Kennel Club - still registering puppy-farmed dogs

This Welsh puppy farm registers its puppies with the KC           ©Puppy Love

The Kennel Club  today announced that from January 2012 (why the wait?) it will not normally register more than four litters from one bitch.  This is two-better than current legislation which sets the limit at six litters per bitch, and the move (a good one) is designed - in part - to clamp down on puppy farmers.

Not that the KC news release actually says this as the KC doesn't like to admit that it registers puppy-farm dogs.

In fact, the KC seeks to distance itself from puppy-farming in this announcement by saying: “Of course, this decision will sadly not impact on those people who do not register their litters with the Kennel Club, in particular puppy farmers who breed purely for profit and tend to show little consideration for an animal’s welfare. Legislation needs to be tightened so that these people can be brought to account.”

But the KC itself needs to tighten up on this issue.

Here's what Ronnie, from campaign group Puppy Love, has to say.

""Limiting litters from individual bitches is a step in the right direction," says Ronnie. "But you've got to bear in mind that some puppy farmers who register their pups with the KC have 100 bitches or more. This move won't effect them at all. We would like the Kennel Club to not register puppies from any breeder that has more than four of five breeding bitches because keeping any more than that is so open to abuse."

As it happens, I think it's possible to keep one or two more bitches than this and breed responsibly. But it irritates that the KC continues to publicly tut-tut about puppy farms while taking money from puppy-farmers by registering their puppies.

What else could they do? How about that any breeder/kennel that registers more than five litters a year should be subject to a KC inspection?

Anyone currently producing five or more litters a year should be visited and licensed by their local authority but licensing departments are often understaffed and underfunded so the checks aren't done. The KC does not have a system for alerting local authorities when a breeder registers five or more litters a year (even though it has the data and even though the breeders are breaking the law if they are unlicensed) and so high-volume breeders slip through the net that way, too.

At the moment, only breeders signed up to the KC's Accredited Breeder Scheme (ABS) are visited by the KC (and even then not all of them).

Inspecting higher-volume breeders on the KC's general register is surely feasible? Given an average of, what, 4 pups a litter,  at £12 each for registration - that's £240 the KC takes for registering five litters. Surely that's enough to cover the cost of a visit? After all, the KC has recently appointed a number of area reps to do inspections of Accredited Breeders and the KC doesn't pay them - it only covers expenses.

Fab Fiona does it again...

Proving her win last week was absolutely no fluke, the UK's first LUA Dalmatian, Fiacre First and Foremost ("Fiona") won the Utility Group  at Manchester Open Show today.  And, as you can see from the above pic, she looks very happy about it!

Fiona's first win at Coventry two weeks ago was the first blog here - and attracted a lot of comment, including a deluge of anonymous bitching about the win being stage-managed (and worse..)

I'm very heartened by this second win. First, it proves that there ia no dark force at work trying to stop her winning - or if there is that it ain't working. Second, it is the best possible news for the LUA Dalmatians.

Many congratulations to Fiona and owner Julie Evans.

Pugs at Discover Dogs

When you're a breed, like the Pug, that is predisposed to overheating and breathing problems, it is a kindness to keep them lean.  This fawn Pug at Discover Dogs last Saturday really was very overweight. It doesn't help either, with the hip dysplasia that is common to the breed (only the bulldog is worse, according to OFA statistics) .

However, according to the Pug reps on the stand, it's not really hip dysplasia - it's that Pugs are built differently to other dogs. This means, apparently,  that there's "no need to hip-score" (And, indeed, only 27 Pugs have ever been scored under the BVA/KC hip scheme which has been running for, what, 40 years or so now?).

Mind you, no less than three reps on the stand were also insistent that Pugs do not suffer from breathing problems.

This picture of rude health is confirmed by the new manual the Kennel Club has produced for vets. It lists exactly.... no health problems for the Pug.

Not quite true according to two recent papers published in the Veterinary Journal (Asher et al; Sumners et al) which found that the Pug suffers from a total of 33 disorders, 18 of them related, or exacerbated, by their conformation.

Springer time

© Stephen Ward

There's a fab pic of an English Springer Spaniel on the banner image of the Kennel Club's homepage at the moment (above), selling "happy, healthy dogs".

It's selling a lie, though, because a dog like this would never win in the KC show-ring.

Here's the English Springer Spaniel that won BOB at Crufts this year, Sc Ch Trimere of Allenie.

© The Kennel Club

What does the breed standard say about the coat on an English Springer Spaniel?
 
"Close, straight and weather resisting, never coarse. Moderate feathering on ears, forelegs, body and hindquarters."

Moderate?

For goodness sake, this is supposed to be a working dog!

Launch of new Dog Advisory Council

Sheila Crispin, with her two collies in Cumbria

Today marks the official launch of the new Dog Advisory Council on the Welfare Issues in Dog Breeding.

The launch of the Council follows Pedigree Dogs Exposed two years ago and the three major reports that followed it (RSPCA, APGAW and the Bateson Report) - all of which stressed the need for an independent body.

I've been anxious about the make-up of the Council, not least because its Chair, Professor Sheila Crispin, is an honorary member of the Kennel Club and did not feel it necessary to resign her membership of the KC's own Dog Health Group following her appointment. I also felt when I interviewed Sheila for Dogs Today recently (entire interview online here) that she cut the KC too much slack and was far too focused on puppy farms - an important issue, of course, but not if it's going to let mainstream pedigree dog-breeding off the hook.   But there are some very good names here, including:

•  Dr Clare Rusbridge, who appeared in PDE speaking out strongly about syringomyelia in cavaliers. A passionate, dedicated vet who was brave enough to speak out when others in her profession zipped their lips, Clare is wonderful with the dogs and their owners in her care, and has stood her ground in the face of considerable opposition - and at times considerable unpleasantness -  from breeders.

• Lisa Collins - the lead scientist of two important recent papers on inherited disorders in pedigree dogs. The first, exploring the link between illness and breed standards, found that each of the top 50 breeds was found to have at least one aspect of its conformation predisposing it to a disorder; and 84 disorders were either directly or indirectly associated with conformation. The second, exploring health issues not related to breed standards, found a total of 312 non-conformation linked inherited disorders in the top 50 breeds.

• Dr David Sargan - co-author of the RSPCA report “Pedigree Dog Breeding in the UK: A major welfare concern?” He is a senior lecturer at the University of Cambridge Veterinary School working in comparative genetics and genomics, with special interests in canine inherited disease genetics. He curates the database “Inherited Diseases in Dogs”, a reference tool that catalogues inherited defects in dogs and their underlying genetics.

No response so far from the Kennel Club to the announcement of the Council members - but then the KC did its best to scotch the Council by claiming that its own revamped Dog Health Group was perfectly adequate.

Whether the new Council can really make a difference to dogs remains a big question. The Council is purely advisory, it is short of funding and the KC - and others - are skilled at coming up with excellent-sounding reasons why things can't be done. But it deserves a chance.

Watch this space...

Losing sight of what's normal

There is not much love lost between Kennel Club vet Steve Dean and me.  It mostly stems from the fact that, after Pedigree Dogs Exposed, he went round telling people that we had withheld medication from Zak, the epileptic boxer in the film, in order to get the poor dog to fit on cue for the cameras.

(For the record, we weren't even there... We provided a camera, but Zak's seizures were filmed by his owners.)

When I heard that Dean, who is Chief Executive of the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, was spreading this nasty little rumour, I sent him a cross email and got a rather sarcastic reply and no apology.  Suffice to say, we're not on each other's Christmas card list.

I have other beefs with Dean, who breeds and shows border terriers.  In one column for Dog World he opined: "Almost without exception breeders who register their dogs seek to breed healthy dogs, however, rarely habitualisation has occasionally driven some norms away from health (less than 10 breeds).”

Less than 10 breeds? Clearly a graduate of the KC School of Statistics.

Anyway, this blog is actually to congratulate Dean for two recent columns for Dog World, both of which tackled the fact that problems sometimes become so entrenched that they become normalised.  Two weeks ago, he wrote about eyes, stating:

"Where a defect is not recognised as a health issue they can become accepted norms for a breed or, even worse, are not recognised for causing a problem...  Examples of defects that have become accepted can readily be seen by observing eyes in a number of breeds. Most dog folk will have heard of entropion and ectropion but how many take any note of them in the show ring and if they do, how many appreciate the misery they offer for the afflicted dog?

"Taking the more readily observable example first, ectropion is seen in breeds where the lower eyelid droops away from the eyeball. To point the finger at no dog currently alive, take a look at the Landseer painting in the KC Gallery, the dog has ectropion and the artist has faithfully reproduced it. So this is not a new issue. Some may say it adds expression to a face, others may say their breed has always been like this, but neither comment justifies its existence.

"Clinically the failure of the lower lid to adequately sweep across the eyeball during blinking will result in chronic inflammation of the eye membranes and therefore a lifetime of discomfort. It is even worse with entropion where the lid turns inwards so that eyelashes and hair rub up and down the eyeball surface with each blink."

This week Dean writes about lameness:

"...in [some] breeds a degree of lameness appears to have been accepted. Judges should exclude lame dogs from the ring yet in these breeds this is not happening and this is not in the interests of a breed’s future... Breeders need to be more critical about the dogs they breed from seeking to breed away from afflicted dogs. Yet in some breeds it is almost ignored because so many of the breed show lameness – this cannot be right."

It never ceases to amaze me that some show-breeders just don't see this. It's perfectly bloody obvious to everyone else.

Mark Evans unrepentant about "mutant" quote

And that's what the headline should have been on this week's Dog World's interview with the former chief veterinary advisor of the RSPCA.

Instead, Dog World pulls its punches. But the paper is often rather genteel like that and I for one won't criticise them for it.

Unlike its amateurish competitor Our Dogs (which today has been forced to remove the frankly actionable comments about Mark Evans from its Facebook site), Dog World employs proper journalists and despite being essentially pro-KC and pro-showing, gives all sides of the dog-breeding debate a fair hearing. This is much to the annoyance of the Kennel Club which used to write an "insider" column for the paper called The Clarges St Trumpeter (reputedly written by KC Chairman Ronnie Irving) but earlier this year de-camped to Our Dogs where there is much less criticism of the Kennel Club.

Mark Evans incensed some dog breeders in PDE by saying: "When I watch Crufts what I see in front of me is a parade of mutants. It’s some freakish, garish beauty pageant that has nothing, frankly, to do with health and welfare." This week he told Dog World: “I haven’t changed my stance one jot.. I felt very strongly when Pedigree Dogs Exposed came out that this was a programme I had been waiting 20 years to be made, because just talking about problems had resulted in no change at all...Somebody has to stick their head above the parapet, and in my case I’m doing it for dogs. My number one concern is the dog, and if I upset a few people I’m really sorry.”

Well, in truth, probably not very sorry.