When Breeds are Failures

Art by Kevin Brockbank for Dogs Today (May 2010 issue)

Is it time to thin the herd?

It's been said that the dog is the most successful wolf in the world -- the wolf that got man to adopt it, house it, feed it, and protect it.

Relatively docile wolves were fed and bred until, slowly, imperceptibly, they evolved into something different -- the domestic dog.

For 12,000 years, that's about as far as it progressed.


An Explosion of Breeds

Two hundred and fifty years ago, there were only about a dozen broad types of dogs.

Breeds, as we know them today with narrow written standards, were not yet known.

Your breed claims an ancient lineage?

Unless it's a greyhound, I can assure you it's almost certainly nonsense.

The Pharaoh Hound? Invented in the 20th Century to look like the dogs found on the side of the Egyptian tombs opened at the time of Carter.

The Chinese Crested? Not Chinese! Invented in America in the 1930s and popularized by burlesque stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.

Terriers? Retrievers? Setters? Spaniels? Pointers? Shepherds?

Analysis of Mitochondrial DNA shows that while the type may be old, the breed is -- almost invariably of relatively modern origin.

It's not like we created just a few breeds in the blink of an eye, is it? No, we created hundreds.

How did we do that? Mostly by selecting for odd types and then inbreeding to "fix" those types until they bred true.

The first breeds, of course, were created by merely tweaking Mother Nature's process. Herding dogs, for example, were selected because of function rather than looks. Ditto for running dogs, pulling dogs, bird dogs, guarding dogs, and terriers.

Dogs that were best adapted to function prospered, while those that did poorly were culled from the pool. The only difference was that the hand of man was now engaged in unnatural selection -- replacing Mother Nature, which had previously been employed in the task of natural selection.

Form Trumps Function

With the rise of dog shows, however, function took a back seat to form. Now the primary value celebrated was variability. And, of course, to get maximum variability, you had to green-light more and more breeds that were extreme, and in many cases maladaptive, including dogs that were brachycephalic (flat faced) and could not breath well, and dogs that were achondroplastic (dwarfs) and had joint and heart problems.

Added to these dogs were other extreme examples -- massive giants that had weak hearts and intestines prone to twist and bloat, tiny tea cup breeds prone to hydrocephalia and broken bones, hairless breeds prone to dental and skins issues, dogs with extreme skin wrinkles, ear length, and coats, and dogs with various spinal oddities such as over-long backs, roached backs, and spines that ended in a tight mass of twisted vertebrae.

And, of course, through it all you had to inbreed and line-breed in order to set type, and you had to invent ancient histories in order to speed the sales of these new creations.

The result has been a mixed bag. Some breeds have managed to stay healthy, and a few have even managed to be useful for work.

Most, however, have come down with one or more serious health problems, and most have devolved from working dog to mere pets.

There is nothing wrong with pets. There is, of course, something wrong with breeding dogs with serious health problems. Even here, however most genetic problems are manageable and most breeds are salvageable

But is that always the case? Are there dog breeds that are not salvageable?

This is not a small question.

When humans began breeding dogs, we began to act as Gods, but we failed to accept the full mantle of the Gods.

God culls misfits; man puts his in the Kennel Club.

Canine Failures

Let's talk about canine failures. They are not hard to find.

The Dandie Dinmont is a good example of a dog that has simply failed in the marketplace. Last year, more Pandas were born in captivity than Dandie Dinmonts were registered by the Kennel Club.

Named after a fictional character in a novel, and forced to compete head-to-head with other poodle-coated mops, this dog has found few customers due to its odd-looking sway back, poor movement, and complete uselessness in the field.

Add in the health problems suffered by Dandies -- cushings, hypothyroidism, and a narrow-angle glaucoma that is unique to Dandies -- and you stand at the cusp of a question.

Factor in the fact that more than 40% of dogs are born cesarean, and the case is made for intervention.

The old working terrier from which the modern Dandie claims descent was not a product of the Kennel Club and did not suffer these indignities.

Perhaps now is the time to release this breed from the inbreeding mandated by a tiny gene pool wedded to a closed registry system.

Perhaps now is the time to release this dog from the bondage of contrived show dog standards.

Yes, let us release this dog "back to the wild" of its working roots. It has not done well in "captivity". De-list this dog from the Kennel Club's roles, and move on.

Other breeds should also be delisted, and for much the same reason -- the Skye Terrier, the Clumber Spaniel, the Sussex Spaniel, the Glenn of Imaal Terrier, the Manchester Terrier, and the Sealyham Terrier.

None of these dogs were created in the Kennel Club -- they have only been deformed, emasculated, and inbred since their arrival. Release these dogs "back to the wild". They have not done well in "captivity", and they have failed in the marketplace.

And what about those breeds that are true genetic wrecks beyond salvation?

There are not many, but let's face the problem head on, and end the nonsense.

There is no reason to try to repair a Disney castle built on sand, with a blown foundation, rotten roof, walls riddled with termites, and a dangerous boiler about to explode in the basement.

Take the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. This was a breed invented at the Crufts dog show in response to a prize offered up by an American by the name of Roswell Eldridge.

Thanks to a bad gene pool at the start, and the incredible inbreeding that followed, more than 80 percent of today's dogs end up with serious heart problems, while more than a third have a genetic brain disorder affecting the nervous system.

With this level of defect, and this thin history, why not sweep it all aside and start again?

Ditto for several other breeds with serious health problems -- the Miniature Bull Terrier (50% cesarean, dead at 6 years), the English Bull Dog (90% cesarean, dead at 6 years), the Scottish Terrier (60 percent cesarean, 45% cancer rate), the Dogue De Bordeaux (dead at less than six years).

Are there other breeds that might be "returned to the wild" through delisting and/or delisting and recreation (i.e. starting again with a healthy gene pool, scientific breeding, and a commonsense standard)?

Sure, but I think I have been controversial enough for one day, don't you?!

The question stands: Is it time to thin the herd? Is it time to end the Kennel Club's preservation of defect and failure?
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The Kennel Club's Empty Chair

Over in the U.K. the Kennel Club continues to engage in one public relations blunder after another. Let's go straight to the Dog World "breaking news" story in order to save me a little typing:

THE KENNEL Club refused to turn up for an important House of Lords meeting about dog breeding on Tuesday evening after it heard that Passionate Productions would be filming it for the new Pedigree Dogs Exposed programme due to be broadcast early next year.

The Associate Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare (APGAW) had invited along the main players to hear what progress had been made in the three years since the first programme was aired and following the various reports into dog breeding.

The KC should have joined a panel comprising Dog Advisory Council (DAC) chairman Prof Sheila Crispin, former British Veterinary Association president Harvey Locke, DAC member and former Dogs Trust veterinary director Chris Laurence, and the RSPCA’s head of companion animals James Yeates for a thorough airing of the current state of play.

But at the start of the meeting APGAW chairman Neil Parish announced that the KC had declined his invitation, and read out a statement from the club instead.

So why the empty chair?

It seems the Kennel Club is TERRIFIED of appearing on camera talking about pedigree dogs, even when no dogs are in the room and even in a formal meeting in which nothing is going to occur but stale talk about what has occurred in the last three years... and what has not.

The claim, of course, is that Passionate Productions (Jemima Harrison and her camera man Jon Lane) will somehow be able to film... WHAT exactly?

What is the Kennel Club terrified of? What film horror is going to come from a bunch of stiff middle-aged white people reading off their talking points at a carefully controlled meeting of dog people in a lecture hall?

What horror is going on at a Kennel Club dog show that cannot be filmed?

Apparently quite a lot!

The Kennel Club's position seems to be "Who are you go to believe, your lying eyes, or our press release?"

The good news is that time for empty chairs and empty heads seems to have come to an end.

Dog World reports that:

[T]here was a consensus view that although a lot of progress had been made, including much work by the KC, there should be an independent and expert review of the breed Standards. Mr Locke [former British Veterinary Association president] said the KC should be more aggressive and radical with them.

Trust veterinary director Chris Laurence noted:

The person who sets the Standards has to realise that the way a dog looks will affect the whole of its life. Some dogs can’t breathe and walk freely because of the way they look. They have to realise that and modify the Standards accordingly.

Well, yes, that would be an obvious start. I suppose the Kennel Club was TERRIFIED they might actually be seen as having heard all of that!
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Time to Scuttle the English Bulldog

This ship was a failure.  Let us not celebrate it.

If you are serious about crossing the Atlantic, you do not start by trying to raise the Titanic from the grave while a million fine ships a year are being burned at the wharf.

The New York Times asks Can the Bulldog Be Saved?

It is a silly question. 

Save the English Bulldog?

Save it from what?

Pretenders? Puppy peddlers?

A little late for that!  

Besides, the people who now say they want to "save" the English Bulldog are just more pretenders and puppy peddlers.  Who do they want to save the English Bulldog from? Why, from people who are just like themselves!

The English Bulldog is not a species created by God, but a Kennel Club creation designed to lay about the house and die young. 

In that sense, it is a perfect dog, combining the lazy owner's need for a dog that does not want to take a walk around the block, with the dog dealer's desire to sell a replacement product a few years down the line.  No wonder this is a top 10 breed in the AKC!

The selection for defect here is entirely intentional:  a flat face, narow hips, a massive head, short legs, a heavy body, deeply wrinked skin, and a pig tail.    The result is a dog that cannot breath well, cannot walk well, has a hard time having sex without a helping hand, and cannot give birth without surgical assistance.

And, of course, it is a dog that has had no work since the beginning.  The modern English Bulldog is about as closely related to stock and pit dogs as the tea cup Chihuahua is to the Artic Wolf.  Neither one could consumate a relationship with it's supposed ancestor!  The purpose of this dog is sale and vanity, and that is as true for today's slightly modified versions as it is for the old.

You want a REAL bulldog? A truly healthy and functional model? No problem. We kill almost a million of those dogs a year in this country, but if an American Pit Bull is put in the right hands (people with stable lives, real jobs, fenced yards, and a desire to excercise and teach the dog on a daily basis) they can become well-loved pets. 

Bottom Line:   The bulldog is wreckage and there is no saving it, nor should we even try.  If you are serious about crossing the Atlantic, you do not start by trying to raise the Titanic from the grave while a million fine boats a year are being burned at the wharf.  Only a fool tries to save a fantasy while reality is being killed at his feet.
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The Denaturing of Dogs

"Through selective breeding, experts have been meeting the demands for smaller dogs, dogs which eat less and can be kept more economically; dogs which need less exercise, and therefore retain better health in cramped quarters. The motor age has restricted the exercise of dogs even more than that of men. It has created a need for breeds which remain in good physical condition when they are walked only on a leash, or at best in close company of their owners, instead of being allowed to run free. Thousands of motorists want dogs adapted to riding in cars instead of to loping for miles alongside horse-drawn coaches."
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- From "Science Remakes the Dog: How Breeders Are Changing The Appearance and Nature Of Our Canine Population To Bring Out the Qualities That Are Made Desirable By Modern Living Conditions" in the November 1936 issue of Popular Science.

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Ruff Diamonds

This is my column from the February issue of Dogs Today. 
As always, terrific art from Kevin Broadbank.
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The British Kennel Club is no American Kennel Club, and that’s a good thing.

While The Kennel Club has suggested it might dampen down some extreme selections for defect, the American Kennel Club continues to whistle past the graveyard.

While The Kennel Club has banned father-daughter and mother-son matings, the American Kennel Club continues to green light the most obvious kinds of incest.

And while The Kennel Cub has now embraced a lifetime limit of four litters per bitch, the American Kennel Club says commercial breeders can do what they want so long as the registration checks continue to clear the bank.

The British Kennel Club’s rational for embracing a new four-litter lifetime limit for bitches is to drive out the puppy farmers who toss dogs into cages and breed them at every heat until they are dead or dried up.

But, in fact, there may be more going on here than humanitarian concerns.

The Kennel Club realizes the market for dogs is changing, and they are trying to get ahead of the curve in order to preserve their market share.

That’s not a bad thing if they do it right.

But will they do it right?

And will they succeed?

Only time will tell.

Ego as Economic Engine

Dog shows, of course, grew out of farm stock shows.

The major difference was that while sheep and cattle sales had to make long-term economic sense, dog sales did not.

The axis of production on the farm was pounds of meat and gallons of milk. The axis of production for dogs was something far more ephemeral: the human ego.

Where else but at a dog show could a person with no talent, not much knowledge, and limited funds, buy a national champion in order to gain a little reflected prestige from owning such an animal?

Nowhere!

And so pedigree dog sales grew like summer corn.

Of course, dogs are not the first commodity marketed to a rising middle class eager to demonstrate its ability to engage in conspicuous consumption.

Diamonds (a girl’s best friend) beat out dogs (man’s best friend) by at least a millennia in this regard.

The Start of a Canine Cartel?

Like dogs, diamonds are not particularly rare. They are found all over the world and in such quantities that the only way the diamond cartel can keep up prices is by buying up mines and taking them out of production, even as they shove 70 percent of their product into vaults.

Dogs, of course, have never been shoved into vaults.

Instead, they have been shoved into gas chambers.

“There are too many unwanted dogs” we have been told, even as everyone has agreed that nothing can be done to slow production.

“Liberty and private property” sniffed the budding legal scholars at the Kennel Club.

Of course as things have changed, so too has the legal thinking.

Now, a new ethos has taken hold and more pound dogs are being adopted out.

And so the Kennel Club -- the De Beers of the dog world -- has now come around to slowing down the wheels of canine production.

The fact that good ethics now lines up with good business is simply a bonus.

Designer Dogs

Diamonds and dogs share another economic facet.

Just as the rise of laboratory-made diamonds and the perfection of cubic zirconium has undermined the romance and social cache of diamonds, so too has the rise of “designer dogs” undermined the value and romance of Kennel Club dogs.

Today, non-Kennel Club breeders promise prospective owners "hybrid vigor" from Puggles, Labradoodles, and Chiweenies.

Of course, the Kennel Club is rallying against the embrace of cross-breeds, but it’s having a hard time finding the proper phrasing.

Kennel Club spokesperson Caroline Kisko told The Daily Mail “it is very worrying to see that so many people are not doing any research at all and basing their decisions entirely on a dog’s looks or media profile.”

It’s a curious line coming from someone representing an organization that has been raising disease-riddled dogs with shortened life spans, and judging them based solely on looks for more than 100 years!

In fact, it is precisely because so many people know that Kennel Club breeds suffer from jaw-dropping rates of cancer, cataracts, liver disease, dysplasia and other disorders, that so many are turning to cross-breeds.

Clearly, the Kennel Club needs a little more work on its message here!

Blood-free Dogs

Which brings us to the final parallel in the world of dogs and diamonds: the rising social stigma associated with wearing misery on a ring … or a string.

Just as news stories about "conflict diamonds" left many brides and grooms rethinking the morality of diamond-encrusted engagement rings, so too have stories about defect, disease, and deformity led many to rethink their acquisition of a Kennel Club dog.

Who wants to be associated with misery and depraved indifference to outcome?

No one!

What to do?

Once again, The Kennel Club has taken its cue from De Beers which has tried to create a “blood free” diamond certification system, with every “blood-free” diamond micro-engraved with a logo and registration number signifying they were sourced from a “conflict-free” zone.

But, of course, a brand is only as good as its weakest link.

In recent years, it has come out that some De Beers-branded diamonds may have been washed through third party countries.

The Kennel Club’s attempt at canine branding through an “Accredited Breeders Scheme” has faced a similarly rocky road.

So far, the Accredited Breeders Scheme appears to be poorly monitored and weakly credentialed. Like a Hollywood western town, it’s one-board thick, with little more than the desert behind it.

Horror stories keep popping up on the margin.

But is the Accredited Breeders Scheme a step in the right direction?

In fact it is.

What is needed now is a substantial strengthening of the Scheme by mandating upper limits on Coefficients of Inbreeding, followed by a vigorous enforcement regime to give it real credibility.

That last part will cost money. Building a new economic model for the Kennel Club will not be a free ride.

That said, if The Kennel Club does build a new economy based on quality rather than quantity, I think it can unequivocally say it is leading the way forward – something the American Kennel Club most assuredly cannot.

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Start Your Own Internet Puppy Peddler Site!

When I went to Google Mail this morning, there was this little one-line advertisement, just below "search" and above "archive":

www.affordablepup.com The most affordable maltese teacup puppies in America.

I went to the ad and this is what I found.

And below that was this:

And in the sidebar was a list of "breeds" that are available from this Ohio puppy bundler:

Cava Poo Puppies
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Puppies
Teacup Dachshund Puppies
English Bulldog Puppies
Teacup French Bulldog Puppies
Havanese Puppies
Teacup Maltese Puppies
Teacup Morkie Puppies
Teacup Papillon Puppies
Teacup Parti Yorkshire Terrier Puppies
Teacup Pomeranian Puppies
Teacup Pug Puppies
Teacup Shih Tzu Puppies
Teacup Toy Poodle Puppies
Teacup Yorkshire Terrier Puppies

The wingnuts that created this Internet puppy sales site are a bunch of young guys who did so poorly in high school that they all ended up at "Mount Vernon Nazarene University" which describes itself as a "private, four-year, intentionally Christian teaching university for traditional age students, graduate students."

Right.

Never heard of it, and I actually went to college in Ohio. And, of course, we can see what the graduates of this fine institution go on to do in life -- they become Internet puppy-peddlers. Nice!

Back to the puppy peddler business... did you know there is a guarantee? True! The guarantee is that there will be:

No cash refunds, No vet bill refunds, only credit towards new puppy will be awarded.

Oh, and they "will not accept any claims from Banfield Pet Hospitals" which means they must have wrestled with them before... and lost.

But think about that for a minute. A sick dog came to a veterinarian at Banfield within 14 days of its arrival to its new owner, and these non-veterinarian puppy peddlers who went to a crappy school in Ohio that I have never heard of, and who are nothing more than bundlers for puppy mills and get-rich-quick backyard breeders, decided that they were the experts on all things dog, and they did not want to give up a refund (another dog) to replace the very sick dog they had just fobbed off on some gullible owner!

Wooooeeeeee. That's the story here, isn't it?

Caveat emptor baby, caveat emptor.

But of course idiots are born every day in America, and there's no stopping the people willing to make money off of them. Just ask the admissions officers at Mount Vernon Nazarene University where, for $28,000 a year, you can get a degree that apparently is just about perfect for lining a puppy cage!   But no worries; these boys went to a Christian school!

And just talk to their happy customers if you want to hear how it really goes:

He shipped me a sick puppy with several contagious illnesses so all his puppies would be sick and he doesn't care. I have spent $2,483 in vet bills to help this puppy survive and we still don't know if she will live. I would not buy anything from him. He should be put in jail for not caring about animals properly.

Gosh, that doesn't sound good.

He sent me a sick dog(phenumonia). Acted like he cared. Acted like he would help. Did nothing about it. Stopped contact with me. Dog ended up costing me a ton of extra money. Also never even sent me any papers with the dog.

Hey, you went looking for an affordable puppy not a healthy one or one with papers. And what, exactly, did you intend to do with those papers anyway?

The seller never shipped me the puppy and he did not issue me the credit for it was double billed. He will not return any of my phone calls. I am dealling with my credit card company.

Just an error, I am sure. The amazing part is that credit care companies extend credit at all to small-brained people who buy "affordable" puppies off the internet. No wonder the economy is in a mess!

The seller was easy to work with and promptly handled my order sending my pet in good health.

I am dissasistied in not receiving my pets AKC papers after contacting him twice to remedy this problem. I will be trying one more time and can only hope the fourth call will complete my purchase.

You want AKC papers? Why?? What do you intend to do with them? Seriously, are you intending to breed or show your mail-order dog?

tried to send me a different puppy than the one I had paid for. Did not ship like he was supposed to, after three times, that was when he sent me pics of a pup that was not even the one that was advertised on his web site, same breed, but totally different dog. Returned my phone calls promptly and refunded my money promptly, after I was upset about the switch in puppies

Hey, you know how it is; all these dogs look alike. Besides, you're buying an "affordable" puppy off the Internet. What do you expect? Be happy you got your money back!

Before purchasing my new puppy, the seller was very helpful in answering my questions. However, once the transaction went through I had a VERY VERY difficult time getting him to return any of my phone calls. First of all, I told him which airport I would like the pup flown into..well he chose an airport 100 miles away from me! After telling him to please change it...he told me he would call me back. The seller never called me back..and my fiance had to call him again the following day! Once I got my puppy I took her to the vet for a checkup..according to the vet the vaccine records that were sent over with my pup couldn't have been accurate otherwise my pup wouldn't have even been born while receiving her shot! Additionally, I tried to call the seller to see when my new puppy's exact birthday was..once again NO phone call..my fiance had to call him again the next day!! Overall, this experience was not good at all. Thankfully, our new puppy is healthy, sweet, and absolutely adorable..otherwise we would want all of our money back! Our dog was absolutely precious..she is a shorkie--shi tzu/yorkie mix and I would reccommend this mix b/c they are so cute and loving...BUT before buying from this seller get all of your questions answered before making the final transaction!!

Well honestly, there's no helping you, and why would I want to? Someone has to be the underclass and live in the doublewide trailers. And yes, I would like fries with that!
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How Much is That Bulldog in the Window?

Back in 2006, I wrote of the English Bulldog:

The famed English Bulldog... is mostly Chinese pug -- a show ring creation 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.

I have not changed my opinion, but you do not have to listen to me to hear about the congenital defects inherent to the breed.

Listen to what a top AKC show breeder told ABC television's Nightline program in April of 2009:



Why should anyone care that English Bulldogs are genetic and conformation wrecks?

Well for one, because this dog is a Top Ten AKC breed, along with the Golden Retriever, whose health care costs I have previously described.

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.

Then there is the expense of taking care of these dogs. As with Golden Retrievers, the financial costs can be jaw-dropping.

Consider some of the common health care expenses that Embrace Pet Insurance has documented with this breed:



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 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?

• Related Links:
  ** Terrierman's Top Ten Tips for Avoiding Expense & Misery
  ** Ten Tips to Finding the Right Dog .
  ** Bulldogs: How Did We Come to Select for Defect?
  ** Does the Breed Standard Require a Rape Rack?
  ** Bull Dogs in Rape Racks & Canaries In Coal Mines
  ** We Want Our Mutant Dogs, Never Mind Their Pain
  ** The Kennel Club Freak Show
  ** C-Sections at the Kennel Club
  ** Complete English Bulldog Skeleton in a Bag
  ** Counterfeit Collies and Transvestite Terriers
  ** Kennel Club Dogs: Unnatural Selection for Defect
  ** The AKC Top Ten: A Sad & Grim Joke
  ** Deformity and Disease Due to Exaggeration
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Time to Move Beyond What the Kennal Club Offers

Kennel Club judge Steven Seymour writes in Dog World:

"It is my absolute belief that if put to the vote today, there would be a huge majority vote in favour of major structural change in the way we breed and register puppies in this country."

"Dogs’ health and welfare are being left waiting on the shelf at present, while the power brokers decide what will produce the best outcome; maybe the best outcome for themselves. This is simply not good enough.

"The calls from the mainstream of dedicated breeders could not be any louder. They want the KC to take a proper stance against those who breed without regard to health, and equally they want action to ensure those who volume breed are strictly monitored and inspected on a regular and profession basis.

"Imagine any corporation or business today being able to receive millions a year in income and not be called to account for the product its brand endorses. Each and every day the KC registers puppies which are bred from unchecked parents. Its system of registration allows this to continue unregulated. Everyday someone will buy a faulty product which the KC has endorsed as being purebred and KC registered."

Read the whole thing!
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Basenji's: A Classic Tale of Kennel Club Defect

Modern African Basenjis after a hunt.

In correspondence this weekend, a reader wrote to note that not all was darkness in the American Kennel Club.

For example, when Basenji's began to present with jaw-dropping rates of hemolytic anemia in the 1970s, a test for the disease was developed and affected animals were then culled.

Unfortunately, the now smaller gene pool came down with a new disorder, an eye problem called persistent pupillary membrane, which was quickly followed by a kidney disease called Fanconi syndrome, and IPSID (a fatal malabsorption syndrome).

To combat these three diseases, it was decided to open up the U.S. Basenji registry to increase genetic diversity within the breed.

That does sound like a positive thing, doesn't it?

Sadly, however, the tale does not survive scrutiny.

In fact, it underscores the real problem with Kennel Club thinking.

To start with, let's state the obvious: the Kennel Club did not create the Basenji.

This breed has been around since before recorded history, and is a landrace dog used for hunting in the tropical jungles and scrub brush regions of central subSaharan Africa.

Point two is as important as point one: this breed is not about to go extinct in its native lands.

Basenjis are still used as hunting dogs throughout central Africa, and it takes little or no effort to find excellent specimens in nearly every local village.

So exactly where is the dog in trouble, and why?

The short answer is that the Basenji is only in trouble in the western industrialized world, and it is only in trouble because of the kennel club's closed registry system.

The full story is told here in a paper from the July 2007 Bulletin of the Basenji Club of America, but suffice to say that in the U.K. the breed was founded with just 7 dogs, while in the U.S., the breed was founded with just 9 dogs.

A few more dogs were added in to the mix over the years but, as the paper notes:

"[T]he Basenji modern population was derived from 18 original progenitors, with varying degrees of gene representation."

Even this overstates the genetic variability found within the modern Basenji, however.

As the Basenji Club of America notes, much of the founding stock in both the U.K. and the U.S. did not contribute much in terms of get. In addition, due to the popular sire effect, the true male "founder" side of the breed is really no more than four or five dogs. In fact, just three dogs -- Bongo of Blean, Wau of the Congo, and Kindu -- are estimated to represent over 95% of the Y chromosomes in modern AKC dogs!

In response to the collapsing and inbred genetic mess that is the Kennel Club Basenji, the AKC has now decided to open up the registry to dogs imported from Africa provided they can pass a 10-step hurdle.

Of course, no one is asking the most obvious question: Why do we need Kennel Club Basenjis at all?

The answer, of course, is that Kennel Club Basenjis are needed so people can win ribbons showing these dogs, and perhaps make a little cash breeding them as well.

Is there any other reason to ever own a Kennel Club dog?

Of course, some folks are always looking for a "project" or a cause, and the Basenji serves them well in that regard.

If they tell the story right, they can convince themselves and others that they are trying to "save" a rare breed, and never mind that the dog is not rare and does not need "saving"!

And so the push is on, once again, to import a few more dogs from the Congo, Benin and Cameroon.

And what will this achieve in the end? Not much.

Yes, the rate of genetic collapse of the Basenji within the AKC may slow down a bit, but the numbers imported are going to be so low that they will only change the velocity, not the direction, of the curve.

And, of course, the registry is not going to stay open forever, is it?

Once it closes, dominant sire selection will again raise its ugly head, and the gene pool will once again choke down, and inbreeding will continue apace.

In the interim, a few dog dealers will have made a profit selling "outcross" dogs imported from Africa, but not much else will have been achieved.

The good news for the Basenji is that the survival of this breed does not depend on Kennel Club "saviors."

Darwin and the hand of God are still working, as they always have, to save and preserve the Basenji. As Susan Shott has noted:

The owners of African Basenjis do not provide veterinary care for their dogs, and they do not interfere with their dogs' breeding. This insures that African Basenjis are subjected to the rigors of natural selection. Dogs with genetic problems that reduce their fitness early will be much less likely to breed than healthy dogs. For this reason, African Basenjis are less likely than American Basenjis to have serious genetic health problems

Right. But there's more to it than that isn't there? You see, the working African Basenji was not created in a closed registry system, and today's healthy dogs are not maintained in a closed registry system.

Let's not forget that.

And let's not forget that today's unhealthy, non-working American and European Basenjis are a byproduct of a closed registry system that has resulted in nothing but genetic defect cropping up within this breed.

But thanks to God and Africa, we can say: No loss. The Basenji is still alive, well and thriving in its native land.

_ _ _ _

End Note:

Novus sends an email (thanks!) with some data (and links!) which I will summarize:

• Fanconi Syndrome. While the Basenji folks themselves said they though it was just 1 or 2 percent dogs in 1979, a 1990 survey with 624 respondents, heavily skewed to reputable breeders, found 10 percent of of all Basenjis involved in the survey had Fanconi syndrome, and of these dogs, 76 percent were still breeding their dogs.
• Hemolytic Anemia. When testing was started, twenty per cent of all dogs had the recessive gene. A cull of about 18 percent of the dogs seems to have ensued, a phenomenal reduction in a gene pool that was already very narrrow, as noted.
• Hyperthyroidism. As of 2005, there were forty-four (44) basenjis registered with the OFA Thyroid registry, and of these, 15.9% have been diagnosed as having hereditary autoimmune lymphocytic thyroiditis putting the breed very high up for thyroid problems
• Persistant Pupillary Membrane: "PPM is a very common problem in the basenji breed."
• IPSID (ImmunoProliferative Small Intestinal Disease) is also called "basenji enteropathy." Novus reminds me of my dicta: "Avoid any breed with a disease named after it."
• Bottom Line: There's a reason they have (twice!) opened up the registry to African stock
  
  
• Related Links:
  ** Basenjis, Diamonds and Magic Meat
  ** An Ancient Breed of Dog?
  ** When Did Your Breed Show Up at Westminster?
  ** Inbred Thinking
  .

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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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
  .

AKC In Bed With the Puppy Mill Industry

Check out this poster featuring a brachycephahlic bulldog and the co-branding of the AKC with Hunte, the #1 puppy mill puveyor in the U.S.

• Question: Does that Bull Dog need a rape rack?
  
  
• Question: Does that Bull Dog need special food so he can eat despite his deformed face?

For those who are wondering, this is "outreach" being done by the AKC's "High Volume Breeders Committee." A "high volume breeder" is the AKC's new name for what used to be called a puppy mill.

The AKC's new goals are two-fold: to "raise the bar" through health testing (but not by changing breed standards or by allowing outcrossing), and to streamline the registration process at pet store outlets so that more puppy mill dogs can be moved through these parvo- and distemper-plagued distribution points.

And what's going on back at the puppy mill?

The same as it ever was -- dogs bred until dead, raised on wire, and never properly socialized. Nice!

This is your AKC.

• Related Links
  ** AKC Loves Puppy Mills ... and the Naïve
  ** We Want Our Mutant Dogs, Never Mind Their Pain
  ** Counterfeit Collies and Transvestite Terriers
  ** Bulldogs: How Did We Come to Select for Defect?
  ** So You Want a Dog?
  .

Dogs Dealer Tales

"The closer you get to Canada, the more things there are that'll eat your horse" - The Missouri Breaks

A dog dealer emailed me a few week ago. I will not name him or post my complete note back to him, but I did enjoy pricking the balloon that terrier work of any kind is big game hunting in truly wild country done by hardened macho men.

You can only believe that nonsense if you have never been close to big game, never been in truly wild country, and never known a truly dangerous man. As I noted:

Yes we hunt [with terriers] in America, and we hunt without apology and within the law. But it's not exactly big game hunting, is it? This is small potatoes stuff, and the strutting and braggadocio that goes on among dog dealers is funny when held up to the cold light of day.

Raccoon, groundhog, badger, and fox are not exactly mountain lions, grizzly bear, and wolves are they? Let us tamp down the notion that we are big game hunters involved in mighty life-and-death struggles with fierce, killer fighting dogs. It's not true. That's the romantic rhetoric of a dog dealer.

Who cares what color a dog is, where it came from, who bred it, or what piece of paper is associated with it? Let the dog work, and the work will speak for the dog. No grand stories of heroic valor need to be told. No foreign origins need to be assigned, and no references to fighting dogs need ever be made.

Of course that's not the story told by the dog dealers, is it? And especially not the wannabe dog fighting men so often associated with Patterdale terriers these days.

Like parents who have sent their children off to Lake Wobegone Summer Camp, every dog dealer has to convince you their dogs are "above average." To do that, they must tell you their dogs are tougher, bigger and harder than the next. Their dogs are "the real deal" they will tell you. Accept no substitutes.

Really? I need a tougher dog? Why is that again?

After all, a fox, raccoon, or possum cannot dig away. Surely this dog dealer knows that? And surely this dog dealer knows how to dispatch quarry at the end of a dig?

Just asking...

But, of course, so many do not know how to handle quarry at the end of a dig, do they? Cuff a fox out of a hole? Tail out an animal bare-handed? How do you do that? So many have no idea!

And the evidence of ignorance shows, doesn't it?

How many of these dog dealers count as success not pictures of quarry dug to, but pictures of dogs with ripped muzzles?

This is success? Hmmmm.

Where I come from, we count success as showing a creature at the end of a dig, and a dog that has come to no serious harm as a result of a job well done by the human working in partnership with the dog.

Now, of course, some animals can dig away -- badgers and groundhogs for example. There is no denying it.

And yet, with some amusement, I note that one of the pictures of a wrecked dog on one of the anti-sites (the worst picture on there!) shows a Jack Russell Terrier ripped across the snout by a groundhog owned by an Englishman who was told groundhogs were no tougher than hamsters. He has learned since! They are not wolves or grizzly bears, to be sure, but they are not quite hamsters either, are they? Yes, they have teeth and will use them, but let us admit the truth: they are small game, and adding macho swagger to the idea of slipping one in the bag is silly if you actually know what it is you are doing.

But each to his own.

I suppose if you only dig a few times a year, every dig has to be an expedition, every raccoon or fox has to be a giant, and a slashed muzzle is a never-mind. After all, these folks have no real intent of going out digging next weekend too, do you?

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  ** The Sad Rise of Hard Dogs
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  ** Balancing Points
  ** A Scar is Not a Badge of Success
  ** Red Badge of Courage?** The U.S. Now Has More Lions Than Africa
  ** American Coyote Lurchers, Old and New
  ** Comparative Demography, Geography & Ecology
  ** American vs. European Badger?
  ** Bear Population Growth
  ** Why Nutria Are Not Hunted in Fl, TX or Louisiana
  .

The Business of Diamonds .... and Dogs

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, 1953, from Ars Memorandi on Vimeo.

Almost everything the diamond industry tells us about their product is a lie.

For one thing, diamonds are not particularly rare. They are found all over the world and in such quantities that the only way the diamond cartel can keep prices up is by putting more than 70 percent of all diamond production into a vault.

And why is this industry so interested in telling us that a "diamond is forever?"

Simple: they don't want us to try to sell a diamond once it is bought. Not only would resale further flood the already-glutted market, but it would also reveal an essential truth: diamonds are a really lousy investment.

It turns out that buying a diamond is the financial equivalent of flushing your money down the toilet. You buy retail and sell wholesale, and can never hope to recoup the difference.

Why am I talking about diamonds?

Simple. Diamonds and dogs have been variously described as a girl or a man's best friend.

And though they would seem to have nothing in common, diamonds and dogs are not so far apart in terms of marketing methods and marketing problems.

Think about it.

The world of diamonds is being hammered by three forces: 1) a flood of diamonds on the market as new sources come on line from Russia, Africa, and Australia; 2) the slow but stead rise of genuine laboratory-made diamonds and the perfection of cubic zirconia, and; 3) a rising social stigma attached to diamonds as a result of television new shows and documentaries which have (correctly) associated wedding and engagement rings with the human atrocities behind blood diamonds.

Are dogs really that different?

The canine equivalent to cubic zirconium are shelter and rescue dogs.

These "throw away" dogs shine every bit as bright as their Kennel Club brethren, but do so at a fraction of the cost, and often with less up keep as well.

The canine equivalent of laboratory diamonds are "designer dogs" created whole cloth by non-AKC breeders who promise "hybrid vigor" from Puggles, Labradoodles and Chiweenies.

As for the glut of dogs on the market, that can can be seen at any shelter. The only difference here is that instead of putting the dogs in a vault, we kill them in gas chambers or with a blue solution of sodium pentobarbital.

Which leaves us with the changing social construct behind owning a Kennel Club dog.

That construct has been changing for some time now -- one reason Kennel Club registrations have declined 53 percent in the last 15 years.

One of the powerful forces shaping the world of dogs has been the Internet. With the rise of online communication, the word has gotten out that breed after breed of Kennel Club is statistically less healthy than a shelter dog.

The diseases, defects and deformities change from breed to breed, of course, but almost all the Kennel Club dogs now seem to be struggling under a horrific genetic load: jaw-dropping rates of cancer, juvenile cataracts, liver disease, hip dysplasia, deafness, endocrine issues, blood problems ... the list goes on and on.

Who wants to be part of that? No one!

And so we have a perfect parallel.

In a world in which the ashes of your dead wife (or dog) can be turned into a real diamond, why would anyone buy an anonymous stone mined in Sierra Leone at the point of a gun by a man who eats human flesh and rapes 12-year old girls?

And when the jewelry store at the local mall will sell you a cubic zirconium ring in a gold mount for $80, why would anyone shell out $20,000 for something that will not "do the job" any better?

No one smart, that's for sure!

And the same is true for most dogs owners who only want a pet.

Just as "conflict diamonds" left blood stains on the ring fingers of new brides, so too have the defects, diseases, and deformities of Kennel Club dogs become a quiet indictment at the end of a leash.

Who wants to be associated with such misery and depraved indifference to outcome? No one!

And that is a real problem, for both dog dealers and diamond merchants.

When you are selling a commodity that is almost entirely devoid of all practical value, and whose price is based solely on romance, myth and misinformation, it does not take too much to generate a market collapse.

Are we there yet? Not quite, though it safe to say that "the market is down" as far as both diamonds and dogs is concerned.

And interestingly enough, neither the diamond cartel nor the American Kennel Club seem to have a program for recovery.

Is there a way forward for the Kennel Club? I think there is, but it will require fundamental changes in the way the Kennel Club registers and evaluates dogs.

Only by improving the health of their product (and the utility of their product in the case of working dogs), can the Kennel Club hope to change the story being told, and hope to compete head-to-head with shelter dogs and just-invented hybrids.

Americans will pay more for a better product, and we will beat a path to the door of someone who offers one.

But, as the American car industry is finding out, we will NOT pay more for a product that is burdened with moral baggage, costs more, and is breaking down all the time.

We may be slow, we may be ignorant, and we may even forget a lot, but we are not stupid.
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