A question regarding breeders and longevity

[zardac]

Longevity was a major consideration when we recently adopted our puppy.

Our breeder made no claims or guarantees, and pointed out that one of her dogs had died at 6 years of age, but others had lived long (by mastiff standards) and healthy lives.

Thinking about this later, I concluded there weren't any real incentives for breeders to make longevity a goal.

A propensity toward longevity won't win points in a show ring, and could be viewed as a liability as the dogs age and become simply another mouth to feed.

So, apart from affection for an animal, and human decency and ethics... are there any compelling reasons for breeders to produce long-lived strains of mastiffs?

 

[voidecho]

I would think one of the problems would be that they breed them from 2-5 years of age or so and at that point they don't really know how long they're going to live. Their dogs' parents may only be 4-8 years old when they're breeding so they'd have to go back several generations to try to figure out which lines have the best chance to live the longest.

 

[DennasMom]

There are sooooo many variables to longevity, too.
Genetics is just one piece.
Nutrition, Exercise, Environment, Training, Social Skills, Life Purpose, etc....

We lost our past dogs (both shelter mutts, so unknown genetic factors) to cancers... food/nutrition probably played a big role, but other contributing factors could have been airline travel (for one of them), flea juice (both on dog and in yard), treats, obesity (1st dog was heavy), stress (2nd dog had to deal with a bad-behaving rescue adoptee)... etc.

I'm not sure how you would be able to factor in everything to make a breeding choice for longevity - other than to avoid breeding for short noses, heavy bones, tall dogs, or other "extreme" physical features (which does seem to enter into breeding philosophies too often, in my opinion).

I think if you breed for overall health, longevity would just come along for the ride... assuming the home the pup goes to keeps up on all the other factors to the best of their ability... but even then... sometimes "life just happens".

 

[WalnutCrest]

Tons of variables go into the longevity of any particular animal...

I do believe that some strains are longer-lived than others, and for me, that's something that I consider when finding an outside stud to use in my program.