John Goodwin of the HSUS on why the Wilkes Co Pitbulls, including 19 newborn pups, needed to be summarily killed:
Goodwin said that the dogs have been bred for fighting and it would very difficult and expensive to re-train the dogs, even the puppies, so that they could be adopted.
When I consider this, along with the plethora of similar generalized statements made by Goodwin and the HSUS regarding bust dogs, I realize this is in fact rilly big news that’s slipped under the radar all this time. So listen up:
Stockdog breeders, good news for you! All you have to do to breed a good working pup is to take two decent stockdogs and breed them together. Bam – you’ve got a guaran-damn-teed litter of solid working pups. It’s easy as pie! In fact, unless you have extensive training and financial resources, it will be just about impossible to get any of these pups NOT to work stock so they could just live as someone’s pet. It’s been bred into them and that’s that. If they’re bred for work, they’re a-gonna work and there ain’t no stoppin’ ’em. Now you know.
Same goes for you breeders of service dogs, bird dogs, working terriers – even breeders of companion dogs. This is great news for Chihuahua breeders – just take 2 Chihuahuas that don’t bite and have been trained to have good house manners, breed them together and you’ll get a litter of sweet, well mannered pet pups that will be trustworthy around kids for life!
It’s just so simple, now that we know the innate personality traits and the learned behaviors of the parents are absolutely transferred – by magic like – to the pups. And those traits are so dyed-in-the-fur that you couldn’t realistically expect to mold them – even if’n ya tries.
To think, all these years breeders have been laboring under the many “misleading claims” that each dog is an individual and the behavioral traits of the parents are not necessarily 100% reflective of the temperament you’ll find in the pups. How much time has been wasted focusing on environment, socialization, early experiences, training and the human-canine bond in order to shape desired behavior in dogs. Many of us were under the impression that behavior and genetics were complex issues with all sorts of potential variables involved. I blame the internet – it teached us wrong!