Let’s just go on and open a big ole can of worms. Lots of breeders claim they must “retire” their breeding dogs at age 5-6 or whenever they’re done breeding and part of this is giving/selling the dogs to a new home.
Breeders use a lot of fancy language and straw man arguments to defend this practice of dumping animals that are no longer of use to them, so let’s go through that.
1)They deserve to be an only dog now that they’re retired.
Ok, well dogs generally aren’t meant to live alone. They’re pack animals and as such most of them are fine living in a multi dog household.
And if your dog ISN’T fine in a multi dog household that is in and of itself a temperament issue that needs to be addressed in your lines. A farm breed should thrive in a multi dog home.
2)I can’t make any progress with my program if I keep too many
Then don’t make progress. The purpose of owning a dog isn’t to create “a program”. It’s to have a furry family member that you love and cherish. When the “program” becomes more important than the dog, that’s a problem.
3)They deserve to be pampered house dogs.
Why aren’t your breeding dogs living as pampered house dogs to begin with? That’s a welfare issue in your program. Dogs should not be living outdoors unless they’re LGDs. They should be inside with their family.
Stop keeping more dogs to breed than you can provide lifelong care for and stop making up BS to make yourself feel better. A dog is more useful than their sex organs. They still have lots to offer you in their old age. Don’t abandon them. All that does is add fuel to the fire for the Animal Rights crowd and the Adopt-Don’t-Shop Purists. STOP !!!! Provide life long homes to dogs who have given you the best years of their lives. You OWE them. Even if that means your “program” suffers. Even if it means you stop breeding for a while. Do what you have to do to put the dog first and stop lying to yourself that “rehoming them” equates to this. You are simply dumping dogs that aren’t useful to you anymore and there’s no way to sugar coat that. If you were concerned about their welfare in a multi-dog house, you wouldn't have kept them years while you bred them in that environment. You would have rehomed them immediately. You can't say "oh now I care about their happiness, now that I'm done making money off them".
Whatever happened to ONLY breeding when you want to keep a dog for yourself, the way they used to preach was ethical? If you are selling them at 5-6yrs old, you obviously weren’t breeding for a dog to keep. You were breeding for a dog to use.
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