[Plantoid]

I have a friend who has bred a litter of labradoodles.  Both parents have had their respective health checks - she has the Lab Mum and she has a low hip score, and has her elbows x-rayed, and eyes checked every two years as required.  Her pal has the poodle sire and he has had the same. They are now 5 months old and she has reduced the price from £700 gradually down to £350, and as she still has 5 left out of the six she is at the stage of taking any offers just so they can have a home.  She is very conscientious and anyone who calls saying they have an allergy and want a LD she asks them to sit in their car with a  puppy for half an hour and if they have any reaction they don't get a pup.  That's probably why she still has them.  Hopefully another friend of mine is going to have one as they will be ideal shooting companions.

Here is the KC list if anyone wants to check what is necessary
http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/download/1100/abshealthreqs.pdf

 More likely that folks don't have the dosh to feed them & look after them .. there is a massive  desserted dog prob at present due to the depresion/recession & unemployment.

[SallyintNorth]

Plantoid I am so sorry to hear of Merle's plight. 

It's a cautionary tale.  Always try a stay of a night or two in a new kennels before leaving your pet for a longer stay. 

I don't know if you have ever left Merle in kennels before, but what you describe sounds like pining and displacement activity, pure and simple.  He's been distraught at being left in kennels (I'm sorry if this is hard to hear) and has chewed his legs and paced and jumped until his nails have been worn right down.  His weight loss is most likely a combination of incessent pacing and jumping and not eating due to pining.  The bare elbows are likely to be from lying on cement with insufficient bedding underneath him - perhaps he lay at the door and not on the bedding you took in for him, I don't know.

No question the kennel staff should have realised he was struggling and done something to help - and you must tell them how upset and angry you are at the state your dog was in and their lack of reaction to it.

If you need to leave Merle again, would it be possible to have him stay with a friend, preferably one with another dog he likes?  If not, you will need to build up his confidence in kennels slowly with short stays.  Other options - some people do house- and pet-sitting, or a local friend maybe would stay at your home with him?  Some people do 'kennelling' where the dog lives in their home with them and is treated like their own family pet. 

Another thing that might help is to have another dog as a companion for Merle, then you can kennel them both together and they won't feel so abandoned if they have each other.

[Plantoid]

Hi Sal,
 Thanks for your input .. there was no vacancies to try a trial session .

 I've done the  kennelled with good friends who had two dogs ..
Never again ....so many fleas , sores / infected flea bite despite me frontlining her the day before kennelling , she also and dog infected bites off their animals , plus the 30 kg of food that should have lasted two months was all gone .. our goldie had shot up from 27.5 kg to 38 kg in seven weeks , she cringed & wimpered when I picked up my copy of The Times .... all due to " My best friends " of 12 years .

 I  also did a specialist gundog kennelling with her .. the kennel pen was almost solid with crap when we returned five days early , her feed bowl was crusted with gunge and her coat was full of fleas and dog muck.

 Though I did find a good guy who I used to go shooting with  ,he treated her like she was his own dog , she slept bybhis bed.
When we went to pick her up after four weeks  she was non plussed as to who she went with after her initial greeting us.

 Re Merle ,
I talked at length with the vet and they said that  in their mind he was only getting a poor maint. ration . He drank  a bowl of water and wolfed  a first return meal .. she said that for him to be in the kennel so long he would have adjusted cats are different and would starve .

I forgot to say he has been a leg licker from day one  ,  he always pulls his bedding out of any bed box then  lays his chest on it and chewes it to bits . Yet his bedding was on top of the pen and still fully complete instead of being in tatters as I would have expected .

 We sat and weighed up the likely costs of trying to get the kennel sorted out and a county court refund/compensation but realised that it would cost us a fortune with no real chance of success .
Those kennel people also know where we live  so we came to the conclusion not was just not worth it..

 The best thing we  can do is tell as many people as we can what weight he went in and what weight he came out if they are looking for a kennel & let them make their own decisions , sound in the knowledge that if you reccommend something as good  you'll tell around four people  and they will make the knowledge base spread to around 30 people , yet if you have a problem you tell over 12 people and the base now expands to well over 300 people .

[helskitchen]

We have a farm bred collie springer cross, she was from the farmers gun dog and sheepdog!  They had bred a couple of these litters over the years as the pups turned out to be excellent pets.  Ours is wonderful, despite when I brought her home being told by everyone I know that I had made a mistake and she would be impossible - she is the best family dog I think I could have!!  Our son has ADHD and she has the energy to cope with him and charges around with him all day long and never seems to get tired, but is also very loyal and protective of us all and and other animals.

We also have a KC registered Newfoundland, who is also a much loved family pet and although is very clumsy, messy, and a bit naughty at times is just as brilliant!  She has different strengths, her size and loud deep bark warns off any intruders and she is so loving and caring with us, especially our son.

I think it all depends on what you want a dog for, I think there are good and bad people involved in pedigree breeding and also in mongrel breeding and I don't think it is right to say all pedigree breeders are wrong or all mongrel or traditional breeders are wrong.

The farmer we got our girl from charged only £90 for her, the Newfy cost us £900 from a pedigree breeder.  They both bred for completely different reasons, the farmer just because he had 2 lovely dogs who had a track record of producing brilliant family pets although not pure breds and the pedigree breeder had an interest in Newfoundlands and St Bernards.  Other breeders at the time were charging £1500-£2000 for a black and white Newfy pup like ours.

We were quite annoyed at one point, when the Newfy was 6 months or so old we took her to a large country show which just happened to be holding a large dog show, and we thought it would be a good idea to take her round as part of her socialisation.  We got to the part of the show where they were showing the Newfies and were delighted to see so many!  Soon after we arrived we were surrounded by people prodding her, inspecting her teeth and feet and demanding to know her pedigree.  They were falling over each other to get to us first.  After repeating to them that she was just a family pet upteen times and telling people 'no we wont take a deposit for her first pup' we had had enough.  After one chap demanded 'whats it out of?' i replied 'SHE came out of another dog!'  These people also completely ignored our other dog, one person even shoving her out the way so she could get to the Newfy. We vacated quite quickly as we were telling these people to leave them both alone and our tempers were getting quite short!  Some of the pedigree breeders do see them as objects, and not as a living breathing creature who just wants to please.

What really annoys me is the lack of control over people keeping dogs, I think that is the problem.  All of the dog rescue places are full of poor staffies etc that have been used by thugs to threaten people which has ruined the reputation of a breed which are also great family dogs.  Also these designer handbag dogs, these silly airheads who have them as an accessory then want to change them as regularly as the new fashion dictates as if they were a pair of shoes or a bag.

That is what needs sorting out, whether you want a specific breed or a mutt, it doesnt matter, but some sort of control needs to be put in place to stop so many unwanted dogs being bred in the first place.

GGrrr rant over now, we all love dogs on here it seems, we shouldnt be having a go at each other just because we all like something different!  I personally dont want a short haired dog and I like bigger types, but I will still cuddle anything who wants to give me a big slobbery licky cuddle

[Sylvia]

I have followed this thread with interest and wasn't going to throw my two-pennorth into the ring but, Berkshire Boy, how many of the K.C. commitee have you met?
Alvic, I have kept show Greyhounds for a few number of years and can tell you they were never originally bred to race, but for hunting, much as a Deerhound was and only when people started racing them were they scaled down to be "nippier" and quicker on the turn. I like both types but would like to see more legislation in breeding racers (but that's another discussion!)

My girls wouldn't win a race, granted, but they would hunt all day AND come back with something for the pot!

[Sylvia]

On a lighter note I have a pug bitch in full season and a whippet stud dog who KNOWS IT!!! Should I breed them what would I call the pups? Whuggets, Pippets? And who will part with, say, £800 a pup
(Seriously, some folk would!)
And, talking of indiscriminate breeding, I know of someone who bought a breed of toy dog, had her mated, kept two pups, a dog and a bitch, then mated both bitches, the dog pup to his mother and sister every time they came into season and sold the pups, obviously not K.C. registered for £600 each.
This is not against the law as neither is anyone letting their bitch out to breed indiscriminately with whatever dog comes along, but it is ill-advised and, unfortunately the K.C. have no jurisdiction here.