[VoodooJoint]

With dog breeding a breeder is not truly considered "responsible" unless they also do rescue. It's "easier" for dog breeders because they have the rescues they take in spayed/neutered and usually have a waiting list for people waiting for puppies they bred and sometimes those people are willing to take a rescue instead.

Small animal breeder/rescuers normally don't have their rescues spayed/neutered, do not do adequate home checks and sometimes even add the rescued pigs to their breeding program.

I know a few dog breeders that I would actually deem responsible. They only breed about one liter every year or three (and spend a lot of time truly considering and researching the outcome of their breeding choice) and take in more rescues that they vet treat and spay/neuter then pups they breed. They also spay/neuter all non-show quality pups and only sell show quality (if they sell them at all) to truly responsible and knowledgeable people that will actively show the dog to see if it's a good representation of it's breed as well as get all the health checks before they even consider the possibility of breeding it.

I know of no small animal breeders that take these amounts of precautions to insure that unsuitable animals are not bred and few that do any kind of adequate home check. Most often they sell to anyone who shows up at their sale bin at shows, at their caviary (shed) or they sell them to petshops.

I'm not saying that I agree with dog breeding. At this time, with all the homeless animals, it all seems rather ridiculous to me but if I have to categorize between responsible/irresponsible I am able to make that call through how the breeder goes about their breeding program.

I have NEVER run across a small animal breeder that met all of the criteria of "responsible".