When Dora arrived at Forget Me Not Canine Centre from the animal wardens, she was approximately 14 weeks old. She had been found as a stray and was never claimed.

She should have been at the beginning of her life — chasing toys, exploring the world and growing into a strong young dog. Instead, severe hip dysplasia was diagnosed.

At an age when most puppies are discovering what their bodies can do, hers was already setting limits on the life she could live. Ultimately, the decision was made to euthanase her.

Sadly, Dora was not an isolated case.

Another puppy, Kite, came to us as one of a litter of seven. As they grew, differences between the puppies became increasingly apparent. While his littermates could process ordinary sights and sounds, Kite seemed constantly on edge.

Normal stimuli overwhelmed him. Play could escalate into fighting because he struggled to regulate his arousal. He resource guarded food and toys and reacted intensely to situations his siblings were able to navigate.

Kite was not simply a “naughty puppy” who needed firmer training. His behaviour told us that he was struggling. Ultimately, Kite was also euthanased for behavioural reasons.

These are the stories behind rescue that the public rarely see.

We have cared for puppies with serious orthopaedic disease before six months of age. We have received 12-week-old puppies so poorly socialised that human contact caused them to defecate in fear and they could not tolerate being touched.

We worked for five months with another young dog who made extraordinary progress in his foster home and even helped us raise other puppies, yet outside that carefully managed environment he became so overwhelmed that he lost his ability to think, regulate himself and interact safely.

We have lost two puppies to leptospirosis. We routinely see significant parasite burdens, gastrointestinal problems and severe skin allergies that can make daily life profoundly uncomfortable.

Not every one of these conditions can be attributed solely to breeding. Genetics, prenatal health, early environment, infectious disease, socialisation and later experiences all interact in complex ways.

But after repeatedly seeing young dogs arrive with serious physical and behavioural challenges, we have to ask what happened before rescue ever met them.

Responsible breeding is not simply putting two dogs together and finding homes for the puppies.

It begins with the health and temperament of the parents. It means considering inherited disease and whether the dogs being bred are physically and behaviourally suitable to reproduce. It means considering the mother’s health, nutrition, stress and environment throughout pregnancy.

Once puppies are born, it means understanding how profoundly their first weeks of life matter: appropriate veterinary care, parasite prevention, handling, exposure to normal life and thoughtful socialisation all help shape the adults they will become.

Every puppy begins as a human decision. Yet too often, the welfare of that future dog seems to enter the conversation only after something has gone wrong.

By the time rescue becomes involved, we may be trying to repair damage that cannot simply be loved away. Love matters. Training matters. Veterinary medicine and behavioural intervention matter. We have seen dogs make remarkable progress because people invested enormous amounts of all four.

But love cannot rebuild malformed hips. Training cannot change every inherited vulnerability. Months of rehabilitation cannot guarantee that a dog who finds the world profoundly overwhelming will eventually feel safe within it.

Sometimes rescue cannot produce the happy ending everyone desperately wants. Sometimes compassion means euthanasia.

Those decisions leave a mark on the people who make them. They leave a mark on foster families, trainers and veterinary teams who have invested themselves in trying to help that dog. But keeping a dog alive at any cost is not the same as protecting its welfare and neither is placing a dog into the community when we know it cannot safely cope there.

The consequences of poor breeding and poor early rearing also follow the dogs who survive. Families can inherit years of veterinary bills, prescription diets, allergy treatment, behavioural support, professional training and lifelong management.

They may love their dog deeply while discovering that the beach walks, outings and ordinary companionship they imagined are impossible because their dog finds the outside world overwhelming.

Pitbulls deserve better than this. They are loyal, intelligent and deeply loved dogs, yet too many are being brought into the world without enough consideration for the life they are expected to live. But this conversation should not stop with pitbulls.

Every dog deserves parents selected with health and temperament in mind. Every mother deserves appropriate care. Every puppy deserves veterinary care, safe early experiences and thoughtful socialisation. And every future owner deserves a dog who was given the best possible chance to live a healthy, stable life.

If we want fewer dogs entering rescue, fewer families facing heartbreak and fewer dogs like Dora and Kite reaching a point where the kindest option left is euthanasia, rescue cannot be our only answer. We have to look further upstream.

The measure of a compassionate society is not simply how many dogs it rescues. It is how much it values the lives it chooses to create.

Because every life we create deserves more than simply being born. It deserves the opportunity to thrive.

• Kelly Glazebrook is the cofounder ofForget Me Not Canine Centre