The Kennel Club reports that the #1 registered dog in the U.K. is a french mutant with serious health issues:
Kennel Club warns people about the welfare impact of bad breeders cashing in on the latest trend
The French Bulldog, a breed favoured by celebrities such as the Beckhams, Lady Gaga and Hugh Jackman, has overtaken the Labrador Retriever as the UK’s most popular breed of dog, according to statistics released by the UK’s largest dog welfare organisation, the Kennel Club.
- French Bulldogs have overtaken the Labrador Retriever as the UK’s most popular dog breed for the first time since records began
- French Bulldog, owned by celebrities, has seen an astronomical 2964 per cent increase in the last ten years and is likely to be 2018’s top dog – a title held by the Labrador for almost three decades
- Kennel Club warns that people buying the breed on a whim and without awareness of health concerns could lead to a welfare crisis
- Puppy buyers urged to consider a wider variety of breeds, including the UK’s ‘forgotten breeds’ at risk of disappearing because their numbers are so low.
In the first quarter of 2018 there were 8,403 French Bulldog puppy registrations, compared to 7,409 for the Labrador. This represents a 23 per cent uplift on the first quarter of 2017, whereas Labrador numbers have only risen by 7 percent in the same period. This is the first time that the French Bulldog has topped Labrador registrations in any quarter and if the trend continues the Kennel Club forecasts that the breed will be the most popular dog breed in the UK by the end of 2018.
The popularity of the breed has seen an unprecedented rise in recent years, with a 44 per cent increase from 2016 to 2017 alone and a staggering 2,964 per cent increase over the last ten years (2008 to 2017).
The Labrador has been the most popular dog breed in the UK since 1990 – the year it overtook the Yorkshire Terrier.
The Kennel Club is concerned that the dramatic increase in numbers of French Bulldogs – a favourite with celebrities and advertisers – is due to people choosing the breed because of how it looks and because it is considered to be a fashionable choice, rather than because it is the most suitable breed for their lifestyle.
Furthermore, Kennel Club registrations only account for around 30 per cent of the total population of dogs in the UK. Amongst the undocumented and unregistered French Bulldogs will be many that have been brought into the country illegally from Eastern Europe and those that have been bred by puppy farmers.
Dogs from such backgrounds will often have serious health problems due to poor welfare conditions and this is even more concerning in the French Bulldog, which is a flat faced (brachycephalic) breed. This means that it can be affected by health problems related to its breathing.
The Kennel Club, of course, is entirely responsible for this turn of events. These folks, after all, continue to embrace standards for deformed dogs, continue to give ribbons to deformed dogs, continues to give zero points to health, and continue to mandate breeding dogs within a closed registry.
The Kennel Club's message is not that these dogs are MONSTERS and should be banned and outlawed as continuing animal cruelty, but to repeat the fiction that there are "good ones" out there and you can find them by going to an "assured" Kennel Club breeder.
It is, of course, pure bullshit (pun intended). The dog pictured at top is from a Kennel Club preferred breeder web site!
1 comment:
Rapid growth of numbers compounds the breed's already serious problems. Opportunistic breeders going for $$ aren't about to select for health.
Post a Comment