The Kennel Club at the Crossroads

This is my column in the February 2010 edition of Dogs Today.

The Internet May Yet Save the Dog

We stand at the beginning of one era,
and the end of another.

Oddly enough, the history and future of pedigree dogs is inexorably tied to two great information revolutions.

The first occurred during the Victorian era, when a combination of cheap pulp-wood paper, movable metal type, and block plate illustrations helped disseminate old and new scientific theories to the common man.

Out of this first Golden Age of Information came a Victorian fascination with nature, the rise of farm stock shows, and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

It is hard to overstate how important cheap paper and movable type were to the spread of scientific inquiry and the explosion of controlled breeding experiments occurring at this time.

Suffice it to say that from before recorded history, until the publication of British Quadrupeds in 1837, fewer than 20 breeds of dogs were recognized in Great Britain.

Of course, that was about to change!

By 1837, Charles Darwin had returned from his voyage around the world, and in 1859 The Origin of Species was published.

That same year, the first dog show was held on Newcastle-on-Tyne.

Within 15 years, the Kennel Club had been formed, and just 20 years after that, it had closed its registry to cross-breeding.

The Gospel of Unnatural Selection

Where Darwin had preached a Gospel of natural selection by the hand of God, the Kennel Club preached a Gospel of unnatural selection at the hand of man.

Surely what God did in leisure, man could improve on in haste?

From the beginning, of course, there were skeptics. Within the first two decades of the Kennel Club's creation, some began to note that inbreeding was already a problem. Others decried the "grim joke" that the Bulldog had become due to the embrace of non-functional standards.

Working dog men noted that breeds brought into the Kennel Club seemed to quickly lose their utilitarian abilities. Luminaries of the dog world such as the Reverend John Russell, famous for his working terriers and hounds, refused to register their own dogs, saying they preferred the "wild eglantine" found in God's fields to the "hot house rose" being paraded in the show ring.

Did this criticism have much effect?

In truth, not much.

The breeding of exotic-looking dogs in a closed registry system had started as an act of faith, but had quickly developed into a kind of fevered obsession as immune to logic as any religion.

It helped, of course, that the Kennel Club was organized around nearly powerless individuals and weak breed clubs that were beholden to a small but powerful oligarchy at the top.

This oligarchy was itself the product of a lifelong catechism into the values of conformation dog shows.

An organization which abhorred cross-breeding, and which valued "conformation," was not a likely prospect for rapid change. Throughout the Twentieth Century, the Kennel Club held tight to its antiquated Victorian theories, as trapped in their own dogma as any insect embedded in Miocene amber.

This was the Kennel Club as it was for more than 100 years. Though critics were sometimes heard mewing on the margins, they were easily dismissed and in truth there were not too many of them.

After all, who wanted to speak too loudly knowing they might jeopardize their chance of winning in the ring, or forfeit any hope of advancement in the Kennel Club's hierarchy?

And if you were not winning? Well, these people did not last too long with the Kennel Club, did they?!

A few cracks in the firmament popped up from time to time, of course -- a critical essay or magazine article or two might note a decline in the health and working abilities of one or more pedigree breeds.

These episodic outbursts of protest had little lasting effect. Like honking in the street during a church service, they did little more than irritate the congregation inside.

The Second Information Age

In the late 1990s, however, something came along that changed everything: the Internet.

It is hard to overstate the impact of the Internet. Suffice it to say that in our own lifetimes, we will see the end of books, newspapers and magazines as we have known them. The era of film cameras, video tape and recorded disks is already past. Many young people today have yet to lick their first stamp, such is the ubiquitous nature of email, voice mail and text messaging in this modern world.

What does this mean for the world of dogs?

Quite a lot.

The Internet, you see, has democratized information and mass communication.

Today, anyone with a computer can read Darwin's notes about canine evolution, research the origins of the Kennel Club, and locate health surveys and veterinary insurance records which illuminate the current and rising crisis in canine health around the world.

When hard-hitting documentaries like the BBC's Pedigree Dogs Exposed are produced, they are no longer seen for a night and forgotten with the morning sun.

Now, thanks to YouTube, anyone with a computer can watch at leisure, and forward the link to scores or even thousands of others via email, list-serv, personal blog, or organizational web site.

Those who want to know more can easily find reams of information, much of it eye-opening. Consider this single line from the August 2009 issue of The Veterinary Journal for example:

"[E]very one of the 50 most popular pedigree breeds of dog in the U.K. were found to have at least one aspect of their physical conformation predisposing it to a heritable defect."

Every one.

Suddenly the dog-buying public was paying attention. A Kennel Club dog was a risky proposition. Canine insurance records and rates underscored the proposition: a cross-bred dog was a better gamble than a pure-bred one.

As more information began to percolate out to the public, those with sick dogs no longer saw their expensive veterinary burdens as a bad stroke of personal luck. Even the most cursory search on the Internet revealed the bitter truth; huge numbers of pedigree dogs were diseased, defective and deformed.

The Kennel Club, it seemed, had forgotten to do right by the dogs.

The Choice Ahead

Now, almost too late, the Kennel Club seems to have woken up to the precarious nature of its position.

In the age of the Internet, creating a new national registry of dogs is no longer a daunting task. If the Kennel Club will not stand for dogs that are healthier and more able than those found down at the local pound, then someone else surely will.

While it took the Kennel Club 130 years and hundreds of millions of pounds to build their current registry, it might take a young Internet-savvy entrepreneur only a few weeks and perhaps 100,000 pounds to build the backbone of a parallel Internet-based registration system that pairs modern email outreach with a dynamic web site, a powerful online date base, and a system of real veterinary-based health checks coupled to product-based discounts on pet food, pet insurance, and veterinary care.

Unlike the Kennel Club, this new registry would have no historical baggage to tote, and would not have to pay homage to petulant prigs and screaming matrons hell-bent on holding on to defective standards and misguided Victorian-era theories.

One thing is for certain: at this point in the game, the Kennel Club cannot afford to dally and play footsie with incrementalism.

The 21st Century will no longer wait for the 19th Century to catch up.

• Related Posts
  ** Inbred Thinking
  ** BBC: Pedigree Dogs Exposed
  ** The Kennel Club Report on Its 130-Years of Failure

Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood :: Crossroads
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What They're Saying About the Bateson Report

• UK report calls for tougher dog breeding standards (AP via The Washingon Post)
• UK inquiry urges changes to pedigree dog breeding (Reuters)
• Dog lovers must reform breeding industry themselves, report finds (London Times)
• Pedigree Dog Breeders Face Industry Shake-Up (Sky News)
• Inquiry calls for better care in pedigree dog breeding (BBC News)
• 'Long way to go' after dog inquiry (Jemima Harrison /BBC essay)
• Mutations in pedigree dogs 'must be bred out' (The Independent)
• Pedigree dogs - timeline of controversy (Independent)
• Leading Vet Charity Supports Change of Culture in Dog Breeding (K-9 Magazine)
• Dog breeding report: the facts (Telegraph)
• Every dog to be microchipped to reduce canine deformities, report rules (Daily Mail)
  Hypocritical Kennel Club Complains Bateson Report “Not Enough” (K-9 Magazine)
• RSPCA Responds to Bateson Report “The World has Woken Up” (K-9 Magazine)
• BBC: “Bateson Report a Kennel Club Own Goal” (K-9 Magazine)
• Vets Respond to Bateson Report (K-9 Magazine)
• Dog breeding concerns highlighted in Britain (AFP)
• All puppies to be microchipped according to new recommendations to Defra (Telegraph)

"The time has surely come for society as a whole to take a firm grip on the welfare issues that evidently arise in dog breeding."
-- Cambridge University professor emeritus Patrick Bateson

The Kennel Club Report on Its 130-Years of Failure

I have loaded the just-released Bateson report which can be read, in its entirety, here.

The bottom line is that it is a complete repudiation of 130 years of Kennel Club practices and it is a complete endorsement of what Pedigree Dogs Exposed found -- and what so many of us in the world of dogs have been saying for generations.

Recommendations cover three areas:

1. Inbreeding and inherited disease and the selection for extreme morphologies.


2. Poor or negligent management and care of breeding dogs


3. Inadequacies in the way dogs are bought and sold
   

Recommedendations addressing inbreeding, inherited disease and selection for extreme morphologies include:

• A non-statutory Advisory Council on Dog Breeding should be established. The key role of the Council should be to develop evidence-based breeding strategies that address the issues of poor conformation, inherited disease and inbreeding as appropriate to the specific breed and to provide advice on the priorities for research and development in these areas. The Bateson Report recommends that the Advisory Council members and Chairman should be appointed by open competition according to Nolan Principles. Defra should manage the selection process, drawing appropriately upon the advice of the devolved authorities and experts. Members should be selected on the basis of their personal expertise and not with regard to any personal affiliation or membership.
  
  
• High priority should be given to the creation of a computer-based system for the collection of anonymised diagnoses from veterinary surgeries in order to provide statistically significant prevalence data for each breed. This should build upon the work already started by the Royal Veterinary College. It is important that this scheme is fully supported by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. In a pilot scheme, priority should be given to collecting data with respect to the conditions creating the greatest welfare challenges in terms of pain, impact on quality of life, capacity for correction, and early age of onset. The data collected should relate both to the incidence of inherited disease and to the incidence of veterinary procedures necessary to correct faults due to selection for extreme morphologies (e.g. Caesarean sections, corrections for entropion, soft palate resections, etc).
  
  
• Revisions of Breed Standards should recognise the need to avoid the selection for extreme morphologies that can damage the health and welfare of the dog. When possible, revisions should involve guidance from the Advisory Council on Dog Breeding. Where a welfare problem already exists within a breed, the breed standard should be amended specifically to encourage the selection for morphologies that will improve the welfare status of the breed. In these instances the breed standard may need to be more precise, either by aid of diagrams or quantitative ratios, in order to encourage the necessary changes.
  
  
• The Kennel Club should upgrades its Accredited Breeder Scheme promptly. If it is unable to do so and no other body steps forward to supply an appropriately robust and UKAS accredited scheme, a new scheme should be implemented under the auspices of the Advisory Council on Dog Breeding. The organisers of any accredited breeder scheme should apply for and obtain UKAS accreditation. The minimum conditions for such a scheme should be that:
  a. All pre-mating tests for inherited disease appropriate to the breed or breeds are undertaken on both parents.
  b. No mating takes place if the tests indicate that it would be inadvisable in the sense that it is likely to produce welfare problems in the offspring and/or is inadvisable in the context of a relevant breeding strategy (see also 8.2).
  c. Any prospective purchaser is able to view the puppies with their mother.
  d. Every puppy is identified by microchip prior to sale.
  e. All pre-sale tests on the puppy which are appropriate to the breed have been carried out.
  f. The scheme establishes and requires clear, written standards of management with regard to the housing, health, exercising and socialising of all dogs on the premises managed by the registered breeder, including establishing minimum staffing levels appropriate to the numbers of dogs involved.
  g. All relevant documentation connected with the puppy including, inter alia, advice on feeding and care, registration documents, details of vaccinations etc are handed over to the purchaser at the time of sale. When an appropriate contract is available this should be signed by both parties.
  h. All assured breeders are inspected by duly appointed and trained scheme inspectors against the written standard, either before or shortly after registration with the assurance scheme; and regularly thereafter.
  i. Non-compliance with the standards of the scheme results in de-registration.
  j. If accolades are to be awarded to any breeder under an accredited scheme, they should clearly and solely relate to the provision of higher welfare standards.
  
  
• The veterinary profession needs to do more and needs to change their emphasis. The RCVS and the BVA should lead a shift in emphasis towards preventative veterinary medicine rather than simply focus on the correction of problems after they have occurred.

It needs to be emphasized that the Kennel Club itself commissioned this independent report which found the world of pedigree dogs to be a basket case of archane, Victorian-era breeding principles leading to the physical ill-health of dogs.

In short, this report is a bit like the Vatican Times saying the Pope wears a skirt and buggers boys "and one of those things might be a problem."
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The Bateson Report on Pedigree Dog Health

Patrick Bateson's much-anticipated report on the future of Pedigree Dogs in the U.K. will be coming out tomorrow.

This report was commissioned by the Kennel Club itself, and early reports are that it will be a barnburner. As K-9 Magazine notes:

The report comes hot on the heels of two other recent studies in to dog health, namely the APGAW report and the RSPCA funded study. Both previous studies drew similar conclusions and endorsed the message broadcast by the BBC documentary, Pedigree Dogs Exposed.

Prior to Pedigree Dogs Exposed, this blog framed the history of the Kennel Club's "Inbred Thinking" -- a post that appeared as an article in the May 2008 issue of K-9 Magazine.

To read that article and understand some of the issues that may be framed in tomorrow's report, click here.

For those interested in getting a jump on what might be in the Bateson report, I append some links to pre-release news stories starting to leak out.

Note that these article are not necessarily correct about what is in the Bateson report. With that caveat, they make for interesting reading....

• Scientist recommends dog breeding rules (UPI)
• Dog breeding industry set for a shake-up (Daily Mail)
• Is a take-over of the Kennel Club imminent? (Telegraph)
• Kennel Club to lose authority in Bateson report (Daily Telegraph)
• Pedigree breeders are shown the doghouse (New Scientist)
• Kennel Club to lose authority in Bateson report (Pet Street)
• Sir Patrick Bateson aims to set new standards for dog breeding (London Times)

Want to be the first on your block to read the report when it comes out? Excellent! Come back tomorrow and I will post post a link and highlights.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

• Related Posts:
  ** The Kennel Club: Paying for Both Trial and Verdict?
  ** Will Patrick Bateson Lead the Way Forward?
  ** Is There a Kennel Club Road to Reform?
  ** Minimum Standards for Puppy Peddlers?
  ** The Kennel Club Freak Show
  ** Veterinary Experts Say Kennel Club Has Failed
  .

The Kennel Club Takes Another Hit

The poor Kennel Club! They spent a fortune hiring high-priced lawyers to draw up a lengthy complaint to Ofcom following the showing of BBC's Pedigree Dogs Exposed, and now Ofcom has rejected every single substantive point in their complaint,

Eh?

What the hell is Ofcom?

Think of it as a kind of giant nanny-state proctor where anyone can complain to Government that a news show, a documentary, or even a soap opera or sitcom is "unfair" or somehow offends their delicate sensibilities. If Ofcom had been around during WWII, one wonders whether Hitler would have gotten equal time during the Blitz.

After Pedigree Dogs Exposed was shown in the U.K., the Kennel Club and half a dozen show dog types filed a series of complaints with Ofcom.

Now, all of those complaints but one have been tossed out, and the one complaint is not substantive, but procedural; it seems Ofcom thinks the Kennel Club should have gotten more of a chance to respond on two points.

Oh the Poor Dears! The Kennel Club's feelings have been hurt!

As the BBC notes:

Media regulator Ofcom has ruled that a BBC documentary, which exposed health problems in pedigree dogs, showed no "unfairness" to The Kennel Club.

Last year the club lodged a complaint about the programme saying it had been treated unfairly.

Ofcom said the Kennel Club "was not deceived about the purpose of the programme" and the editing was fair.

In Broadcast Now, Pedigree Dogs Exposed producer Jemima Harrison was interviewed following the release of the Ofcom report, and she notes that:

"Ofcom ruled on points of order rather than anything else. No one is challenging the core findings in any way. You only have to look at the changes the Kennel Club has made to know it was absolutely on the money. I’m really, really proud.”

As well she should be!

In the last 100 years, no one has done more to illuminate the sorry genetic mess that dog shows have dropped on our door step.

The good news, of course, is that the heat generated by Pedigree Dogs Exposed has also created more than a little light.

Consider this quick run down of what has happened since the documentary was first shown:

• The Kennel Club will no longer register the incestuous progeny of father-daughter, mother-son or and brother-sister matings.
  
  
• The Kennel Club has made changes to 78 breed standards in order to discourage or reverse show ring exaggerations. In addition, the Kennel Club has added the following clause to every breed standard:

  "A Breed Standard is the guideline which describes the ideal characteristics, temperament and appearance of a breed and ensures that the breed is fit for function. Absolute soundness is essential. Breeders and judges should at all times be careful to avoid obvious conditions or exaggerations which would be detrimental in any way to the health, welfare or soundness of this breed. From time to time certain conditions or exaggerations may be considered to have the potential to affect dogs in some breeds adversely, and judges and breeders are requested to refer to the Kennel Club website for details of any such current issues. If a feature or quality is desirable it should only be present in the right measure."

  
  
• The Kennel Club has commissioned an independent enquiry into dog-breeding, headed by Sir Patrick Bateson. The report, due out in January, is expected to recommend steps to increase genetic diversity in many breeds.
  
  
• Two independent reports have come to the same broad conclusions as Pedigree Dogs Exposed, noting that there are serious health problems in the world of dogs, and that these problems need to be addressed quickly.
  
  
• The Kennel Club is starting to improve training for judges including adding a requirement that judges of gundog breeds must attend field trials before being allowed to judge Champion-level shows.
  
  
• The Kennel Club has said it will not award Challenge Certificates to German Shepherds, beginning in 2012, unless breeders can provide clear evidence that conformation problems in that breed are being tackled.
  
  
• The KC has promised breed health plans for every breed, and that these plans will include an assessment of the genetic diversity within every breed.

For those who want to read the whole Ofcom report, here's a link to it.

Suffice it to say that the Kennel Club does not link to it.

Nor are they ever going to cop to how many hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees they paid to get this disastrous outcome.

The poor things!
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Minimum Standards for Puppy Peddlers?

If you decide to start a ketchup company, you will quickly discover you cannot just put just anything you want into a bottle and sell it; there are labeling requirements, health requirements, and licensing requirements.

The same is true for vehicles. If you decide to start a car or motorcycle company, you will soon find there are safety requirements, inspection requirements, manufacturing standards, and licensing requirements.

If you want to claim to be able do a job, be advised that whether you are a bartender or a barber, a carpenter or a cake-maker, a plumber or a roofer, you will face educational requirements, skills tests, licensing requirements, site inspections, and mandatory insurance requirements. Also, your clients will have real consumer protections, should you screw up or demonstrate total incompetence.

But not in the world of dogs.

In the world of dogs, any person can throw any two dogs together for a quick breeding, claim the progeny is anything they want, do no health testing at all, and sell the puppies off to an unsuspecting and poorly informed public.

And what is the result? Simple: A glut of inbred and poorly bred dogs, and dogs with serious health defects that will cause their new owners a lifetime of expense, and the dogs a lifetime of pain and discomfort.

That may soon come to an end in the U.K., however. The Associate Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare has just put out a new report entitled A Healthier Future for Pedigree Dogs. As The London Times reports:

Puppies should be sold with a full family medical history to alert new owners to the risk of genetic disorders, an inquiry will recommend today.

All future sales must be accompanied by a contract stating that the dog’s parents have undergone health checks before breeding to ensure puppies are born free from genetic disorders, MPs and peers will say.

The Associate Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare recommends that breeders provide a veterinary certificate confirming that the dog’s parents have been screened for health defects prior to mating.

Other recommendations include:

• a statutory limit on the number of times a dog can sire puppies, to prevent inbreeding;

• random checks on breeders;

• that all pedigree dogs be microchipped;

• that champion showdogs undergo health screening before prizes are awarded;

• guidelines to inform owners about what to look for in a healthy dog.

The new rules should apply to all puppies sold as pets, whether from a breeder registered with the Kennel Club, a licensed puppy farmer or someone breeding dogs as a hobby at home.

The safeguards come after a year-long review into pedigree breeding after the controversial BBC documentary, Pedigree Dogs Exposed, was aired in August last year.

Interested in reading the whole report? Here it is (PDF).

Will this new APGAW report gain traction in the U.K.?

Quite possibly; it follows hard on the heels of an earlier critical report on dog breeding by the RSPCA, and comes just a few months before a report by Professor Patrick Bateson, commission by the Kennel Club itself, is due to be released.

The Bateson report is supposed to be independent, but the rule is "he who pays the band gets to call the tune," so we shall see.

One thing is certain: as more and more people look into the world of dogs and ask common-sense questions, both consumers and dogs are likely to benefit..

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UK Kennel Club to Greenlight LUA Dalmatians

Yippee!

It appears the Kennel Club of Britain is about to greenlight LUA Dalmatians into their registry, which means when that happens, the American Kennel Club will be increasingly isolated in its death-grip on racial purity at the expense of canine health and function.

Who speaks for the dogs in America? Not the AKC, that's pretty clear.

Just look at Patti Strand if you have any doubt. Here you will find not only an AKC Board Member, Dalmatian breeder, and dog show judge, but an open apologist for puppy mill registrations, pet-shop sales, and ribbon-chasing within a closed-registry system.

Stand for the health of the dog? Sorry, but at the Dalmatian Club of America and the American Kennel Club that idea seems to take a back seat to blue ribbons and green cash.

I have been hard on the Kennel Club of Britain (for very good reasons), but let me say that they have at least moved forward under the whip.

The shame of the Dalmatian Club of America and the American Kennel Club is now palpable. Leadership? Not a hint of it.

But there is good news: AKC registrations have declined 55 percent over the course of the last 15 years, even as the population of the U.S. has increased by 45 million (17 percent), and the AKC has added 22 new breeds (a 15% increase in dog breeds shown) in an attempt to pad out its sagging membership numbers.

Bottom line: The AKC is a failing institution because the public is no longer buying the failed eugenics theories of the 19th Century.

I count that has a very positive thing in the world of dogs!

• Related Posts
  ** The Dalmatian Club of America Embraces Purity and Pain
  ** The Defective Dalmatians at Crufts
  ** The Kennel Club's Dalmatian Test
  ** The Eugenics Man and the American Kennel Club
  ** Who Speaks for the Dogs?
  ** Will Patrick Bateson Lead the Way Forward?
  ** High Hopes for Ronnie Irving
  

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A Battle of Britain in Which the Germans Must Win

From Dog World

A MAGAZINE article has re-ignited the spat between the German Shepherd Dog fraternity and the KC [UK Kennel Club].

Writing in Dogs Today, Jemima Harrison, writer and producer of Pedigree Dogs Exposed, questions whether the man who developed the GSD in the 1890s, Max von Stephanitz, would be happy with how the breed looks today.

The piece is illustrated with a drawing of a GSD with frog’s legs.

Ms Harrison writes that her programme showed GSDs in the show ring with ‘roached backs, droopy back ends and wobbly hocks, a distorted shadow of the wonderfully fit and functional dogs they used to be...’.

But Ms Harrison’s criticism of some GSD show dogs has been eclipsed by a statement in the article attributed to KC chairman Ronnie Irving, saying he had spoken out strongly against exaggerations, ‘…even going so far recently as to say that if the GSD breed clubs don’t get their house in order they may be thrown out of the KC’.

Past remarks made by Mr Irving and the KC generally have inclined more towards regret that any breed might decide to abandon affiliation to the KC in the face of new edicts, rather than threatening them with the boot, and proving the origin of the quote has not been easy.

But just the publication of it has been enough to light the GSD community’s touch paper once again – and the quote has not been denied by the KC.

As I have said in the past, I have high hopes for Kennel Club Chairman Ronnie Irving.

When the dust settles and he is in his grave, I hope to be able to say he led the Kennel Club down a tough road to better times with healthier dogs, and by so doing left a legacy for the ages.

I hope to be able to say it!

The show line German Shepherd is a basket case, as is the English Bulldog.

The battle lines are being drawn here, and this is where the battle will be fought.

In this next "Battle of Britain," let us hope the Germans win -- the German Shepherds, that is!

And of course, let us hope the British win too -- the British Bulldog, that is!

If renegade German Shepherd and English Bulldog breeders want to strike out on their own to create their own registry for defective dogs, the Kennel Club should let them.

Oh you want the defective dogs? Call this number -- they have plenty of them!

If the Kennel Club stands for healthy dogs that can walk, breathe, jump, and do not have to spend a significant portion of their lives in pain, on medication, or in a veterinarian's office, they will see the rank-and-file public stand with them, and their ranks and reputation grow.

The public wants healthy dogs.

The dogs deserve to be healthy.

The parade-sized egos of the blue-blazer rosette-chasers should not be allowed to stand in the way of canine health and function.

• Related Links:
  ** Let's Do to Horses What We Did to German Shepherds
  ** The G in GSD Stands for Gimp
  ** How to Wreck the German Shepherd
  ** The Wrecked German Shepherds of Crufts
  ** Shitzhund Work at the AKC
  ** A Dog Show We Need to See
  ** Dogs and the Asch Experiment
  ** Counterfeit Collies and Transvestite Terriers
  ** The Kennel Club Wrecks More Than Terriers
  ** Making and Breaking Dogs In the Show Ring
  ** The Kennel Club Freak Show
  ** Inbred Wolves Live with Pain
  ** Will Patrick Bateson Lead the Way Forward?
  ** High Hopes for Ronnie Irving
  ** Will Ronnie Irving Lead or Be Pulled Screaming?
  ** Kennel Club Chairman Concedes It Can Take Action
  
  
• Related Video
  ** BBC - Pedigree Dogs Exposed
  ** ABC News Nightline "Best in Show'

Rin Tin Tin -- before the German Shepherd was ruined by rosettes.
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The Kennel Club's Dalmatian Test

A while back, Ron Zimmerman wrote a very nice post for this blog entitled "The Dalmatian Club Embraces Purity and Pain."

Then in the August issue of Dogs Today, Claire Horton-Bussey had a very nice piece entitled "Pointing the Way to Better Health for Dalmatians."

That piece, it seems, has led two of the U.K.s largest newspapers to focus on the issue of Dalamatian health and the failure of The Kennel Club to allow healthier animals into the gene pool.

In a piece in today's The Daily Mail entitled "Spot the difference: One of these Dalmatians Will Be Healthy for Life So Why are Dog-lovers So Furious?, the reporter writes:

Around a quarter of the beloved animals - or 25.25 in every 101 - will suffer serious health problems during their lives, leaving them in agonising pain and facing an early death.

Now, with a little bit of cross-breeding, a healthy 'new' dalmatian, free from the defective gene that causes high levels of uric acid in their blood, has been created.

In another piece in today's Telegraph, entitled "Can Kennel Club Change Its Spots Over New Dalmatian?" the reporter notes

The Kennel Club is coming under growing pressure to accept the new dalmatian as an official pedigree, in its first major test since a row over allegations that inbreeding was creating 'deformed and disabled' dogs led the BBC to boycott this year's Crufts show.

Kennel Club spokesperson Caroline Kisko says a decision on whether to admit the new healthier Dalmatians will be made at The Kennel Club's September board meeting.

With Patrick Bateson's report due in December or January, this will be an early test of whether The Kennel Club can do the obviously right thing. Stay tuned!
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Kennel Club Takes Action Against the Indefensible

I am not shy about beating The Kennel Club and the AKC around the head.

Nothing has been more destructive to the health of dogs than the Kennel Club promotion of bizarre breeds, fake histories, contrived standards, and extreme show ring exaggerations.

That said, following the showing of the BBC's Pedigree Dogs Exposed, the Kennel Club has taken some small steps forward, mostly of a remedial nature, and I applaud that.

Father-daughter and mother-son incest has finally been banned, and a few small changes were made to a few breeds standards, though the Kennel Club continues to allow breed judges to award top ribbons to dogs that are outside those breed standards.

So why this new round of applause?

Simple: The Kennel Club has taken an important step forward, this time to send a message to breeders of show-line German Shepherds that the animals they have been saluting in the ring -- canines best described as "half frog and half dog" -- will no longer cut the mustard.


German Shepherd at the Manchester Show, 2008


In a July 28th notice, the Kennel Club let it be known that it was no longer going to allocate Challenge Certificates to German Shepherd dogs until certain basic health matters were cleared up:

The Kennel Club has recently completed the overall allocation of Championship Status for 2012 (published in the August issue of the Kennel Gazette) but has declined for the time being to allocate Kennel Club Challenge Certificates for that year to German Shepherd Dogs (Alsatians) until it has resolved various matters with the GSD fraternity.

The Kennel Club has been in contact with representatives from the German Shepherd Dog Clubs and Council to discuss concerns raised by judges over the conformation of the breed as frequently seen in the show ring.

During the course of these discussions it has been stressed that the Kennel Club is aware of sensitivities within the breed, but is also acutely conscious that there is a clear need for the KC and breed clubs to work together to resolve health issues of all kinds and put an end to the practice of double handling.

The KC Breed Health and Welfare Strategy Group is particularly keen to ensure both the proper application of the Kennel Club Breed Standard – and the avoidance of exaggeration – by judges and breeders alike. The Kennel Club notes the level of valid criticism from all quarters; not only within the world of dogs, but also from the veterinary profession and from the general public. The KC is aware of similar concerns in other parts of Europe.

GSD breed representatives were asked, in the discussions that have taken place, to help enhance the reputation of this well recognised breed. There was agreement that there were problems with the hindquarters of some dogs, and that dogs with hocks touching or almost touching were most unsatisfactory. It was felt by some that the tendency for this stemmed from the length of the second thigh. Concern has also been expressed over the potential adverse effect on health both of exaggerated toplines which seem in some cases to be almost roached, and of toplines which fall away in an exaggerated manner.

Breed representatives agreed that during their training, judges must be made aware of the need for overall soundness and, in particular, strength in the hindquarters.

Well there's progress!

It is almost the one-year anniversary of Pedigree Dogs Exposed, and still things are moving along.

Of course, things are only moving because of fear that unless The Kennel Club steps up and shows it is capable of implementing real change, that change will be imposed from without. As I have noted in the past, those who will not fence up for themselves, generally find themselves fenced in by others.

The real concern, I believe, is Patrick Bateson's report, which The Kennel Club itself has commissioned. That report is not expected before the end of the year, but if The Kennel Club is taking action now to deal with the poor movement and roached backs of German Shepherd's (not a new phenomenon!), it must mean they have real fear.

Meanwhile, the American Kennel Club continues along, with its fingers in it ears and its eyes shut, its own roached-back and nearly-lame showline German Shepherds the laughing stock of the dog world. The U.S. Secret Service will not even consider using an American German Shepherd. Look at the quality, and it's no wonder!

• Related Links:
  ** The Wrecked German Shepherds of Crufts
  ** Let's Do to Horses What We Did to Shepherds
  ** Shitzhund Work at the AKC
  ** How to Wreck the German Shepherd
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Will Patrick Bateson Lead the Way Forward?

The latest issue of Dogs Today arrived in the mailbox, and the two lead articles are on: 1) Whether the Dalmatian outcross will be allowed in The Kennel Club (article by Claire Horton-Bussey) and; 2) What has occurred in the last year since the BBC documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed blew the doors off the dog world last August (article by producer Jemima Harrison).

I also slip in a small piece on dog food, noting that the quality of the dog food matters far less than the quantity, as more dogs are wrecked by obesity than any single cause, while no study has ever shown than one dog food is better than another.

Jemima Harrison's article about the Kennel Club is excellent (I have not yet gotten to the Dalmatian article - that is for tomorrow's read). I especially liked it where she compares problems at The Kennel Club to the problems faced by the old London Zoo "which not so long ago was down on its knees, a relic of the Victorian age, run by people in the entertainment business, not conservation."

She goes on to note that the London Zoo is now a completely changed place. And what changed? The leadership at the top! Ms. Harrison goes on to note that:

"Coincidentally, it is the president of the [London Zoo], Sir Patrick Bateson, who is heading the most critical review into dog breeding prompted by Pedigree Dogs Exposed. This is the review commissioned by The Kennel Club and Dogs Trust, and so they are likely to take heed and act on its findings."

On a personal note, I have to give a huge hat tip to Dogs Today illustrator Kevin Brockbank. His art work is absolutely smashing. Jemima Harrison's piece has Kennel Club Chairman Ronnie Irving crying at his desk as he reads the Crufts press headlines following the BBC documentary. A border terrier (Irving's own breed) is chewing on his cuff, and there is even a Kennel Club logo on his coffee cup! Perfect! My own article is illustrated with a very nice homage to the breeding (and painting) of enormously fat "square" cattle during the era of Robert Bakewell, albeit with a dog as the subject of the portraint, instead of a cow. Nice!

Now let's see what Kevin can do with next month's article, tentatively entitled Counterfeit Collies and Transvestite Terriers. There's a lot of potential there!

To read that article (and see the art that will come with it), however, you are going to have to subscribe to Dogs Today.
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The Kennel Club: Paying for Both Trial and Verdict?

Sir Patrick Bateson, Emeritus Professor of Ethology at Cambridge University and president of the Zoological Society of London, has been tapped to review the registration and showing of dogs in the U.K.

To what end?

Who knows!

Suffice it to say that this "review" is being set up and funded by the Kennel Club and Dogs Trust, but we are told that "it will operate independently of both organisations."

Right! Could be.

Might happen. Strange and unexpected things do occur! I once saw a man eat 22 ears of corn at a single sitting and wash it down with a gallon of beer.

But back to the facts. What's an Emeritus Professor of Ethology you ask?

Simple. The "emeritus" part simply means he is retired. Bateson was born in 1938, which makes him 71 or so.

An ethologist is simply a ten-dollar word for an animal behaviorist.

The science of ethology is based around four core issues and questions:

1. Function — How does behaviour impact survival and reproduction?

2. Causation — What makes the animal respond and learn?

3. Development — How does behaviour change with age?

4. Evolutionary history — What behaviors are common (and different) between related species, and why?

The good news is that Bateson clearly does not hold science in contempt as so many in the Kennel Club do. Apart from that, I will reserve judgement and hope for the best. Who knows? Maybe this is not a simple job of window dressing as public relations. You will pardon me, however, if I keep my expectations low. Does Bateson have a mandate to do something other than look busy? What is the goal? What does success look like? How will anyone know if it is ever achieved? No word on any of that.

I should note, in passing, that Bateson is a distant relation of geneticist William Bateson and anthropologist Gregory Bateson.

William Bateson was one of the earliest geneticists (he actually coined the term "genetics") and he was smart enough to shun the idea of eugenics -- the core idea upon which the Kennel Club has built its rickety theories of canine improvement through breeding within a closed registry system.

Does that mean anything?

Not a thing. Drift occurs in perspective and ideas, as well as genetics.

At age 71, we can only hope that Patrick Bateson is his own man, and that he will tap others who will put common sense and sound science front and center in order to improve the long-term health of dogs. Knock on wood. But keep your expectations low.

• Possibly Related Posts:
  ** The Eugenics Man and the Kennel Club
  ** The Francis Galton Dog Show
  ** Inbred Thinking
  ** Rosettes to Ruin
  ** Making and Breaking Dogs In the Show Ring
  ** Is There a Kennel Club Road to Reform?

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