Missing the Story, Thanks to Misdirection

Over at CRUFFA, on Facebook, a poster pinned up the picture, below, of a Bernese Mountain Dog with hip dysplasia. The poster copied in “explainer text” from another page:

“These x-rays were just posted of a Bernese Mountain Dog who has come into rescue from a doodle breeding program. For those of you who aren't familiar with x-rays, this is extreme hip dysplasia. There should be sockets holding her legs in place. This is the mother of bernedoodle puppies. Do you think her ‘breeder’ cared until she was in too much pain to keep breeding, at which time she was dumped? This is a hereditary condition. THIS is why it's important to support ethical breeders.”

Did you see it?

See what?

The misdirection. 

 This x-ray is NOT of a “doodle”; it’s an x-ray of a pure bred Bernese Mountain dog created by a pure bred breeder.

Read that last sentence again.

But there’s more.

You see, hip dysplasia is far less likely to kill a Bernese Mountain Dog than cancer.

“Ethical” breeders have fugged up the Bernese Mountain Dog through inbreeding to the point that 55 percent of these dogs die from cancer.

Bernese Mountain Dogs are four-legged cancer bombs, and there is no “health test” for cancer.

The cure here is outcrossing, and since Bernese Mountain Dogs are merely arm-candy pets, there’s no performance reason *not* to outcross except for the desire of quick cash for Kennel Club-registerable puppies.

As for OFA testing for hip dysplasia, let’s not kid ourselves too much. OFA has been scoring hips for 60 years and hip scores are now as bad or worse than they have ever been. OFA hip scores are border-line quackery, with OFA giving "excellent," "good," and "fair" hip scores to a LOT dogs with real hip problems. In fact, it appears they are doing it nearly all the time.

So does this particular dog have hip dysplasia? Oh certainly.

But that dysplasia was passed down by Kennel Club pedigree parents who may have been ranked as having “excellent," "good," or "fair" hips by OFA.

And the jaw-dropping chance of cancer? That comes with the Bernese Mountain Dog papers provided by Kennel Club breeders. 

So pardon me if I don’t jump on the doodle-bashing bandwagon, or salute the notion that “testing” by “ethical breeders” is curative.

You want a cure for a lot of what’s wrong in dogs?

Simple: outcross.

Does that mean every outcross will be health problem-free?

Nope.

But huge volumes of insurance company data definitively shows that mixed breeds are healthier, on average, than pure breeds. That simple truth is an indictment of pure bred dog breeders collectively, if not individually.