Purebred dogs are prone to genetically determined abnormalities. Although such abnormalities often can be corrected b...
Matt12October 14, 2022
Please offer comments on these thoughts
A, "Most genetically determined abnormalities in dogs do not seriously affect a dog's general well-being"...... That doesn't mean people aren't going to get the surgeries anyway.
Compare to: C, “Purebred dogs tend to have shorter natural life spans than do nonpurebred dogs”….. If a dog doesn’t live as long, it can be assumed that he won’t incur as big as a health bill as the dog would have had the dog lived a long life, demonstrating one reason the conclusion might be wrong, weakening the argument.
Okay, fine, choice C makes an assumption. The problem is that choice A does as well. Its assumes that just because an abnormality doesn’t seriously affect the dog’s health, that people won’t get their dogs surgeries. It’s a fair assumption, but so is the assumption of choice C. I don’t like these questions that essentially have us subjectively decide which choice is the “most reasonable assumption”.
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The question here is which assumptions we have to make for A and C. For A, we only have to assume that people are less likely to get surgery for an animal that isn't bothered by a minor abnormality. This is almost common sense, sure some may, but there's no reason to force your dog to get surgery for something that doesn't bother it.
C requires a huge assumption, and frankly, one that is counterintuitive. There is no reason to believe that a dig that lives shorter will have fewer vet bills. In fact, we could make a strong argument the opposite is true. A dog that is less healthy will live less long, and have greater vet bills as a result.
