Every breath they take

It doesn't have the snappiest of titles, but "Brachycephalic syndrome by Dr Göran Bodegård, MD" in this week's Dog World is essential reading for everyone with (or thinking of getting) a short-faced breed - or, indeed,  anyone looking for ammunition with which to try to persuade people that dogs really were never meant to look like human children.

The article describes in wincing detail the welfare cost of breeding dogs with flat faces.

In many breeds the aim has been to get flat-faced dogs and this has been achieved by selection for a shortened skull and muzzle. This head type – the brachycephalic head – is not to be considered as a normal variation but is the result of a human intention to consolidate desired physical characteristics which are expressions of a genetic mutation. 

Even with the selected breeding for this trait, dogs are produced with a spectrum of characteristics, including individuals having practically no nose at all. Strongly connected to the flat face characteristics is the development of malformations in the airways including pinched nostrils, elongated and thickened palate, hypertrophic and/or collapsing walls of the trachea and bronchi which cause obstructions for the flow of air. The degree of breathing impairment is varying. The brachycephalic breeds also manifest a disturbed thermoregulation capacity.

Brachycephalic animals are all, to at least some degree, affected by lifelong breathing problems which are particularly pronounced under conditions of elevated environmental temperature and during increased physical activity when insufficient airway capacity hinders an adequate gas exchange. Attacks of evidently laboured breathing with respiratory distress, snoring and snuffling are the most common clinical signs which in the most serious cases might develop into apnoea, loss of consciousness, collapse and even death.

Let's just pull out one of those sentences again:

"Brachycephalic animals are all, to at least some degree, affected by lifelong breathing problems..."

Not some - all of them. And for their whole lives.

We did that.

Read the whole  article here.

Raging bull

The Bulldog Club of America makes a controversial claim in this week's New York Times Magazine's damning cover story on Bulldogs.

Distancing itself from UK data which put the Bulldog's median age of death at just over six years old, a spokesperson for the Bulldog Club of America insists that US bulldogs are healthier than those in England.

Great... so what is the average of age death for the Bulldog in America, then?

Er, they don't know. No one has done the work, or not recently at least - although US vet school data gathered between 1980 and 1990 found that the average age of death in Bulldogs was just 4.6 years.

But perhaps there is other data to support the BCA's claim in the article that US bulldogs are healthy? Well, no, there isn't. In fact, the OFA lists the Bulldog as the breed worst affected by hip dysplasia (over 70 per cent of dogs tested are dysplastic); and a recent paper exploring causes of death in US dogs found that the Bulldog was the breed most likely (18 per cent) to die due to respiratory problems and was only beaten by the Newfoundland as the breed most likely to die from congenital problems.

The New York Times' long and thoroughly-researched article, by writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis, is a real indictment of what we have done to the Bulldog and it makes for painful reading.  Breeders will no doubt find reason to dismiss the piece for including quotes from the the HSUS's Wayne Pacelle, but the testimony from expert after expert on the breed's many health woes is compelling.

Particularly worrying, for me, is that in 1973, the Bulldog ranked just 41 in the AKC's most popular breeds whereas in 2010 it was number 6. It is now the most popular breed in Los Angeles (where, surely, they can barely venture outside in summer?).

Of equal concern is that the Bulldog Club of America has no intention of changing the breed standard to encourage a healthier phenotype - and the AKC has no plans to make them, saying it trusts the BCA to "know what's best for the breed."

As such the US breed standard - depressingly - still calls for the Bulldog to have a "massive short-faced head", an "extremely" short face and for the head and face to be "covered with heavy heavy wrinkles" - features which are clearly detrimental to health and welfare and which have been moderated in the UK standard, although not without protest. (I should say that there is little evidence that UK breeders are taking much notice of the new standard, but at least it's in place.)

Read the whole of Benoit's excellent article here.

Incidentally, it's not the first time that Bulldog health has made the cover of a top US magazine. Time Magazine's 2001 "A Terrible Beauty" cover story caused huge ripples at the time. Have a look at that cover from 10 years ago, though, and what stands out is how unexaggerated the Bulldog on the cover is compared to many Bulldogs today. Underneath is a front-shot of a dog previously featured in profile on this blog - one of the top-winning UK bulldogs of 2011, Ch Pringham's Eclair Glace.  And underneath that, in case anyone thinks current US bulldogs are less exaggerated, is a US Bulldog featured in the NY Times article.

 

Discover Dogs 2011

From the "Stop the BBC Making Another PDE" Facebook site this eve...

The "Stop the BBC Making Another PDE" Facebook site issued several dire warnings in the past week warning good dog folk to be on their guard at this weekend's Discover Dogs against "JH" taking pictures without permisson. Their cunning plan? To take photographs of me or anyone who might conceivably be an agent of mine.

That would, then, be pictures taken without permission. The irony appeared to be somewhat lost on them.

In fact, the Kennel Club had refused us access to film so we couldn't. No ifs or buts -  BBC rules are strict on this and secret filming is only allowed in special circumstances. There was nothing to stop us filming outside, though, so we set up camp outside to ask visitors about their breed choice; then I paid for a ticket to have a quick whizz round the show in the last hour; camera switched off and firmly zipped in the camera bag.

Don't think the KC trusted me to keep it zipped though. As I stopped to have a chat with Sarah Blott from the Animal Health Trust at the Cavalier Matters stand, the KC's Caroline Kisko and Bill Lambert approached and hovered.  Bill then followed me as I wended my way towards the exit, quite literally ducking behind breed stands to try to avoid being seen; at one point peering through a gap in one stand's dressing to keep me in sight. Very Keystone Cops.

I doubled-back and collared him, telling him he should feel free to say hello. I also thanked him for the information he had sent me last week in response to questions about the Assured Breeder Scheme. "I look forward to seeing how negatively you use that information," said Bill.

"Well," I replied, "I am a bit surprised to learn that the KC has inspected only 15 per cent of the breeders who have joined the Assured Breeder Scheme."

I mean, really, and with the best will in the world, it is quite hard to put a positive spin on that, isn't it?

On the plus side, Bill also told me that all breeders who have registered more than two litters in the previous 12 months are now inspected before they are accepted and that there are plans to extend this to all applicants (although he couldn't say when).

But if (as is the case) the KC has only done 1100 odd inspections in total since the scheme started in 2004 and they only have 23 breeder advisors (compared, for instance, to over 100 in Sweden where in 2010 alone they did 2000 breeder visits), when exactly is the KC going to get round the 6,000 or so ABS breeders who have never been inspected?

There was some good news at Discover Dogs during my brief visit.  A breed advisor was honest about the health issues in Boxers on the Boxer breed stand and it was good to see health informaton given real prominence on the Griffon stand, as it was last year. I also saw nothing to stop me lusting after a Hovawart (despite worries about the small gene pool).

But I'm afraid the rep on the Neopolitan Mastiff let the side down when asked if the breed had any health problems. "Not really," came the reply. He also maintained that they lived on average to 8 yrs old (not really his fault - this entirely unsupported claim is in black and white in the health info the Club prepared for Discover Dogs; a bit of a shame because the rest of the health info is not bad).

Finally, despite having lookouts/security in place to protect the Neapolitan Mastiffs from me and prying lenses, this picture was sent to me this evening of the dog on the breed stand this afternoon.

Just to make it crystal clear to Neapolitan Mastiff breeders who will no doubt express outrage: the crime is not in my publishing pictures like this; it's in you breeding dogs like this.

If you don't want pictures of Neopolians with desperate eye conformation, too-narrow nares and sore skin being blogged or broadcast for everyone to wince at... stop breeding them this way.

Edit 13/11/11 @ 20:04

Now that we know this dog is Rayvonley Leone (see comments), here is a picture of him at Darlington Championship Dog Show a few weeks ago, where he won Best Dog. If you click to enlarge it, you'll see there is no skin irritation under his nose, but his chin looks sore and his eye looks no better than it does in the above picture.

 

Edit 13/11/11 - 

The reaction from the anti-PDE Facebook site....

So now we know. The dogs are just fine. I have, apparently, been photoshopping the images in order to make the dogs look bad.

Which beggars the question: if I could prove that I have not photoshopped them, would they agree that there is a problem that needs to be fixed?

Neapolitan Mastiff - 1949-2011

I think this YouTube video is intended as a celebration.

But you be the judge.

"Wrinkled skin, no legs and willies that drag on the floor"

 
I have a weakness for dogs on which Nature has applied eye-liner. And when it has been genetically tattoed on a dog that does the work it was bred to do... gorgeous!

The dog above is a member of a hunting pack: the Albany and West Lodge Basset Hounds.  Here are some more pictures of them taken at their recent Open Day.

So now let's compare them with a young show-bred Basset that won Best Puppy at a recent championship show.

Surely some mistake?

As you can see, this show dog bears little resemblance to the working-bred dog. The Albany Bassets have longer legs, shorter ears, no loose skin and although not all of them have perfectly-tight eyes, they do not have the obvious ectropion that you can see on this winning puppy.

I should say that burdening these dogs with too much skin draped on distorted skeletons is by no means the sole preserve of the dog fancy; many pet-bred Bassets are dreadful too.

We did this. And we shouldn't have done.

So which is the real Basset. Well definitely not the Albany Hounds according to Dave Darley (Clavidar Bassets), who is Vice Chairman of the Basset Hound Club. This despite the fact that the Albany hounds still fulfil their original function when his don't.  Here's what he said in March this year in response to a post here on Bassets in March:

"There are some good looking dogs in the Albany Pack, but they are not Bassets. We dont "talk darkly" about their cross to Harrier, they are simply a cross breed and should be called "Barrier" or "Harriets". The Harrier itself is also a cross breed and has no KC Breed Standard unlike the Fox Hound that the Harrier is a cross breed of. So the Albany "Bassets" are a crossbreed of a crossbreed. How many more breeds would you like us to introduce into our breed but yet still let us call them Pedigree?? At least the Huntsmen who created the Harrier had the decency of changing its name."

This has not gone down very well with Alison Jeffers, Secretary of the Albany Bassets, whose Summer Newsletter I've finally got round to reading. In it she writes:

"Can you believe everything you can find on the internet? Apparently not! Take Dave Darley as an example. He's the current Vice Chairman of the Basset Hound Club. He has never met Jeremy (Master of the Albany Bassets) or me; he has never seen our hounds and he doesn't have any factual information about our breeding lines.


Yet he's quite hapy to blog away, making crass statements about our hounds in an attempt to 'explain' why Kennel Club show hounds look so different from our hounds.


According to Dave it's all because ours aren't Basset Hounds. They are mongrels! According to Dave and others, we have crossbred with Harriers and Beagles to create Albany Hounds, which he then goes on to describe as 'extremely poor versions of an Artesian hound'.


Like many people in the show world he makes statements that are not based on any truth. He should spend a bit of time looking through out stud book before declaring publicly what our hounds have been crossed with. If he did, he would find no sign of either Harrier or Beagle and I am sure he'll be quite 'shocked' at how much KC blood we still have in our hounds.


So if we can breed Basset Hounds that still look like hounds from the 1950s and are proven to be 'fit for purpose' why can't the Basset Hound Club? There's no logical reson as to why they can't. Within 2 or 3 generations most could be dramatically improved, it's just that many breeders don't think their hounds need to be improved, they like them just the way they are: wrinkled skin, no legs and willies that drag on the floor!"

Over to you, Dave and others in the BHC... Given that the Kennel Club has recently re-instated the old B-register, which allows you to bring in dogs from 'outside', how about going the quick-fix route - for the sake of the dogs - and crossing one of your hounds with an Albany?

Here, by the way, is one of Dave Darley's Bassets - with an Albany Basset for comparison

How the Yanks cocked-up the Cocker

Now this is a dog... (as opposed, that is, to a novelty valance) but it sure as hell ain't a gundog.  And yet this American Cocker - Afterglow Zippor Just Annabelle - just won Best in Show at the Gundog Society of Wales Show.

This breed needs to be re-classified as a Toy breed. Its retention in the Gundog Group does a disservice to those breeds that can and do still do the work for which they were bred. And, frankly, this amount of coat is a welfare issue  - not perhaps directly (as long as it is groomed regularly), but because top show dogs can't possibly get much of an opportunity to be dogs. There's certainly no way they could do a day in the field - it would ruin that all-important coat.

And how on earth do the males pee without soaking their coat?

Here's what the Americans have done to the Cocker...  from sturdy sporting dog to dome-headed,over-coated, increasingly-brachycephalic hairdresser's dog in 120 years.

1892: Ch Obo II - the foundation sire of the American Cocker Spaniel

2011: Casablanca's Thrilling Seduction, Westminster BOB

And here's how they did it...

1882

1887

1911

1921

1937 (if only they'd stopped here...)

1940 (or here...)

1941

1946

1953

1959

1969

1981

1983

1989

1993

2000

2011

Mark + Jake

The handsome beast on the left is my eight-year-old boy Jake - a GSD x sighthound (we think).  The handsome chap on the right is Mark Evans, former Chief Vet of the RSPCA - parentage fully-known despite what some call him for referring to Crufts in Pedigree Dogs Exposed as "... a parade of mutants... some freakish, garish beauty pageant that has nothing, frankly, to do with health and welfare"

The picture was taken last week when Mark, now presenting the highly-acclaimed Inside Nature's Giants on Channel 4, came down to us in Wiltshire for an update interview for the sequel to Pedigree Dogs Exposed. We wanted to know if he regretted making such a strong and controversial statement in the film, particularly as many in the dog world feel it was unhelpful.

Mark's answer? Surprising... but you'll have to wait for the film to be broadcast to find out why...

Add @ 22:40 - some more pix of Jake given the interest... (not that I really need any excuse...)