Cats and Dogs Vets

Just a heads up for those that use "Cats & Dogs" vets in Bagacay, in case anyone is not aware, They are moving Tomorrow 15th September to San Jose Extension off Larena Drive. It is a Pink Complex on the right just before the Memorial Park

 

I had a miniature pinscher with PI Kennel Club papers that I always had to take to the vet for injections and buying the best food for 8 years. High maintenance cost a lot. Sadly, he died from poisoning.
So now we have 2 local dogs, never been to the vet (rabies shots at municipal clinic), will eat table scraps, never want to come in the house, and don’t cost be a peso. Great (maybe too great) watchdogs.

 

@Jack Peterson, thank you for the info.
@PatO, absolutely agree! I have had 3 or more pure breed that cost 5figures on our monthly budget. After our 12yrs old Bullmastiff passed away 5 months ago. Our tidy lil mutt take over the radar-a 1 yr old local dog behaving purrfectly without mistakes! No dramas! All shoes and furniture are still in purrfect condition. She's the satellite antenna of the property commanding a 3 yr old Blonde(mix bullmastif and doberman) and 4 Ninja cats. Best dog ever and very low maintenance even better than a Wife)

 

And non-pedigrees are often so much tougher and longer-lived due to hybrid vigour. Some pedigrees are so in-bred they have a bad start from the moment of conception.

 

The great debate about purebred and mutts. If you surf the internet the opinions are quite strong for both ends and quite passionate in many cases.

As dog lovers we have both mutts and purebred dogs. I have 2 whose mother is half Belgian Malinois and half Dalmatian (came from pups we had before) and father seems to be quite the mix and a smaller dog (still impressed that he got her knocked up). Those pups came from a good friend who got the mom from us years ago. Great dogs; the male (fixed) shows more looks and traits of the mother while the female seems to have the super short coat and coloration of the father and being quite a bit smaller.

We also have a smaller mutt that I was told the mother was a Japanese spitz mix...she looks like a slightly larger Chihuahua to me. Who knows for sure, but she is a little sweetheart.

The decision for a purebred dogs is for a number of reasons in my opinion; you really like that breed and/or you plan to breed them. If anyone has read my posts can probably figure out we are huge fans of the Belgian Malinois. They are a great family pet; protective, loyal and can be intimidating to folks that may be thinking of going where they should not be. The wife also wanted to breed them; we actually have a litter that she is working on sorting out the PCCI paperwork (everything goes to the PCCI office in Manila) before she lists them for their next families.

We also have a purebred PCCI papered Siberian Husky...the plan was to maybe later breed her to another papered Husky; but best laid plans....even after all assurances from the lovely wife that she would be kept away from our Belgian male when in heat she had 3 pups early this morning. The wife did not even suspect she was pregnant until she starting acting weird last night. A bit disappointed as that was not the plan, but it is what it is. That Belgian of ours has now fathered 3 litters...I'll have to advertise him later as a stud.

I've also purchased a Papillon puppy here in Korea to keep me company and eventually find his way to the Philippines. I'm working on getting his purebred paperwork; hoping like hell that it will be accepted by the PCCI because the wife's plan later will be to enter him into the various dog shows and they need to be registered with the PCCI. Beautiful breed and really fits the micro living here in Korea; his 2nd vet visit since I've had him he was up to 1.1 kilo.

The other debate is nature vs. nurture; I believe dogs are inherently good and want to serve their humans and raised correctly they can all be good dogs. Obviously, they have been bred over thousands of years so those traits need to be taken into account when you decide on bringing a dog into your home as well as the parents traits and how they've been socialized as pups from the beginning.

Sorry for the long post but I find this an interesting topic to discuss.

Shawn

 

I agree - the case is that if you want the special characteristics of a particular pure breed, then go for it. If you just want 'a dog' (no rude comments Mr W) then a mongrel has advantages in the hybrid vigour aspect. I have known friends with large-size pure breeds and they seem to have short life-spans. Any experience of that yourself?

 

Will I get into trouble if I comment?

 

There are 10.000 of different breeds of dogs and then all the cross. Some breeders spoil the dogs' health to get a look where they can score high points in shows, an example makes the dogs nose shorter, which has given breath problems for that race. Normal pure breed lives longer, common sense, upper-class live longer than the homeless, more healthy, of course, there are always exceptions. I'm an animal lover and train German and Belgian shepherd many years on a high level. What many people don't know there are show dogs and working dogs in both the German and Belgian shepherd race, mentality can be like 2 different races. There are no or at least under 2 % of show dogs in police or army, their job is to look good and that their anatomy is so close to ideal as possible. Working dogs are my favorites no matter of breed, I like dogs with special skills which have a purpose, looks are not that important here. Dogs are individuals like the human race, the dogs' personality can vary a lot even it's the same breed. I can talk in days about dogs best stop now haha, I have an askal now, a young female under 1 year old delivered 6 puppies on my terrace and left, to young to know how to take care of them I guess. My gf start feed them with milk in bottles and there was too many for her 2 hands, of course, I get involved and keep one of them, my plan was to find a German or Belgian shepherd later. A funny experience was there was no problem to find families/people who want a puppy because they were fat haha it's a no go in Europe

 

Breeding is nature - standard of living is nurture. If a dog has bad genes (usually recessive genes from inbreeding) then all the best care in the world may not aid its survival.

 

I agree 100%; bad breeding can result in dogs with social and health issues that no matter the love or vet visits can take care of.

A good example of nurture, using a local dog in the Philippines as an example; say you are given/adopt a local dog, you make sure she has all shots, deworming, tick/flea medicine, fed a quality food (debatable on what is quality), a family pet that is part of the human's life and well socialized with various people to include children and other pets. Now you run across one of the littermates that were ignored, fed fishheads and rice (plus whatever it could scrounge from garbage or such), was never petted...you see where I'm going. Now these 2 dogs are related but are really different dogs.

I personally find both purebred and mutts to be fine dogs, depending on what you are looking for. Purebred dogs were from extensive breeding of various dogs to get what was desired; many times inbred to get those traits.

Since dogs have been bred for those thousands of years to have different traits that were useful they have ended up very different in the obvious things such as size, color, temperament, working ability, lap dogs, show dogs, agility dogs...the list goes on.

Folks have bred purebred dogs, by plan or by accident to other purebred dogs; this does not mean they know what they are getting in the pups. Obviously if the dogs have similar size and temperament you can have a bit of an idea what the mixed pups will have a tendency for (if both breeds love to dig your yard the pups probably will as well).

For me personally I now have three pups from my Siberian Husky fathered by my Belgian Malinois; very different breeds in my opinion. A Siberian loves to meet everyone that stops by the house, the Belgian wants to meet you only if the family is OK with it. Our Belgian is on constant guard duty with various posts set up and will let us know with some extreme barking if any goat, cow or noisy motor bike happens to pass by, the Siberian will try her best to talk to you in her own language and howl when she thinks no one is listening to her.

Those two breeds have been crossed before so there is some info about that but it will be a month or more before we start getting an idea on what the pups are going to be. Cute pups from the pics I've seen, interesting coloration. I'll see them next week when I get home.

Cool that most folks posted are good with mutts; I hope more people adopt a dog and give it a better life than it would normally have...plus neutering and most shots are free for your pets from the city vet.

Shawn