The couple in front of me stared with open disbelief and a hint of hostility. I had just told them that the Golden Retriever puppy they had just purchased from the back of a pickup truck along Woodmen road was cryptorchid, meaning that one of his testicles had not descended correctly and was hung up either inside his abdomen or trapped under the skin in his groin. This genetic problem meant that this dog absolutely had to be neutered to prevent the development of cancer in his undecided testicle, and that it was completely unacceptable to use him as a breeder, in spite of the fact that he would still be physically capable of siring puppies, because he would pass the genetic tendency to be cryptorchid on to his male offspring. I hadn’t even gotten to the part where I explained that because his lower jaw was a full inch shorter than his upper jaw, his lower canines were going to contact the roof of his mouth and potentially cause problems there too.
Read more: Casual Breeding