of Hoytt and Kimbertal.[/nq]
repeat after me: "in my breed"

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Sandy in OK:

[nq:1]@attbi s71:[/nq]
[nq:2]The big difference I see in working lines versus show ... fairly mild but capable of being passed on, or whatever.[/nq]
[nq:1]Boy, this truth should be yelled from the mountaintops. And boy have I heard that particular brand of *** from a few "working line" breeders..of more than one breed. [/nq]
And I know at least as high a percentage of serious working breeders in my breed* who health test as serious show breeders. I also know one breed where they had to change their rules for awarding the prestigious "top producing brood ***" when it was discovered that the winner had gone blind as had her offspring that put her there. *not my breed

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shelly:

[nq:1]repeat after me: "in my breed"[/nq]
This has gone from tragic to surreal. I'm leaving it intact for the sheer bogglement factor.
Sandy: It's infrequent in working dogs that one dog is so influential that everybody rushes to breed to him and then goes about setting type by lining on him.
Melinda: Repeat after me: "In my breed."
Sandy: actually, no,
Robin: Popular sire syndrome exists just as much in working lines as in show lines, but it tends to be for more prepotence for work instead of more prepotence for a certain coat color or length. Under the skin, those working bred lines are often just as much or more inbred than the show dogs. I know breeders who freely breed brother/sister, sire/daughter, etc. in working lines.

Sandy: repeat after me: "in my breed"
Me: Crikey!

Shelly (Warning: see label for details)
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

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shelly:

[nq:1]I've kind of left this whole discussion but jumping back in (and not as a breeder or much of an expert) just FYI..[/nq]
Thank you! I appreciate you taking the time to answer. You've come up with some points I had not considered. Now to digest it all.
[nq:1]So, the fact that Skansen will sell uncropped dogs isn't, in itself, a red flag. And it only seems fair that if they don't crop your dog that they should/could charge you less.[/nq]
Sure. The cropping question (in Schnauzers, anyway) is obviously not cut and dried, which is why I was looking for opinions from folks who are in a position to know more about it. It's a smaller piece of the puzzle than, say, the sheer numbers of dogs being bred by Skansen, breeding solely for color, not health testing, and baffling buyers with ***.
[nq:1]There are just so many other reasons to be not only concerned but outraged about the Skansen operation.[/nq]
Well, yes. So many that it makes my head hurt at the thought of anyone willfully staying blinkered.

Shelly (Warning: see label for details)
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

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Sandy in OK:

[nq:2]actually, no,[/nq]
[nq:1]All right! Parochial ain't just a school. From Diversity and the Purebred Dog by John ArmstrongIn a large, naturally ... that if two individuals compare their recipe collections they will generally not have two copies of the same bad recipe.[/nq]
Loss of Diversity
Suppose we start a new population with only six or eight founders. (A number of breeds have started with that few.) We will get rid of hundreds of bad recipes, but the remaining dozen or two will be encountered much more frequently. Furthermore, if there are several good or excellent recipes, the chance of dropping one of these from the collection grows greater as the number of founders diminishes, and the risk of losing one remains high as long as the effective population size remains low. Working with small numbers will inevitably decrease the diversity, simply because individuals do not pass on their recipes equally to the next generation and some recipes are accidentally lost. This has the superficially desirable result of giving a more reproducible phenotype, but at the expense of an overall reduction in quality, health, and longevity.
If breeders had the ability to recognize each individual recipe and choose only those that were excellent, breeds could be produced with a small number of individuals that lacked genetic problems. However, what we see (the phenotype) is the product of all the recipes and, for the most part, we cannot distinguish the individual recipes. Moreover, we do not have the option of selecting recipes individually. When we select an animal for breeding, we are forced to accept a complete set. Even in those few cases where we now have a DNA test for a bad recipe (allele), we do not possess the ability to correct or selectively discarded it. We are therefore forced to work around it, or to discard the whole collection, with the attendant risk of discarding something excellent along with it.
The common practice of almost everyone rushing to breed to the currently-popular male show champion is probably the most significant factor reducing whatever diversity remains. Consider your own breed (the situation for most breeds is similar). Can you find one or more males that appear in most pedigrees? Almost everyone decides they like the recipes of (insert name) - or at least the ones they can see readily - and abandons other recipes with little thought to the eventual consequences. In a few generations, almost everyone has a substantial number of his recipes, though not necessarily his exceptional ones, and many excellent alternatives are very hard to find. http://www.canine-genetics.com/cake.htm

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Melinda Shore:

[nq:1]Loss of Diversity[/nq]
I'm sorry, Retardie, but while books are an important source of knowledge so is observation. In my* breed, which started from a limited number of dogs in the beginning anyway (imported from Siberia in the early 20th century, then the Bolsheviks destroyed nearly all the remaining dogs as part of a campaign to bring indigenous, nomadic Siberian aboriginals to heel), line breeding and exclusion are common in both working and showing lines. At one show in Philadelphia, about 95% of the dogs showing were descended directly from Monadnock's Pando, many along multiple lines. The Seppala Siberian Sleddog Club, which claims to be exclusively focused on working qualities, rates dogs according to what percentage they're descended from *9 foundation dogs, with at least 93% foundation bloodline required for registration as a purebred.
Four of my dogs, from a racing kennel, have a brother/sister breeding three generations back.
Note that Siberians are one of the healthier breeds.

So basically, I don't give a rat's *** about your citation - it has very little to do with what we were talking about, which is whether or not there are real-life working dog breeders using inbreeding and line breeding. There most certainly are.

Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis - (Email Removed)

Sending more troops into a war is properly called an "escalation."

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Sandy in OK:

[nq:1]I'm sorry, Retardie, but while books are an important source of knowledge so is observation.[/nq]
I'm sorry too. People who start sentences that way just can't be counted on for intelligent or rational conversation.

So basically, I don't give a rat's *** about your citation -

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Melinda Shore:

[nq:1]I'm sorry too. People who start sentences that way just can't be counted on for intelligent or rational conversation.[/nq]
Oddly, neither can people who are incoherent, ignorant, and more interested in appearing correct than in actually being correct.
[nq:1]We've been talking about more than one issue in this long subject, including whether or not a fairly large number is necessary in most breeds to maintain a healthy population.[/nq]
No, actually, "we" have not. You dragged it up to change the subject when you backed yourself into a rhetorical corner.
This is another case where I generally agree with you, or at least arrived at basically the same conclusion that you did, but via a different route - one that involves, you know, facts, and not idiotic blanket assertions about working line dog breeders making different decisions about genetic diversity from those made by show breeders. You refused to modify your blanket assertion to "in my breed," and because of that you are factually incorrect.
However, I also know it's true that when somebody knows what she's doing, she can produce excellent results through the wise/judicious use of line breeding.
Hey! I saw an animal rightsist behind a tree across the road!! Go get 'em!! He's getting away - QUICK!!! To the BATSHITMOBILE!!

Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis - (Email Removed)

Sending more troops into a war is properly called an "escalation."

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RE: "Don't touch my bone" page 34

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