The Crufts Dog Show -- the world's largest dog show, held in Birmingham, England -- began on March 5, but this year, Brits won't see any perfectly-coiffed pooches prancing around the ring on television. The BBC has refused to air the show because the breeding industry's practices cause dogs to suffer life-threatening genetic defects and diseases.
Good for the BBC for sending breeders, dog show judges, and the Kennel Club a clear message that the public doesn't want dogs to suffer for the sake of "beauty." Here in the U.S., PETA has called on the USA Network to follow suit and stop airing the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, but so far, our requests have fallen on deaf ears.
Our friends across the pond have a history of taking progressive stances on animal welfare issues. For example, British kennel clubs outlawed ear-cropping a century ago, and cosmetic tail-docking was stopped in Great Britain in 1993. Sadly, the American Kennel Club (AKC) still requires many breeds to endure these painful mutilations, even though the American Veterinary Medical Association condemns them.
Public outcry in Britain against the breeding industry reached a fever pitch after a scathing BBC documentary called Pedigree Dogs Exposed aired last August. The documentary showed dogs who could barely walk or breathe -- which should be basic rights for any dog -- and who suffered from lifelong health problems as a result of their breeding. According to an article in the UK's Independent, "Viewers watched a Cavalier King Charles spaniel writhing in agony because of the permanent pain in [her] head: [she] was afflicted by syringomyelia, the result of being bred with a skull too small for [her] brain."
Perhaps in an attempt to backpedal from the sudden onslaught of bad publicity, the Kennel Club announced that it would review its "breed standards" -- the guidelines that purebred dogs must match closely in order to win titles -- for all of its breeds to determine whether the standards put dogs at risk of disease. Soon after, the Kennel Club announced that it had revised the standards for 78 breeds, so that "...they will not include anything that could in any way be interpreted as encouraging features that might prevent a dog breathing, walking and seeing freely."
It's a step in the right direction, and one that the AKC should follow. Dogs don't care whether they measure up to judges' arbitrary standards -- yet they are the ones who endure the pain and misery of humans' pursuit of the "perfect dog." As a result of inbreeding and breeding for distorted physical features, about one in four purebred dogs is afflicted with serious congenital defects. For example, Labrador retrievers -- America's most popular dog -- are prone to bone disease, hemophilia and retinal degeneration, and nearly 60 percent of golden retrievers suffer from hip dysplasia.
But the damage that breeders do to dogs reaches beyond the dogs in the show ring. Puppies who have the bad luck of being born into the hands of breeders who care only about winning show titles may be killed simply for being the "wrong color." And no matter how breeders try to spin it, there's no skating around the fact that every puppy produced by a breeder steals a home from a shelter dog who desperately needs to be adopted.
It's time that the U.S. catches up with Britain's animal welfare standards. If breeders want something to manipulate and deform within an inch of their lives, they should take up bonsai, and leave the dogs alone.