[krittercrazy]

Of the herding breeds, I will take the border collie as an example. You have this great livestock guardian. You breed her with another good example of a livestock guard dog. They have on average, say, six puppies per litter. How many of those six will be good livestock guard dogs. One, maybe two. What happens with the remaining four to five puppies? You can bet that 99% of them are going to homes as pets unspayed/unneutered. Or they are being dropped at the shelter. Or worse yet they are dumped on the side of the road somewhere to fend for themselves and if they survive, breed some more. Now the ones that are sent out unaltered into homes, a pecentage of those are getting bred because 1- someone thinks they can make money off of them, 2- can't afford/be bothered to get them altered, or 3- they are being rehomed already pregnant. Now you might get a few great dog owners that will get their new dog altered and trained to be a great pet.
The ones at the shelter are getting altered and found hopefully good homes or being ethanized. The ones getting dumped on the side of the road really needs no explanation. You take this one example and multiply it by the number of litters that one dog has in her lifetime. It boggles the mind, not even taking into acount her offsprings litters.

I know that these scenarios are true. Where I live there are a large number of herding dogs in the area. One veterinarian that I went to for a while bred border collies for his sheep. I don't care how good or responsible a breeder a person is or is trying to be. You have to breed a lot of dogs in order to get a few that qualify for what ever standard you are trying to reach. This is a fact!
I have found in the woods two puppies tied together dead because they went around a tree on opposite sides and couldn't figure out how to get free. And I know for a fact that they were dumped by the "best" breeders of working border collies in the area. My father brought home another border collie from this same breeder that had been left out in the freezing cold. She was actually frozen to the ground. Why was she left out? Because she didn't show the promise of being a good sheep dog. Neighbors got another collie from him as a "pet" because supposedly she couldn't get pregnant. Well she got pregnant repeatedly with the neighbors. She got pregnant twice a year having four to ten puppies that they convinced other to take and when they could sold for $50 apeace. Most of the time she was impregnated by her son. The dog was never vetted, fed crappy food (in fact had to hunt for most of her food) and bred repeatedly.

You go into a shelter in the area you will see predominantly pitt bulls /mix, hounds/mix and herding breeds/mixes. More recently with the rise of puppy mills and back yard breeders you are seeing the smaller dogs and "designer" breeds.

Do you think that the breeder cares that these things happen to the dogs born without the strong natural herding instincts?
What about you, do care that these things happen in order for you to get the dog with the "natural instincts bred into them"? How many of the puppies just born to you will have these natural instincts so that you or others will not have to work so hard on training? According to the breeders/trainers they show their "worth" before they are even weaned.

Is the suffering of the many worth gaining the few?

I had read your thread on your puppies and chose to not make a comment then as I usually prefer to leave each to their own. It is your right to buy a dog for work or pet. That is your business. However, you chose to bring the conversation over to a thread I had started and make it seem like breeding is not only a good thing, but an absolute necessity. I do not believe that. There are other ways of protecting your herd. Fencing with woven wire is one. It is what I use. Anything likely to get past that is likely to take out your border collies along with your herd. (A neighbor lost all thier chickens to a bobcat. I have seen bear in the area. Cougars have been spotted in the area. Coyotes usually travel in pack and often have domesticated dogs included.) I can tell you that neither fence nor dog is going to matter to these preditors)