Skye Terriers going extinct

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Pity is isn’t little yippy dogs. They can’t go extinct fast enough.

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Thankfully we have cockapoos to fill the Skye gap.

Most of these adorable little terrier breeds are ruthless killers bred to kill rats and flush rabbits out of brush piles.

I did find the discussion of “turnspit dogs” quite interesting.

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The problem with little yippy dogs isn’t specifically the breeds, but a) the faddish quality of toy breeds feeding into b) a less than serious and responsible attitude toward dog ownership.

I’ve seen well-trained small dogs; the first training class I took my big shepherd to was about 2/3rds small breeds, and the owners took things seriously.

But in the great wilds of the parks and streets, there seem to be far too many owners whose attitude is “Oh, I can pick him up if it looks like he is getting into trouble.” Which doesn’t help if they’re at the end of a 20’ leash and doesn’t give the dog the poise and confidence not to fucking lunge and bark at every goddamn thing they see.

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I adopted a pretty rare breed, a sub-category of Belgian shepherd called a Groenendael:

She’s almost certainly a mix, thank goodness, because full Belgian sheepdogs are high-energy working animals. Not as insanely workaholic as a border collie, but up there. I don’t think I could have kept her if she turned out to be that energetic.

The futures of breeds like that are iffy. Either they’ll get bred into showy, dim, inbred pet-quality dogs (Border collies seem to be heading that way) or people will stop breeding them.

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