Mountain and Pearl made it on to ABC's Nightline last night in a segment called "Best in Show?"
Click here to see the whole thing.
Also featured, of course, were Pedigree Dogs Exposed, Jemima Harrison, Ronnie Irving, Marc Evans, James Serpell, and this blog (yes, this blog!), with excellent reporting by Nick Watt of ABC.
Best of all, the fear of the AKC was featured front and center.
This is an enormous multi-million dollar organization with splendid (and expensive!) headquarters on Madison Avenue in New York City, but they cut and run when asked to explain the dogs.
Now there's pride!
Not only would they not even attempt to defend what they have done to the dogs, but they sent out a notice to all the breeders and top breed clubs to cut and run as well.
God forbid that the Dalmatian owners explain the deafness and the uric acid stones in their breed, that the bulldog owners explain their dog's defective respiratory tract, that the chihuahua owner explain the hole in their dog's skull, or that breed after breed explain the jaw-dropping rates of cancer and dysplasia.
Of course, having told all the breeders and dog show people not to talk, but to send all press inquiries to the American Kennel Club, the AKC then turned around and said it also would not talk to the press!
And what are they going to say this morning? Simple: the show was biased! It did not represent their views! Who are you going to be believe, they will say, your lying eyes and the number one news station in the world, or our paid apologists and slick Madison Avenue liars-for-hire?
And who cares if the dogs are defective by design and hamstrung by disease?
Don't you know the AKC now sells veterinary insurance and recommends veterinarians as well?
Sure we sell poison -- but we sell the antidote as well!
It turns out -- and no, I could not make this up -- that selling health care for defective dogs is now the AKC's new busines plan!
Mountain slides in while Pearl supervises.
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14 comments:
I'm glad that word is getting out.
mythreepups.blogspot.com
The AKC has circled the wagons on this one.
It's interesting to see that what would happen if journalists started poking around the American dog fancy.
It's also good to see that you and the dogs got on television.
I should say that, as per one of the suggestions in that piece, that the puppy mills have been breeding Bostons to rat terriers in order to have puppies that can free whelp. But just because bad people are doing it, doesn't mean that it is not a valid idea.
In looking for a link to the actual video and news story (Google: ABC News AKC) I came across this post on the "Dog Show News Network" (???) entitled:
"Factual Information from the AKC in Regards to ABC's Nightline"
http://dogshownewsnetwork.com/forum/showthread.php?p=5820
I guess that's their "official" response huh?
Congrats on the Primetime coverage!
Congratulations on your own "exposure", which, funny thing, appears to bear out what you espouse here and in your book. Not so for the kennel clubs in question! I particularly enjoyed seeing your traveling kit, as well as the girls keenly working on their own in the background.
The amazingly contradictory closing comment by the reporter regarding what the kennel clubs are all about showed the chasm between talking the talk and walking the walk. If they truly were about maintaining the "purity, and sacred standard" of the breeds, why would the morphology of the dogs have changed so much?
Seahorse
Fantastic piece on Nightline! I was surprised when you popped up and moreso when your blog was mentioned. In terms of the show people, what really hit me in the heart was when the breeder said the dog produced from the brother-sister mating was the best dog she ever had! I'm surprised these people have little to no conscience about these things.
But with the fallout of this and the Pedigree Exposure, wouldn't people who own the AKC or other registered animals as just pets feel guilty or inclined to send them back to the breeder or to the shelter? What about the negative effect on the dogs themselves now that owners may question whether their dog is, well..."defected," for a poor choice of word?
Patrick --
Is there a link to the news story and video? Does Nightline repeat programs such that I should be setting up my TIVO for the repeat?
Congrats on making the big time!
Dorene
Dog people do not give up their dogs under any circumstances -- they administer to the afflicted and try to understand where they went wrong.
Where a lot of people go wrong is picking a dog out of an all breed book put out by the Kennel Club. Once they do that, however, no matter how defective the dog, they shell out cash and time and suffer heart-ache to keep the dog alive and out of pain. This is wht puppy lemon laws do not work -- once a dog has crossed the threshold at a breeders, almost no one brings them back no matter how defective or sick they are.
Also, do not underestimate how much energy goes into rationalizing poor choices! No one wants to admit they made a mistake, or that they did not do their researchm, or that "their" breed is not too special. This is true all over.
PBurns
Purebred dogs, per se, are not the problem. It is the breed clubs and breeders who are THE problem.
None of my dogs are registered AKC. They are FDSB registered. There are many reasons to disagree with the AKC, but they have also done some good work in defending animal ownership against the political assaults backed by HSUS, PeTA, etc. across the nation.
AKC is at fault for their blind support of the breed clubs that ruin breeds by setting standards that encourage very poor breeding practices, and the 'fashionable breed du jour' as evidenced by the big uptick in popularity of any breed that might win Best of Show at Madison Square Garden.
I see a huge split within my chosen breed (English setters) between the clownish, oversized dogs that dominate the bench, and the small, athletic, shorter haired field type setters that I hunt and field trial. Night and day in terms of health and ability - but both are PUREBRED. I would think that the obvious contrast would point to the breeder and his 'standards' and motives as the culprit, and not the practice of breeding like to like.
Mike
Mike, this is the party line at the AKC: "We only register dogs" and the breeders and breed clubs are at fault.
This is, of course, patent nonsense, as I detail here >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2006/05/inbred-thinking.html
The American Kennel Club makes the rules, controls the rules, and can change the rules. They can open breed registries, and they can change breed standards. They have ALL the power, and they work very hard to keep the breed clubs weak, and to make sure health and performance are NOT part of any breed standard.
Sorry, but the reason so many American Kennel Club dogs have serious health problems, twisted and exaggerated standards, and do not work is that the Kennel Club affirmatively embraces rules, regulations and policies designed to make it so.
Patrick
Patrick,
I've read your inbred thinking post and many others on the topic. And I've been meaning to ask you for some time now: is it everything about inbreeding/linebreeding that you fault for unhealthy dogs or is it inbreeding in a Kennel Club fashion that you fault?
While I'm not a dog breeder, I do find it to be an interesting topic. From the little that I have read about dog breeding, I have found that some working dog breeders cite inbreeding/linebreeding as their method for creating and maintaining a "strain" or "bloodline" of useful and healthy dogs. Clearly, these folks will also cite that inbreeding isn't a free-for-all without consequences. Also, most acknowledge that systematic out-crossing is essential, as is the need for a keen selection process for every breeding.
Your thoughts on the matter will be appreciated.
Donovan
Hi Donovan:
Line breeding is inbreeding. This is a distinction without a difference -- a point you seem give a solid nod to in your question, but which I want to underscore here for the benefit of others who seem to delight in playing linguistic games with these terms.
Having done away with that little linguistic figleaf, let me make three other quick points:
1. If the "breed" is very, very small small in number, you will only damage it by putting it in a closed registry system. The breed or type needs to be "grown out" by finding dogs with similar traits and maintaining genetic diversity. This is never hard if you keep your eyes open and really network. No dog springs fresh from the soil; they are all related to other types of dogs that have existed for millennia.
2. If the breed is already numerically large (setters, pointers, hounds, terriers, pits, etc.) there is NEVER any reason to line breed or inbreed. Good-looking working dogs are simply NOT that hard to find. A lot of people, however, are simply LAZY and CHEAP, and so they mate whatever they have on hand, mother to son, father to daughter and claim they are "maintaining a line." Right. They are maintaining a line of bunk. More likely what they are doing is simply engaging in two sins -- laziness and greed -- which they are trying to dress up as "special knowledge" and science.
3. Genetics does not make a great dog. Genetics and experience and training make a great dog. The last two elements are every bit as important as the first. A great genetic code is not worth crap if the dog is kenneled all year long and taken out once a year to hunt. I find that most of the people who beat the brass for linebreeding and inbreeding are folks who are bad with dogs and who fault the dogs rather than themselves. Give an average setter to a very good bird dog man, and he will make a fine worker out of it. Give an extraordinary bird dog to someone who kennels the dog 363 days of the year, and the dog will never reach a fraction of its potential.
Does all inbreeding and line breeding create instant defect?
No, of course not.
But it is a practice that only needs to be done when establishing a breed, and NEVER needs to be done for very long.
As I note in *Inbred Thinking* the chief failure of Francis Galton (and by extension, the Kennel Club) is that "he did not understand that the elements used to create a breed could, if taken too far, lead to the breed's destruction."
Inbreeding is so destructive to breed health that most farm stock are hybrid animals, and so too are most crop production plants. Race horses almost never have a Coefficient of Inbreeding (COI) greater than 5%. By comparison, Kennel Club dogs routinely have COI's greater than 20%.
In my opinion, ANY breeding that results in progeny with a greater than 10% COI in a five-generation pedigree is a mistake, and the number to shoot for is no more than 5%.
The Jack Russell Terrier Club of America allows, I believe, a COI of up to 16%, but in practice the average COI is under 5%. That's a generous policy (it allows linebreeding), which maintains genetic diversity within the breed, while allowing some limited "doubling down" to maintain type.
Bottom line: COI needs to be capped, and I think the CAP should be 10%.
Patrick
I have to admit, I was actually surprised to find that the vast majority of breeds do not have COI calculation for pedigrees or health testing results online and publically available (at least not in the U.S). That seems like a huge waste of the resources of the internet.
I just wanted to thank you Patrick, for all the time and effort you've spent getting the word out about this most important topic.
When I got the email from AKC about not talking to anyone from Nightline about this segment, I thought that position was a big mistake but wasn't surprised. It's the reaction I'd expect. It's unfortunate that instead of voluntarily working to produce healthier dogs the AKC is going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
There are some bright spots: I do think that the AKC - and particularly the parent breed clubs - do more to sponsor health research than any other group except possibly the Morris Animal Foundation.
The AKC has the resources to do even more research and give responsible breeders the tools needed to intelligently breed healthier dogs without sacrificing the individual qualities of our breeds. But they've been approaching it from the standpoint of fixing the dogs without even trying to fix the system. I think we've got to do both.
Congrats on the airtime! Glad to see that this nonsense is getting exposed for all to hear about. I hope that some changes in the kennel clubs can be implemented, as they are badly needed. I also hope that they don't solely focus on health here, but also keep in mind that temperament is extremely important as well. I find that a lot of breeders are over-looking temperament, making excuses for excessively shy dogs especially - and I can tell you that is not fun to deal with.
Can't go wrong with a JRT though! And I'm with you, I wish kennel clubs and breed clubs would adopt the policy of registration after health tests are complete and their COIs capped like the JRTCC/CA.
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