Stop Killing Innocent Puppies! Petition

[BikeWriter]

To the President of the Dalmatian Club of America: Dr. Charles Garvin. On your website you warn people that 12% of all Dalmatians are born deaf and should be euthanised and that: "Too many children have faced the plastic surgeon's knife after innocently touching a sleeping, deaf dog... a dog which in every other way was the most perfect pet imaginable. DEAF DOGS ARE POTENTIALLY VERY DANGEROUS."

When questioned about this, Dr. Garvin, you defended the continued breeding and killing of one in eight Dalmatian puppys (thousands in a year) for the protection of children and the "betterment of the Dalmatian breed." We feel this practice is unethical, immoral, and illogical when the end result is only to perfect a companion dog.
http://www.petitiononline.com/skip/petition.html

[Xithras]

1. Deaf puppies ARE dangerous

I agree that it sucks to put them down, but what to you advocate be done with them otherwise? Dogs that are born deaf nearly always bite, are extremely difficult to train, and otherwise make poor pets.

The proposal to ban the breeding of dalmations until a "dna test" is available is silly, and would simply lead to the extinction of the dalmation line. Dalmation deafness is caused by a combination of genes from both parent dogs, and you can no more test for it than you can test two human parents to determine a childs eye color.

[BikeWriter]

2. So you believe they should just go on breeding and killing them?

Most of them do it just to make a buck!

[Xithras]

3. Do you believe that dalmatians should go extinct?

Dogs exist today because our ancestors took wild wolves and bred out the features that were incompatible with domestication. "Bred out" means that you cull the ones that display the undesirable traits, and only allow the desirable ones to breed. Do this long enough and the undesirable traits disappear completely.

Dalmatian breeders basically have two choices today, they can allow the entire breed to die off, or they can keep breeding them and culling the dogs with the flawed genes until the deafness vanishes. There is no happy ending to this question, and which side you fall on really depends on how much you like dalmatians. Personally, I like dalmatians and think that it would be a great loss for them to die out completely.

[BikeWriter]

5. Fully healthy Dals can still can have the deaf gene!

They should neuter every dog that has a deaf puppy, but they won't do it. They keep on killing puppies!

[Xithras]

10. I'll agree with that

And I'd support a petition that advocated as much. This one, however, essentially advocates the extinction of the breed, which I do not support.

The Dalmation breeders need to change their tactics to get rid of this, but killing them all off isn't the answer.

[BikeWriter]

12. Do you really think they'd let the gene..

...die out? Heck no, but if every kid knew for every seven puppies sold one was murdered, it would danged sure slow down the buying!

[BikeWriter]

6. So because they're pretty makes it okay to kill one in eight?

:-(

[Pithlet]

7. They wouldn't go extinct

Even if over 99% of the breeders in business stopped breading them. For a breeder to continue to breed them, knowing they'll have to kill some of the puppies just so they can make a buck is highly unethical.

[BikeWriter]

8. Right on, Pithlet! Thanks for your help.

The foundation stock for the Dalmation "breed" is the wolf, as it is in all domestic dogs. Just as the white leghorn has been bred from wild jungle fowl. There would be no loss to diversity in nature were they to be extinct, because they are unnatural to begin with and could not survive in the wild. A small breeding stock could be maintained until a genetic solution could be found.

[Pithlet]

11. Some breeders are disgusting in their attitudes.

Particularly some who breed for show. They insist that those who are not of show quality should be euthanized. Thankfully, not all breeders think like this. Some do it for the love of the animal. I just wish more would think about the consequences of what they do, and pay attention to the overpopulation problem and the millions of dogs and cats that are euthanized every year.

[BikeWriter]

14. I'm with you 100%!

I've bred dogs myself, and all of my breeders were carefully screened, as were my buyers. I gave a lifetime money back warranty on hip dyplacia, eye eutropia, and temperament on every dog! I've never put a puppy down, though I've given some away!

[Pithlet]

15. I couldn't do it.

Because I'd end up with a 100 dogs. I wouldn't be able to sell them.

[BikeWriter]

17. Myself! I couldn't breed them like that!

Then you have to raise them until they're old enough to test, and snuff the deaf ones. No way!

[Xithras]

18. FYI, I used to breed Labs.

Show breeders and puppy mills both tend to exhibit disgusting attitudes towards the dogs, seeing them as trophies or profit rather than loving animals. People who euthanize animals simply because they don't meet some judges definition of "perfect" should be arrested, IMO.

For what it's worth, I never sold show dogs and all of my puppies were spayed and neutered before they were ever sold. Many breeders DO take their responsibilities seriously, and I'd even venture that most of them do it out of love for the animal. The bad ones, while a minority, are still large in number and tend to garner all of the press, giving those who actually care about the breeds a bad name.

I quit breeding several years ago because I really don't have time to do it anymore, but plan on getting back into the business when I retire.

[Pithlet]

19. I didn't intend the remarks about breeders

to be about anyone in this thread. I just think that the attitudes behind the statements in the OP are very much like those types of breeders you mention. I'm just appalled at the statements from the breeder the OP was talking about. Breeding dalmations despite these problems, and then just killing off the ones who are deaf is just awful.

[BikeWriter]

22. You would cringe if you read the e-mail I got from Dr. Garvin!

... It reminded me of Dr. Josef Mengele, the Nazi's Auschwitz Angel of
Death! The man is on a mission...

[BikeWriter]

20. Would you have bred any dog with a gene you knew was fatal?

Why should every member of the Dal Club?

[Xithras]

13. Here's the problem with that.

The odds of ever completely eradicating the genes are little better than zero, but with testing and proper breeding the numbers can probably be driven down into the sub 5% range. If you reduce the overall number of dalmations, however, you'll end up creating a genetic bottleneck that could potentially allow the gene to reemerge among the bottlenecks descendants down the line (since they all would carry the same DNA). To prevent its reoccurence, you'd be better off weeding the gene out of a larger starting population so that the increased genetic diversity of the resulting population can prevent the gene from re-expressing itself.

[BikeWriter]

16. So tens of thousands are murdered every year...

...other deaf ones are run over, or killed after they bite or make someone's life miserable because they are difficult to train. That's not okay with me!

[Pithlet]

21. I agree

But that doesn't sound like what the breeder in question was suggesting. I honestly don't think that all Dalmatian breeders are just going to suddenly stop breeding them, anyway. That will never happen. But, knowing what they do, they should do everything in their power to eradicate that gene instead of just breeding and killing as part of doing business.

I do think that careless overbreeding and the creation of new exotic breeds over the years is what causes a lot of these genetic problems.

[BikeWriter]

23. They pandered to the market created by the movies, too!

To raise 101 Dalmatians 12 or 13 were murdered! The children saw how cute they were and wanted to save them. The breeders upped their production, killing every eighth. The dogs were raised, and the families found they need to be worked, or they can destroy furniture, tear up the grass, and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

[BikeWriter]

4. Why breed for spotted dogs when 1/8 of them are murdered?

It really sucks to kill a six to eight week old puppy because you selfishly bred for it!

[BikeWriter]

9. "Deaf puppies ARE dangerous" Granted! There are some who are not killed...

...and do eventually bite children. Why breed for them at all?

[BikeWriter]

24. Dr. Strain's table showing the percentages of deafness.

Dr. Strain often works officially with and for the Dalmatian Club. This table shows a comparison between Dalmatians and other dog's percentage of deafness. The Catahoula Leopard Dog is the only one on Dr. Strain's list that is comparable, and he points out the number of them available for testing was too small to be representative.
Even hip dysplasia can be controlled in strains of dogs through careful breeding. Deafness in Dalmatians cannot.
http://www.lsu.edu/deafness/incidenc.htm

[BikeWriter]

25. More from Dr. Strain about deaf Dals.

"I had a breeding colony of 1 deaf dog and 4 deaf bitches that I used in my research. They were delightful animals, but I would not have want them in my home or around my children or those of others. One snapped at one of my sons and another bit the other son. Not all deaf dogs ultimately develop aggressive or anxious personalities, but there is no way to predict which will or will not, and those that do are the ones that attack neighbors or family members. They often end up in animal control centers and/or are put down. Deaf dogs are an incredible challenge to raise and train. It can be done - many quickly learn to respond to hand signals and other indicators such as a flashed porch light or training shock collars set to the lowest intensity. Nevertheless, for the most part they are a disaster waiting to happen. When there are so many Dalmatians available these days, it doesn't make sense to hang on to those with a genetic defect, one that is not immediately life-threatening, but promises so much trouble and pain. Is it fair to the dog to subject it the kind of life it may face, with emotional disturbances and always being startled and frightened? I don't think so."
http://www.lsu.edu/deafness/strain1.html


...and I don't think they should be bred and one in eight killed in the first place! Whose solution is more ethical?