Ethical Breeders

So was reading this article 

http://www.dogster.com/lifestyle/ethical-dog-breeder-misnomer-what-it-means-german-shepherds

And just felt like asking what you all thought? 

I belive that there are many ethical breeders, as well as unethical ones.

I dont believe that there is a "pet overpopulation" honestly. Many people are looking for pets every day, its estimated to be at least twice as many people are looking, compaired to the animals in shelters avaialable. Many shelters dont actually have adoption programs, and are only going on reclaim. Of course many shelters and rescues adopt out animals and can be quite successful with it. In my area, we have many ethical breeders and we have many amature breeders (not to mention the puppy mills we havent found yet and back yard breeders) but our local shelters manage to adopt out about 98% of all the dogs and cats brought in (I did a massive project on our district shelters for Stat, I went through all the numbers dearies!) For more reading about this heres a couple articles and stuff about it

• http://dogtime.com/the-no-kill-newsletter-pet-overpopulation-is-a-myth.html
• http://www.nathanwinograd.com/?p=1390
• http://yesbiscuit.wordpress.com/2012/06/10/the-biggest-animal-welfare-myth-in-the-south/
• http://www.animalarkshelter.org/animal/ArkArticles.nsf/ViewArticle?OpenForm&Photo=921F06A906BB0425862578E6006912DF
• I'll add more eventually.. haha

Of course, Its always a wonderful idea to rescue a shelter animal, you save a life, its economical, you can find pure-bred animals as well as cross, depending on where you go you can get info about the indavidual animals history, and how can you say no to those loving faces? Totally worth it!

On the otherhand, its perfectly alright to adopt from a breeder as well. I'm one of those people that likes toknow what I'm getting into, and many shelters dont lable the dogs possible breed(s) accuratly all the time, particularly with puppies. And Its nice knowing if your animal is suseptable to certain illnesses and stuff, with a more clear idea on the indaviduals health. And lets not even get into potential temperments. In otherwords, people are more sure of what they are getting if they get it from an ethical breeder.

But heres the thing. What makes a breeder ethical? And thats what I want to hear from you guys!

Personally for me.. and ethical breeder would:

• Focus on health and mental stability first
• Have the means to care for pups as long as it takes to get them a home
• Be willing to take animals back for any reason
• All pups entered into one of two contracts, 1) A Spay/Neuter contract. where pups will be altered by a certain age. Or 2) dogs sold to other breeders will have some breeding requirment agreement. Like the dog has to title in some sort of cometition, or work feild (from conformation, to doggy sports, and K9 unit type stuff, you know?) agreed certain amount of time between breedings, full screening on them and all that good stuff(for both parents) to ensure that the pups produced will be a benefit to the overall breed population.
• Inbreeding kept to a minimum. This is more a personal thing really. I've studied genetics, focusing on diseases, and, for those of you that might not know, inbreeding can cause mutaions to be exressed even more than in the dog that had the original mutation. Personally I'm not willing to risk the health of unborn pups like that, though all/most purebreds are inbred to an extent I'm sure. I persoanally want to keep it down to a minimal. 
• Breeding dogs are fully screened
• Well fare of the dogs comes before their ability to breed. 
• Animals are taken care of and are up to date on shots and check ups and all that fun stuff

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