Put up 2,000 dogs at the National Dog Show, and what deformed and dysfunctional wreck will win?
This year it was an English Bulldog by the name of “Thor” — a true embarrassment to dog breeding and a barely walking indictment of the AKC and it’s twisted values.
Given the enormously plastic and useful genetics of the dog, and 150 years with which to improve on it by making dogs even healthier and more useful, the show ring dog breeders give us a dog with legs so deformed it can barely walk, a jaw so undershot it cannot grab a Frisbee, and with a face so bracycephalic it cannot breathe.
Add to these problems a deformed intestinal system (a by-product of achondroplasia or dwarfism) which makes the dog constantly fart, and a pig tail prone to infection, and you have a dog that considers its own death a blessed relief.
Why should anyone care that English Bulldogs are genetic and conformation wrecks?
Well for one, because this dog is a Top Ten AKC breed.
We are talking about scores of thousands of dogs that will spend a lifetime in misery, struggling for breath even as they sleep.
And this struggle is not some sort of accident or an unintended genetic aberration.
This is perpetual torture by design, and it is common to one of the most abundant dogs to be found in the American Kennel Club.
Embrace Pet Insurance pulls no punches in their description of the health of English Bulldogs:
The Bulldog may be perfect in spirit, but in the flesh it is a different story. These dogs are intolerant of warm weather, and may die if over-heated. Too much exercise or stress can make it difficult for them to breath. Without exception, Bulldogs must live indoors, and need air conditioning in all but the mildest summer weather.
More than 90 percent of all Bulldogs are born by C-section. Because breeding them is expensive, the puppies are, too. Love is an expensive proposition when you own a Bulldog....
.... Bulldogs' hips and spines are often malformed, as are their mouths. They suffer from a long list of respiratory ailments. Their many wrinkles and folds, and tightly curled tails, mean lots of skin infections. Cherry eye, inverted eyelids, cataracts and dry eye are just a few of the eye abnormalities that can affect the Bulldog.
.... Many conditions have no screening tests, even though they're known or believed to be genetic. These include seizure disorders, allergies and skin problems, several kinds of bladder stone, a long list of airway defects, birth defects, infertility and cancer, and more. Bulldogs are also at high risk for "bloat and torsion," where the stomach twists on itself, trapping air inside, and requiring immediate emergency surgery.
Of course, more could be said.
Embrace Pet Insurance mentions the high cost of Cesarean births, but they do not mention the rape racks that are used in mating because this dog is so deformed and defective that it can only rarely breed on its own.
Do you still want an English Bulldog?
So you still think they are "oh so cute?"
Are you still reading all-breed books that leave all the important information out?
Please do better.
As for the National Dog Show, it has confirmed that it is another sad joke.
What an absolute disgrace.
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