What are YOU doing to alleviate the dog overpopulation crisis?

Question

triggered by another question, everyone with half a brain knows that there's an overpopulation crisis and that thousands of dogs are being put down in shelters every day (both purebreds and mutts). This question is directed to breeders who claim to care so deeply for the dogs and yet contribute to the overpopulation by bringing more and more into the world when there are far more dogs than there are homes for. What are you doing to create balance? Are you taking action against backyard breeders? Are you requiring that all your pups be fixed? Are your purebreds going only to places where they are needed as service dogs? Are you doing other things, a combination? Or are you like most breeders I know who do nothing other than complain and say "it's not my fault" while they contribute to the overpopulation?

Feel free to rant but BEST ANSWER will go only to a BREEDER who is actually doing something sufficient.

Starky: Yahoo Answers is a big place - feel free to start up a new question. But to answer, what I'm doing is adopting - not making more kids.

Anyone who is doing SOMETHING will automatically get a thumbs up from me.

Question for PHOTOMAMA: any idea what the breeder does if you're unable to keep the dog in the future?

response to Fancys_Mamma: That's called social darwinism. Hitler also liked that idea.

Regarding PETA’s extinction campaign: Let’s say this spay/neuter requirement spread to half the states in the US. They’d be getting their dogs from shelters and breeders in other states. With the lack of dog production in the non-breeding states there will be no more shelter dogs in any state. No dogs will be euthanized because there will be enough homes for them. What fuel will PETA have then? None. It wouldn’t go beyond that point. This isn’t the best solution, just showing how ridiculous that extinction idea is. The reason this isn’t the best solution is because even once the crisis is taken care of half the states in the US will still be full of puppymills and backyard breeders. What would be ideal is to fight against backyard breeders and puppymills and eliminate them. But until SOMETHING happens, ANYONE who breeds is contributing to the overpopulation. It’s an undeniable fact which is why those who are TRULY responsible breeders MUST address the overpopulation crisis.

Aaand, not surprisingly- none of the ‘reputable’ breeders on Yahoo Answers are doing a thing other than contribute to the overpopulation and point the finger elsewhere. It’s not me you’re harming, it’s the dogs.

Answer 1

I am not a breeder, so I won't get best answer, but I wanted to say that if the breeders you know aren't making any kind of spay/neuter requirements and are ignoring the pet overpopulation crisis, then you don't know any reputable ones.

I got my cocker from a breeder. The breeder offered a 50 percent refund on the cost of my baby within a year if I would bring the baby back and show him that he had been neutered and was being well cared for. He requested a vet reference, a groomer reference, and 3 personal references before he would even consider selling me a puppy.

He not only offered to pay for a well puppy check up when I picked my baby up, but required it. Within 2 weeks, I had to have my vet fax him the verification that we had been in as well as the bill.

THATS a good breeder.

Answer 2

I, personally, have any dog (and cat) that I adopt fixed, since I'm not a breeder, and the only time I would buy from one (a reputable one) is if I were looking for a specific breed for a specific job, and that would be after checking shelters and rescues. The only time I don't spay/neuter is when I'm raising a Leader Dog for the Blind puppy (we're required not to) for a year. As an employee of a shelter/boarding kennel, we try to get the dogs (and cats) fixed before they're adopted. If someone adopts an intact animal, they are required to sign a form saying that they will get the animal fixed by a certain date (they have to bring the form back), and leave a spay/neuter deposit. When they bring that form back to us with the signature of the vet who performed the surgery, they get the deposit back.
When someone on here is asking where the best place to get a dog is, I really promote shelters and rescues.

Answer 3

I am not a dog breeder and I own three spayed rescue dogs. I don't believe that people that breed purebred dogs need to stop breeding dogs because of irresponsible people that abandon intact dogs or allow their dogs to reproduce without any kind of control.
I support spay and neuter incentives rather than legislation. It can be done and has been done in San Francisco, SPCA, Nathan Winograd. Google it.
If anything is over-populated it is people, and yet I'd offer INCENTIVES vs. LEGISLATION when it comes to efforts to control population. I would opt for EDUCATION and access to birth control.
Following your line of reasoning, if applied to humans, what you are saying is like telling people they shouldn't have children of their own since there are so many starving and orphaned children in the world. Instead people should adopt and fix human babies so there are no more unwanted humans as a possibility.
If people bred their dogs and then demanded all offspring be neutered and spayed, that would mean no more dogs.
Sorry. I don't buy the PETA bible on dogs. If PETA had their way, all APBT's would be bred out of existence. In fact, all purebreds would be and mixed breeds would be too. I guess that would just leave the wolves.

Answer 4

I am not a breeder, but I know a lot of reputable breeders. The one big thing I know they do to prevent their dogs is to have a mandatory take back policy. If someone can't keep a dog they got from the breeder, it MUST go back to the breeder. These good breeders are also very carefully screening potential homes to ensure their breed and a specific puppy will be a good match. The breeder my next Border Collie puppy is coming from this spring requires obedience training to some degree and I had to give my trainers name and contact info to verify that, yes I do train my current dog and yes, I will be training the new puppy as well.

Also, many breeders are active in their breeds rescue and they go around cleaning up the mess that backyard breeders create.

Reputable breeders at the very least, make sure they are not contributing to the problem and most work in rescue to help all they can.

Answer 5

Uh oh. Be prepared to find yourself barraged by those who insist "it is not an overpopulation problem- it is an owner retention problem!".

I don't breed. I don't buy. I volunteer at a local rescue twice a week. Work with sick and injured wildlife once a week. Adopt dogs when I'm looking for one, and am planning to foster in February.

I'm also giving each person in my family money for a sponsor dog for Christmas.

To answer you question, I'm doing all I can do.

Annnd, here come the trolls!

I'm not understand how this is "not an overpopulation crisis" when there are clearly not enough owners willing to take in the dogs. If there is more supply than demand, and the supply is a living creature, that is an overpopulation crisis.

Loki- I understand this, but at the same time, consider the fact that the dogs are in need of a GOOD home. People do not want to give them one. Therefore, there is an overpopulation issue.

Either way, it is the owner's fault and people shouldn't be breeding their common-day dogs.

Answer 6

Those who buy from "backyard breeders" and pet shops are the ones who are contributing to this bad practice. When I was a kid, the only pet dogs anyone had were mutts from the pound. They were great and still are. Both of my dogs I got from our local shelters. They are wonderful. I would never buy from a breeder.

Answer 7

I have three dogs...Two are rescued...All are fixed...We also foster boxers.....My white female came from a breeder that was going to put her down because she was white...I gave the lady 200.00 bucks....She ,s a great dog....I,ve been to a few dog shows...Some of the animals were happy and well taken care of...Some you could tell were,nt real happy...Their was a group of minature collies...I guess they bark alot so the breeder had their vocal cords cut...I really didn,t like that...I,m not a breeder and never will be!!!!

Answer 8

First of all, there is no "overpopulation crisis". So many dogs end up in shelters because they are bought on a whim, by people who didn't research or don't have the patience to train them. Did you know that the number one "reason" people put dogs in shelters is because they're moving? They can't be bothered to find a place that will allow them to take the dog they committed to for life.

If every owner was educated and RESPONSIBLE and didn't treat their dog like a lifeless object, there would be NO CRISIS in shelters.

My dogs have jobs, and the puppies I do sell are sold on a spay/neuter contract. I have also been involved in purebred rescue for about as long as I've been involved in dogs -- certainly since before I bred my first litter.

However, I want you to pay attention to my first two paragraphs, since that is THE POINT, and I don't see why I have to justify anything to you. If this isn't "sufficient", I suppose I'll have to go without those coveted 10 points. LMAO!

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ADD: Shelter Mutt
"I'm not understand how this is "not an overpopulation crisis" when there are clearly not enough owners willing to take in the dogs."

Take a step back and consider how those dogs got into the shelter in the first place -- they HAD homes. They wouldn't be sitting in the shelter waiting for someone to "demand the supply" if their original owners hadn't dumped them there.

Answer 9

I dont breed. period. So I help by not creating more dogs.

Frank there is no such thing as mini collies. they are shetland shepdos and they are a seperate breed. And the breed barks like crazy. Alot of owners need to have it done becuase these dogs were bred to bark and bark and bark

Answer 10

i don't know what to do about the overpopulation problems of not just dogs...but cats too

i do my part by not buying any pets from breeders
i'm a pound puppy/alley cat woman
why buy a new pet friend when i can save a life instead?
take care