Life With Dogs, whose business model is exploiting animal suffering by aggregating and plagiarizing dog stories that are emotionally manipulative, has come out harshly against dog breeders over a bogus viral dog story.
The story itself originated in Spain and purports to show “rare” green puppies as if this is a newsworthy event. It’s not, the green puppies are actually just stained from the placenta which is a mundane occurrence in dogs. It also has nothing to do with the rather worrisome green that sometimes happens in human birth from meconium. In humans, if there is fetal distress the baby can relax its anal sphincter and poop meconium, which is green, which can stain the skin and cause infections if it is inhaled during birth. In dogs the meconium is not green and it is not the cause of green puppies.
Green is (most often) completely normal in a canine delivery.
A portion of the canine placenta contains a green pigment. This green pigment is called uteroverdine [biliverdin]. When it appears at the vulva, it is a sign of placental separation. It is a signal that a puppy is being born. It is not a bad sign. It is not a sign of fetal distress. It is normal for the color green to appear in the amniotic fluid of the puppy. If a placenta has been held back in the body of the bitch, the uteroverdine may even discolor a subsequent puppy slightly and the boy of the puppy may be slightly green. This is not abnormal. Under almost all circumstances in the dog, green is not a bad sign. The amniotic sac my be quite green in a whelping situation and it is completely normal. The green is simply a by-product of the uteroverdine in the placenta.
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There is one exception. Because seeing green at the opening of the vulva is a signal that a puppy has separated from the placenta, it IS a bad sign if there is a green, pasty looking discharge from the vulva and your bitch is not in labor. If your pregnant bitch is just walking around normally and is not in labor, green discharge means that a puppy has separated from the placenta and there are problems. Call your vet immediately.
– Canine Reproduction and Whelping: A Dog Breeder’s Guide By Myra Savant-Harris
In the case of these Spanish hounds, which are born with very light colored coats, the green is easier to see than on dogs with darker coats. There really is nothing newsworthy about this at all.
But facts never stood in the way of a slow news day and an overwrought dog story to fill space. The secondary headline of the “Two Green Dogs Born in Laguna” story claims “Experts in reproduction on the faculty of the Madrid Veterinary school analysed the case and assure that they have not seen anything like this in Spain.” This is utter stupidity and a clear sign that animal husbandry standards are falling right along with standards in journalism. But of course instead of consulting an actual reproduction specialist, they’re going to send off samples for “viral and bacteriological analysis.”
Since the color is from the natural oxidation of heme, there’s no viral or bacterial component and the appeal to grand mystery is just a tactic to cause confusion and hype a non-story into an eye-ball catcher. And it’s worked, the story from a small online news outlet has gone hugely viral and has been picked up by dozens of “weird news” peddlers like Life With Dogs.
And the stupidity just gets thicker from there. Check this declaration written by Life With Dogs Admin Melanie at the end of the Life With Dogs mostly plagiarized version of the story:
We here at Life With Dogs do NOT encourage breeding while shelter dogs perish. Please spay and neuter your pets, and find real employment of your own.
Great, yet another outlet that does little more than aggregate other people’s content and package it for sale using SEO tactics, combined with snotty anti-breeder rhetoric, just like DogTime. Bleeding heart idiots who can’t seem to comprehend that nothing about dog breeding causes shelter dogs to die, in any way. Dog breeders don’t fill shelters, they sell dogs to people based upon their mutual love of the animals. In fact, the act of buying a dog instead of getting it for free from an oops litter from family or friends is a major factor that will prevent those dogs from ever going into a shelter. So too is taking a dog to a vet, but obviously one more qualified and experienced in the actual life cycle of dogs than the one in the story who thinks a natural part of dog birth is a virus or bacteria.
Equating shelter deaths, which have fallen to new lows (fewer than 1.5% of all dogs per year) as they have for the last 40 years, is a vicious tactic by the animal rights movement who wants no pet animals, no animal breeding at all–equating owning a dog to slavery and eating meat to cannibalism and murder. And such tactics work on stupid and ignorant people as exampled by the comments on the Life For Dogs story:
The comments from their Facebook link were no better. In fact the idiocy is so thick even GMOs were blamed for the tragedy of green puppies. Jonathan Aaron makes the only intelligent comment on the thread save the few knowledgeable people trying to set the record straight on the unremarkable green puppies.
KJ Doyle Damnit. STOP OVERBREEDING.
June 12 at 4:08pmMarissa Carmona Santamaria Omg poor puppies. Something is not right.
June 12 at 4:12pm
Cheri Montminy Dean Wow must be a GMO thing.
June 12 at 4:29pmLetty Whittaker The mother looks malnourished, shame on those breeders!
June 12 at 4:28pmLaura Leigh Tripp I don’t agree with any breeding either just making that clear . Way too many animals are abused neglected and passed away like trash its sickening
June 12 at 4:26pmAshley MacDonald That mama dog does not look good. Hope she got spayed and is saves from having more puppies.
June 12 at 4:34pmNida Magallanes The color is a fault..
June 12 at 4:37pmSuzanne Sharma A mother dog that is so thin….dis disgusting and then also they have to sleep on newspaper?? I would be to ashamed to even post this picture on FB…. sad sad sad humans…..im wondering if your children are also in this condition…..why have a dog if you clearly dont know how to love and care for her…and its not a sif Spain has not got enough stray dogs…why the hell is this dog not spayed….. you make me sick….
June 12 at 4:41pmDebbie Harsh I’d like to know where that Veterinarian got his license….
I’ve seen more commenters on this story knowing exactly where/how the green tint comes from than he did.
That poor dog looks to be in hideous conditions…poor thing has probably been bred too many times. I can’t even tell what kind of dog it’s supposed to be… sad and sick.
June 12 at 4:42pmBlanka Kaiser Jonathan, WTH?? I hope someone convinces this woman to spay her dog and stop breeding. I wholeheartedly agree with the statement…these people should find real employment instead of living off the misery of these dogs! The mother dog in this picture looks miserable. ADOPT, DON’T SHOP!!
June 12 at 4:50pmConnie Wasik Poor mommy must be very ill.
June 12 at 4:54pmApril ‘Skwertle’ Cranfield The mother looks in awful condition , she had been bred far too much I would certainly question her loving conditions poor little girl
June 12 at 4:57pmKathleen Teixeira Mama probably ate poison
June 12 at 5:05pmBeth Bruski put him out in the sunlight. maybe the wrong genetic marker went off, and he has clorophyl (sp?)
June 12 at 5:14pmChelle Courtright My favorite quote of the article, “We here at Life With Dogs do NOT encourage breeding while shelter dogs perish. Please spay and neuter your pets, and find real employment of your own.”
June 12 at 5:23pmRaven Elizabetta That momma dog is abused. Her face and condidtion of her body says everything.
June 12 at 5:40pmBridgette Milway They have abused that dog and obviously put green in its fur the mums nose is green the dog is sad and unhealthy obviously shit owners that have no kindness to animals
June 12 at 5:58pmCynthia Rosa Possibly copper toxicity or poisoning
June 12 at 6:12pmVicki Wolf I LOVE the Life With Dogs statement at the end: ” We here at Life With Dogs do NOT encourage breeding while shelter dogs perish. Please spay and neuter your pets, and find real employment of your own.” I want to send this to all irresponsible breeders!
June 12 at 6:12pmHarriet Amacher I think somebody is messing around where they shouldn’t. Leave experiments in the lab. I don’t mean lab dogs either.
June 12 at 6:35pmPreetha Devayya I hate the concept of’ breeding’ as all the innocent puppies born don’t get home’s with unconditional love which they deserve.The mother of these green pups looks malnourished & stressed out.Life is not all about money & acquisitions only.
June 12 at 9:43pmKenneth Ilaya Hefford put them in the sun and maybe they will undergo photosynthesis
June 12 at 10:04pmMarcella Louise Curtis What made them Green, whatever it was must of made the little girl sick and died
June 13 at 1:13amJonathan Aaron “We here at Life With Dogs do NOT encourage breeding while shelter dogs perish. Please spay and neuter your pets, and find real employment of your own.” – “Real employment”? Like reposting ZERO original content on your blog? Wow, you worked so hard to get paid for some bogus social media-themed job. Jobs don’t just magically appear for the rest of us who don’t have rich, well-connected family.
I’ve only rescued dogs, but this little jab is insulting to everyone, not just breeders, who has struggled or is struggling to obtain employment doing hard work that gives back to society. How many people do you think gave up their dogs because their taxes pay for your parasitism? You’re ignorant if you think most people breed dogs as anything but a hobby. In an ideal world, there would /only/ be dog breeders, because people would raise and obtain dogs responsibly.
You took an innocuous story, and used it as a political soapbox to castigate responsible dog breeders, and everyone who doesn’t have your advantages at getting paid to do next to nothing. Don’t you feel any shame? Some of us get enough whiny politics on Facebook. I don’t need any more from you, unsubscribed.
June 12 at 4:19pmSaskia Madding **Jonathan Aaron** – I think their point is that while SO MANY animals are being euthanized in ALL countries because of a complete overpopulation problem, there really *is* no “responsible breeding”.
***You cannot ethically breed animals as a source of income, in a world where so many are killed or die because they are unwanted.***
It happens a lot – people exploiting animals in order to make money. All you have to do is look at headlines about backyard breeders and small scale puppy millers.
June 12 at 4:23pm
It’s very disappointing that a non-story has been used so effectively to trump up even more unjustified anti-breeder hatred. This blog has hundreds of thousands of words devoted to breeder wrong-doing, but it’s based on facts and science and the sincere belief that by outing the actual corruptions of the culture we can improve it. But stories like these are not helpful. They propagate myths and engender hatred undeservedly, and all because hack outfits like “Life With Dogs” exist to earn ad revenue off any story of mild interest that can be inflated with puffery techniques into becoming a viral kerfuffle and increase ad revenue by getting sheeple to bawwwww and click and share.
It’s disgusting really.
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There was a rare green golden retriever a few years ago. Same thing.
I am surprised how little people know about dog births yet they want to lecture us all about canine reproduction.
The GMO thing made me LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL.
Those comments made my brain bleed.
I want some of whatever these people are taking that makes them psychic. I would like to be able to know everything about a dog and it’s owners just from looking at a picture.
Jess recently posted..Goodbye, Kali
Jess, you have more mental fortitude than I do. I had to stop about halfway through the comments for my sanity’s sake.
I do wonder how they got “abused”, “starved”, “overbred”, and “sad” out of one picture. All I see is an exhausted mother who may or may not be in pain. (In other words, normal)
I bet seeing a light-boned dog was making the pibble mommies freak because the hound’s face is skinnier than those of bullies…
Wow, that is just crazy. In nearly 20 years of raising dogs I have cleaned up more green whelping fluids than I can even remember…and I am a very small scale breeder. It is perfectly normal (though messy…lol) for this. I even remember having my friend over to whelp a couple litters with me (she owned the stud for a few of my litters) and I made pea soup for us (being the smarta$$ that I am) for our dinner along the theme of the whelping green fluids. The soup was great, color-coordinated and gave us all a laugh or 2 between delivering pups.
Unfortunately, for those not experienced with whelping it may seem a scary anomaly and a shame that some would exploit the ignorance of the general public to serve an agenda.
That dog is apparently ‘clearly abused and starved’? What the hell?!
Conditions here are so obvious and the ignorance is a disgrace to Vet professionals to allow this usage. However, what is new. Good Breeders get clumped into the same category. Yes, once whelping a female for a friend in the hospital ran into the green. We C sectioned and all puppies were dead. The green goop was there on many of the puppies, who had likely died weeks or days earlier. It was eventually discovered that this female had Lethal Gray and her puppies were dying before even birth. Never seen it before or since. We use the DNA marker to discover the carriers.
Holy Crap! Someone had better write to the editor!
Had a good laugh at this, you see so much of it on Youtube any subject but particularly anything to do with animals. I don’t know what it’s about but there are certainly a lot of people out there who prefer to remain completely uninformed whilst getting huge satisfaction talking utter codswallop.
A publication catering to their needs “Life With Dogs” no surprises there then.
I just wonder about my own sanity when I eagerly reach for the National Enquirer in the supermarket.
I can’t stand grocery shopping ( I prefer markets etc nicer class of chat) so station myself at the magazine section until its all over. They don’t exactly stock the “Literary Review” but still Im guided unswervingly towards the Enquirer. It makes me laugh out loud that mag it does, I especially like seeing film stars gone to seed shopping at Walmart.
Evolution in reverse.
My grandfather used to say it, and it’s as true as it was back then: “All the fools ain’t dead yet”.
Note, this blog post got pinged back on the original Spanish article. . . .so something is working, sort of.
Love the comment with a pic of their baby as a avatar. I`m sure they wouldn’t like it if they said stop giving birth to more babies while starving children in third world countries need to be adopted. Nope,now that would be politically incorrect to say but makes just about as much sense as the other one.
Actualy Rachel it in fact makes far far more sense than the other one IMO.
Adopting children instead of breeding that is.
Totally agree with this statement. And this post. Yikes…makes my head hurt…
Say, one thing I noticed on the Facebook comments – under the “Lindsay Vest” one that says she is a breeder and also does rescue, it says “unlike”. I’ve never done Facebook, but do people have the option to “unlike” someone’s post? I thought they only had “like” as an option.
Once you Like something you have the option of undoing it (the button changes to Unlike).