The New York Times reports on an emerging problem of dogs owned by the Indian middle class: Matchmaking in India: Canine Division
"“When a customer goes and buys a dog, 99 percent go for a male, and down the road when they need a mate, they face a problem,” Mr. Chopra said.
He tried his hand at pet matchmaking, linking males and females of the same breeds, but it was simply impossible to find matches. Most of the females remain with breeders, he said, who prefer professional stud dogs. This also helps keep the supply of popular breeds tight — if people cannot breed dogs in their backyard they cannot cut into breeders’ profits."
I was in India a week ago, and Sri Lanka before that, and in both countries (though more so in Sri Lanka) there seemed to be a lot of stray dogs just wandering around. I assume they're closer to 50/50; I also wouldn't be the least bit surprised if wealthy Indians didn't care to mate their dog to a stray.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great if it worked this way in the US too. With any luck it would keep irresponsible/accidental breedings in check and leave the good breeders to their trade. If the price of dogs goes up as a result, so be it.
ReplyDeleteWhatever they do, I hope they don't adopt the same style of huge angry dogs that American's like so much. I just read an article from a Los Angeles dog bite lawyers website and it said that the amount of people being bitten my dogs is up over 30% in the last year.
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