Vet checks exposed!

And the reality?

They're just a judge-check, not a vet-check.  

Here, Crufts Chief Vet Andreas Schemel demonstrates exactly what they entail. Or rather don't entail.

Dr Schemel is, of course,  a judge himself and all he does is simply repeat what a judge would do. 

• there is no stethoscope;

• no pen-light to look in the dogs eyes. 

• he runs his hands down the dog's limbs but doesn't make any attempt to manipulate the joints. 

And as for the movement/breathing test.. the dog is asked to trot 10 metres. And back again.  

Wow.

Now, the Kennel Club can claim that this is a check to ensure that judges don't put up dogs with obvious problems.  

But to also claim that this is any proof of the overall health of show dogs is just nonsense.  

Nonsense!

But that's what the Kennel Club is doing. Have a look at this report in DogWorld - which, incidentally, confirms that all the Crufts vets had "received training and attended the KC's high-profile seminar at Stoneleigh" (the KC's Warwickshire HQ).  

I am informed that they were instructed not to check "too thoroughly". 

The DogWorld article also reveals the names of the vets involved.  

A quick check reveals that two are Kennel Club Members, and one of them is an owner and exhibitor of Border Terriers. Coincidentally this is the same breed as both the current and past Chairman of the Kennel Club.

Neapolitan Mastiffs? Better. But...

Two years ago to the day, the photographs I published here of the Neapolitan Mastiffs at Cruft's 2011 caused an outrage. Parade of Mutants is this blog's second most popular post and it prompted a call from the veterinary profession for "urgent" action to address the extreme conformation in this breed.

Above - BOB 2011

Class of 2011

Last year, they were still pretty awful - as I documented in this post. And the BOB duly failed her vet-check. Here's what she looks like.

And here's a close-up of her eyes - the reason she failed the vet-check.

The only glimmer of hope I saw last year was in a bitch called Nukualofa's Vaoila, owned by the UKClub's health-rep, Kim Slater. Vaoila won Junior Bitch and Reserve Best Bitch.

Vaola in 2012

Vaoila was at Crufts again yesterday and this time took Best Bitch. She's filled out a little since last year, but as you can see below, is still a moderate dog. She does have some ectropion but there was no soreness yesterday, and her coat was like polished slate... absolutely gleaming. 

But she didn't win Best of Breed. She was beaten by a more "typey" dog that was owned by the same breeder whose bitch failed the vet check last year.  Now this dog was certainly less extreme than last year's DQ'd winner, as you can see here:

In the photograph below he appears to be reasonably fluid... and those ringside thought he moved quite well.

But this dog, currently only 20 months old, is not going to age well.

And if you have a closer look at his eyes, they are barely better than last year's disqualified dog - with clear ectropion and redness.

So how come this dog passed the vet check, ensuring that not a single one of the high profile breeds failed this year? This is, I believe, another example of the goalposts widening because the Crufts vets are now under the KC's wing. 

I enjoyed spending a bit of time ringside with the Neos (or the Mastini as they would prefer I called them) on Sunday. Club Chair Steve Cox, whose dogs I have strongly criticised in the past, clearly wasn't that thrilled that I was there, but was polite enough both to me and the German film-crew that was filming me at the time (something that brought the KC's Bill Lambert running as it must have looked like it was me filming without permission). 

I was also impressed by breeder Sean Platts (Vallino Mastino) who was really open and has led the field in health-testing. Sean had a young dog there with a hip score of just 3/3 - pretty amazing for a Neapolitan Mastiff.

It all made me not want to be horrid about their dogs. 

And I fear that's how the Cruft's vet felt too.

But tell me what you think. Should this dog have been passed or not?

Behind the painted mask

Boxer paint-job... photographed at Cruft's on Sunday.

Crufty bagbiters

Look what landed in my inbox on the first day of "The World's Greatest Dog Show" last week.

Date: 7 March 2013 01:30:00 GMT
Subject: "crufty, adj." - Word of the Day from the OED

OED Online Word of the Day

---

Your word for today is: crufty, adj.

crufty, adj.

[‘Of software: poorly designed, esp. unnecessarily or unintentionally complex; containing redundant code.’]

Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈkrʌfti/,  U.S. /ˈkrəfti/

Etymology:Apparently <  cruft n.² + -y suffix¹: see discussion at cruft n.²

 Computing slang.

  Of software: poorly designed, esp. unnecessarily or unintentionally complex; containing redundant code.

1981 CoEvolution Q. Spring 29/1 Crufty, poorly built, possibly overly complex. ‘This is standard old crufty DEC software.’

1984  J. Varley in  S. Williams Hugo & Nebula Award Winners from Asimov's Sci. Fiction (1995) 178 Routines so bletcherous they'd make your skin crawl. Real crufty bagbiters.

2005  C. Stross Accelerando vii. 332 There's lots of crufty twentieth-century bugware kicking around under your shiny new singularity.

Was that really just an amazing coincidence?

Wrinkle, wrinkle little star

Crufts Best of Breed 2013

©onEdition 2013

Crufts Best of Breed 2010

© The Kennel Club

This year's Shar Pei BOB is a much more moderate dog than the UK and American champion who was was all the rage in 2010. Another improvement - although still some way to go before they resemble the original "bonemouth" Shar-pei (below).

"Crock of shit"

These Bulldogs belong to a breeder who, on a Facebook page discussing my earlier blog about Bullodgs, has written: "Fuming... crock of shit."

And it neatly illustrates the problem. They simply don't see - and hear  - how abnormal this is. They think it's a bunch of Bulldogs having fun in the show.

While the rest of us watch and weep.

Add 11/3/13

The video has now been removed... inevitable, I guess.

Breeding better Bassets

© onEdition 2013 

Here's the Best of Breed Basset from Thursday's Crufts...Ch Switherland Touch N The Dark with Sasilasy.  And, below, is the 2012 Crufts BOB that failed the vet check, Buzz Lightyear at Dereheath.

It's quite an improvement, isn't it?

Now as this picture from a different angle shows, the Bassets are not yet home and dry.  The 2013 winner's eyes do not look sore or inflamed, but he has clear and evident ectropion which will always put his eyes at risk.

© onEdition 2013 

It's perfectly possible to breed for a tighter eye in Bassets - as this hunting Basset from the Albany pack illustrates:

For fairness, here's Ch Switherland Touch N The Dark with Sasilasy, from a similar angle - pretty clean, too.

So well done the Bassets. It made my day to see this.

And I'm not just saying that because co-owner Calum Twaddle was fined recently for threatening to beat the crap out of one particularly obnoxious small-time poodle breeder who had insulted him on line. Now of course I am not one to condone violence but in this particular instance a medal would have been more appropriate.