Puppy farm Queenie illustrates a geometric progression

Geometric progressions are sneaky-quick. They guarantee runaway numbers. Here is detailed the potential productivity of Puppy Farm Queenie -- but only if all of her descendants are females. Queenie is on an AKC suggested schedule for brood bitches. All bets are off if even just one of her get's get, even unto the tenth generation, is male because that would necessitate inclusion of undisciplinable formulae. In short, just one stud could throw this demonstration out of control.

	Breeding Females	Semi-Annual Puppy Production	Female only Descendants
Year 1
First year's litter	1	5	5
Year 2
First litter	1	5	10
Second litter	6	30	41
Year 3
First litter	11	56	97
Second litter	42	210	306
Year 4
First litter	98	794	928
Second litter	307	1,550	2,348
Year 5
First litter	799	4,030	6,378
Second litter	2,349	11,847	18,225
Year 6
First litter	6,379	32,176	50,401
Second litter	18,226	91,931	142,332
Year 7
First litter	50,402	254,230	396,561
Second litter	142,333	717,937	1,114,499

What if "Queenie" had been a "King" on a puppy farm -- and liberally used by a number of neighboring puppy farmers? That's a common practice!

The AKC has indicated it can feel reasonably comfortable if typical brood bitches are not bred before their second heat -- and not beyond their seventh year. So, how much genetic harm can one bitch cause on that regimen?

AKC-papered bitches on commercial farms are pushed to maximum production. Let's assume this Queenie carried just one canine genetic disease transmitted as a simple recessive. Approximately half of her pups and a quarter, or 278,625 of her other descendants, could be carriers of the masked fault. It can be seen, also, how just one typical AKC Queenie's descendants can, potentially, overload numerous humane shelters and dog ponds with defective dogs.

We've tried to demonstrate how the dynamics of geometric progression continue to thoroughly saturate American Dogdom with myriad genetic diseases. We've had, not seven, but 25 to 30 years of AKC-nurtured -- totally irresponsible -- breeding on a, literally, wholesale scale.

The all-breeds average litter size (ALS) shifts annually with ever-changing breed popularities. In 1996 four of the more prolific pups-per-litter breeds occupied the AKC's four top breed popularity rankings. Labs, Rottweilers, German Shepherds and Goldens were keys to boosting the 1996 ALS, [average litter size] used in this table, to 5.0440712472.

Does that degree of accuracy make a difference? Watch this! Briards have the highest ALS with 7.942. If used in the above scenario they would have produced an 8,400,350 puppy count. At the other extreme, the seven year yield of Papillons with that breed's 2.763 ALS would have been a mere, by comparison, 73,185 pups. It would have taken Papillons an extra year to get well past the one million mark.

The ALS figures used here were, largely, compiled from "official" AKC figures which were supplied to the author through the decade of 1980-1989. That statistical base shows 22 million claimed-to-have- been puppies and 4.9 million claimed-to-have-been, litters, tallied breed by breed. It is a sufficiently large data base to logically support extrapolation for the more current years. The ALS figures for subsequently "acquired" breeds were largely supplied by AKC-displaced breed registrars. A very few of the "added" breeds had to be estimated based upon comparable sizes and weights.

There is no way to know how many of those 22 million pups and 4.9 million litters of the 80's decade were just phoney, purely paper devices. "Extra" pups are routinely claimed when filing litter registration applications. Further, paper litters are commonly created to elicit "blue slip" registration entitlements. Those slips known in the trade as "blue money." There is a credo in the commercial marketplace that no saleable pup shall go paperless.

All of the ALS numbers are, therefore, seriously exaggerated. Still, they are the only guides available. The AKC doesn't know, and hasn't wanted to know, what the true figures are.

Past President Bob Maxwell provided this author with all those computer printouts during, and covering, the 1980's decade. Now It's a far different climate within 51 Madison. That's understandable. They've got more to hide.