Pedigree Dogs Not as Healthy as Mutts & Mixes

In a comment to an earlier post, a reader writes to suggest that one reason folks may think mutts are healthier than pedigree dogs is "because vets don't attribute specific problems to their breeding - how could they? It's a mix!"

An interesting point, but actually, that's not the reason.

We think mutts are healthier than pure-breeds because they actually are healthier!

And the research, as I noted in an earlier post entitled Pet Insurance Data Shows Mutts ARE Healthier!, is not closely held.

When it comes to warranties and insurance, predictive values are important, and fortunes are made by determining the correct digits to place to the right of a point mark.

What does this have to do with dogs?

Quite a lot.

You see, pet insurance companies are in a competitive business to get your dollar. If they get the numbers wrong, and price a premium too high, potential customers may forgo pet insurance altogether or else sign up with a competitor's plan. On the other hand, if the company routinely prices insurance premiums too low, they may push themselves into bankruptcy.

And so, pet insurance companies have collected data on hundreds of thousands of dogs and analyzed that data, in order to assign correct premiums to predictive risks.

And what do the insurance records show? As I note, by way of example:

Embrace Pet Insurance... will insure a mixed breed dog up to 8 years of age, but the cut-off for purebred dogs is 6 years.

What's that about?

Simple: Taken as a whole, there is a "health gap" between cross-bred and pedigree dogs, and that gap is about two years. The insurance industry is simply mirroring in policy, what has been proven true on the ground.

Of course, there is more data. Over at the Cold Wet Nose blog, Beverley Cuddy has put up some of the citations from Jemima Harrison's current piece in Dogs Today which reviews some of the literature. Citations, with a summary "kicker" quote line to encapsulate the piece, follow:

• B.N. Bonnett, A. Egenvall, P. Olson, A. Hedhammar, Mortality in Swedish dogs: rates and causes of death in various breeds, The Veterinary Record, 1997. ("Mongrels were consistently in the low-risk category.")
• P.D. McGreevy & W.F. Nicholas, Some Practical Solutions to Welfare Problems in Pedigree Dog Breeding, Animal Welfare, 1999. ("Hybrids have a far lower chance of exhibiting the disorders that are common with the parental breeds. Their genetic health will be substantially higher.")
• A. Egenvall, B.N. Bonnett, P. Olson, A. Hedhammar, Gender, age, breed and distribution of morbidity and mortality in insured dogs in Sweden during 1995 and 1996, The Veterinary Record, 2000. ("Mongrel dogs are less prone to many diseases then the average purebred dog.")
• A. R. Michell, Longevity of British breeds of dog and its relationship with sex, size, cardiovascular variables and disease, Veterinary Record, 1999. ("There was a significant correlation between body weight and longevity. Crossbreeds lived longer than average but several pure breeds lived longer than cross breeds, notably Jack Russell, miniature poodles and whippets.”)
• G.J. Patronek, D.J. Walters, L.T. Glickman, Comparative Longevity of Pet Dogs and Humans: Implications for Gerontology Research, Journal of Gerontology, Biological Sciences, 1997. ("The median age at death was 8.5 years for all mixed breed dogs and 6.7 years for all pure breed dogs. For each weight group, the age at death of pure breed dogs was significantly less than for mixed breed dogs.")
• H.F. Proschofsky et al, Mortality of purebred and mixed breed dogs in Denmark, Preventive Veterinary Medicine, 2003. (Higher average longevity of mixed breed dogs. Age at death when split into three age bands: mixed breeds 8,11,13, purebreds 6, 10, 12.)
  
• Marta Vascellar et al, Animal tumour registry of two provinces in northern Italy: incidence of spontaneous tumours in dogs and cats. BMC Veterinary Research 2009. (“In both dogs and cats, purebreds had an almost two-fold higher incidence of malignant tumours than mixed breeds.”)
• Agneta Egenvall et al, Mortality in over 350,000 Insured Swedish Dogs from 1995–2000; Breed-Specific Age and Survival Patterns and Relative Risk for Causes of Death. Acta Veterinaria Scandinavica, 2005. (No difference overall, but mongrels low-risk for locomotor problems and heart disease.)

Of course, not all pure breed dogs are a complete mess, and not all mongrels or mixes are the picture of health. "Hybrid vigor" does not quite live up to its hype either. Mix two genetic messes, and you may not get gold out of the opposite side.

That said, all things being equal, mongrels and mixes ARE healthier than pure breeds. Fancy that! And yes, the pun is intended.
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A Brief History of Dog Food

The first commercial dog food was introduced in England about 1860. James Spratt, an electrician from Ohio, was in London selling lightning rods when he saw miserable street dogs ganged up along the piers waiting to being tossed mouldy hardtack biscuits and scraps of rotten food.

This was a very old type of feeding called "trencher feeding" that had existed in the U.K. since before there were dinner plates. A "trencher" was a flat piece of bread once commonly used as a plate or underneath a rough wooden plate. Food was served on this bread and the bread and the table scraps (along with spoiled food and boiled knuckle bones) were then "tossed to the dogs."

Spratt decided he could do better than bread and hard-tack biscuits, and he came up with a biscuit, shaped like a bone, made of wheat, vegetables, beetroot and beef blood. Spratt's dog food company thrived, and around 1890 he took it to the U.S. where it became "Spratt's Patent Limited" which eventually diversified into other feed stocks (such as fish food) as well as veterinary medicines.

In the 1950s Spratt's became part of General Mills, and in 1960 it was bought by "Spillers" dog food company (a UK subsidiary of Purina which is owned by General Mills). Today Spillers makes "Bonio" bone-shaped biscuits which are very similar to those once manufactured by James Spratt.

Other dog food companies sprang up, many with paid endorsements from veterinarians who shilled for them just as veterinarians shill for Hill's "Science Diet" today. Right from the beginning pet food manufacturers discouraged their clients from supplementing with anything but food out of the box. A culture of dependence was being forged.

In 1907, F.H. Bennett introduced Milkbone dog biscuits as a complete dog food and a direct competitor to Spratt. Milkbone and Spratt's Dogs Food and Cake dominated pet food manufacturing until the 1920's when canned dog food was first introduced by Ken-L-Ration.

Canned horsemeat was cheap after World War I as huge numbers of horses and mules were being replaced by cars and tractors. The growth in canned dog food really shot up in the 1930s, and by 1941, canned dog food represented 91% of the dog food market in the U.S.

Canned dog food fell out of favor (and supply) during World War II when a shortage of tin made canning difficult and expensive, and as the horse surplus dried up. By 1946, dry dog food was king once again, and it has remained so to this day.

The production of enormous bags of "kibbled" dog foods began in earnest in 1957 when the Purina company began marketing extruded dry dog "chow" through grocery store chains. Purina followed on with cat chow in 1962. Today most grocery stores in the U.S. devote more shelf space to canned and kibbled dog food than they do to breakfast cereal or baby food.

Ralston Purina created the soft-moist pet food category in 1971, and this category now includes such foods as Purina ONE and Pro Plan.

The rise in kibbled dog food in the U.S. seems to coincide with a rise in canine skin problems arising from canine allergies to corn, wheat and perhaps other additives to dry dog food such as preservatives, coloring, and stabilizers.

Perception is not necessarily reality, of course. In fact, not all canine allergies are due to food. At the same that pet owners were switching to bagged dog food, they were also washing their dogs more (causing dry skin) and bringing them indoors where they came in contact with carpet cleaners, laundry soaps, room fresheners, and a host of other chemicals.

In addition, the aggressive line-breeding of dogs to create new types (almost all of which were created between 1850 and 1930), served to concentrate genetic defects in certain lines of dogs -- including genetic predispositions to skin allergies.

If you think your dog may have a food allergy, the only true test is to switch foods. This is a process, however, not an event. It may take several weeks on a new diet for a dog's skin condition to improve, so it's best to start an "elimination diet" right at the beginning. This can be as simple as feeding your dog table scraps for a few weeks (no salt, no bread) which will increase variety in the diet. Once your dog's skins problems have abated, introduce a new type of food and watch for any recurrence of skin problems.

Price, quality of food and skin allergies are not closely related. Dogs can be allergic to very high-quality ingredients. In fact, the most common food allergy in dogs is an allergy to beef! Whatever food you use, I recommend that all bagged foods be bought from supermarkets or other venues with high-volume sales so that they remain fresh as long as possible.

Above all, be wary of food fads, which are always more about the human than the dog. Your goal should be a balanced diet, a dog that has healthy stools, no allergies, sound teeth, and is on the thin side.

A great deal of what you read on bulletin boards and list-servs about dog food is nonsense. Today's pet food companies and executives are not going to risk their brands, reputations and personal credibility by knowingly putting horrific ingredients in dog food.

Remember, we are talking about companies that are producing 12 million pounds of food an hour (a real number). This food has to look and taste the same every time that it is produced, which requires a great deal of regimentation, paperwork, inspection and quality control. Dog food companies are not using road kill for ingredients (as some hysterics have claimed), but entire train loads of cheap and readily available corn, wheat, rice, potatoes, soy and beef parts, as well as breathtaking amounts of lamb, chicken and "meal" made from ground up beef, chicken, lamb and turkey (including bones). To this mixture are added vitamins and various additives for color (to please you) and preservatives (because people prefer to buy dog food in big bags that will last several weeks).

For most dogs, bagged kibble supplemented with vegetables and a few special scraps from the kitchen (a few scrambled eggs, a bit of sausage, a few carrots) works fine. Most dogs do not have skin problems of any kind, and most canine skin problems are not food related. I prefer kibbled dog food over semi-soft because I think it is better for the dog's teeth, and because the heat of the extruding process helps sterilizes the ingredients, while the dryness of the product discourages spoilage.
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Vets Invested in Defect, Deformity and Disease

A while back, in a post entitled For Veterinarians, Silence Has Been Golden, I noted the complicity vets have in the diseased, deformed and defective pedigree dogs that we see today:

Pencil it out, and the big money in veterinary care is not in once-a-lifetime vaccines, but in the big stuff: shot hips, wrecked eyes, recurring skin conditions, Cesarean births, and mounting rates of cancer.... The vets are nearly silent about the litany of pain, suffering, shortened life, and rising expense...

For those who think my post was too cynical, I recommend going over to the Purina Care blog, where veterinarian Larry McDaniel writes about the recent New York Times piece on English Bulldogs (for my take on that, see here).  McDaniel writes: 

I vividly remember a conversation I had with an established Veterinarian when I was starting out in practice in Montana. He told me that one sure fire way to get my practice going was to help establish the Bulldog as a breed in Western Montana. I thought he was joking, but he was serious. All the Bulldog people in the Western Part of the state saw him as the expert and brought their dogs to him. He told me that much of his success was based on the Bulldog.

Is this kind of advice rare in the veterinary field?

Apparently, not at all.   Veterinarian Emma Milne, in the U.K., once gave a presentation about health problems in pedigree dogs to the British Veterinary Association when an opthamological veterinarian stood up and said, point blank:  Why would I want a healthier dog when it's the wrecked Kennel Club dogs that bring in the money? 

Was this being said as a joke?  At the time, some thought so, but maybe not! 

One things for sure, as I noted in my earlier piece:

Just go to your vet and ask if he or she has a written list of breeds they actively caution against.

It's not going to be there.

Fact sheets on heartworm? Check. Even vets in Maine will have that in hope of maybe making a sale to a gullible customer.

But a fact sheet that says "avoid these breeds which are walking cancer bombs?"

A brochure that says "just say no to anchondroplastic dogs and brachycephalic breeds?"

Not there.

Nope.  Still not there.  Some things never change.

A re-post from November, 2011.

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The Jab in the Pocket

Vaccines are an area where veterinarians have worked very hard to confuse things.

Those who have children know that after they become teenagers, they are pretty much done with vaccines. Are dogs different?

No.

It turns out that after that first round of shots, completed in the first year of a dog's life, no other vaccines are necessary, except rabies.

Ronald D. Schultz, chairman of the University of Wisconsin's Department of Pathobiological Sciences, and the world's foremost expert on dog and cat vaccines, describes how he takes care of his own dogs and cats in the March 1998 issue of Veterinary Medicine:

"My own pets are vaccinated once or twice as pups and kittens, then never again except for rabies."

More recently, the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) published Canine Vaccine Guidelines, Recommendations, and Supporting Literature. This 2003 report notes:

"We now know that booster injections are of no value in dogs already immune, and immunity from distemper and vaccinations last for a minimum of 7 years based on challenge studies, and up to 15 years (a lifetime) based on antibody titer."

Bottom Line: If your veterinarian is pushing annual Disptemper, Parvo, Corona and other shots for your adult dog, he or she is ripping you off and billing you for medically unnecessary services.

Change vets!.

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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Saving Big Money With a Ball Point Pen

When a veterinarian submits a "prospective bill" before doing the work, look it over and see what you can cross out.

1. Are you being double billed? It happens.
2. Has the vet or vet tech tacked on procedures that you do not want, such as teeth cleaning? It happens. Teeth cleaning in dogs is almost never medically necessary. Dog teeth and human teeth are not the same for one simple reason: a dog is dead at age 15, not at age 80.
3. Has the vet tacked on a bunch of expensive pre-anesthesia tests? If your dog is not old, is in fine health (other than perhaps a wound), and has done well with anesthesia before, consider skipping it.
4. Is this vet trying to test for heartworm in a dog that is under 9 months of age? That's a scam or a mistake -- cross it out and consider changing vets.
5. Is the vet anxious to sell you Rimadyl for pain? Cross it out and say you'll give the dog buffered children's aspirin in the proper dose instead.
6. Is the vet trying to sell you year-round heartworm medication even though you have a real winter in your area? That's a scam -- cross it out.
7. Is your veterinarian pushing annual vaccinations and "boosters?" Forget it; all vaccines after the first year are good for the life of the dog. Your vet knows this, or should. A rabies vaccine is the only one that needs to be renewed (for legal reasons) and then only every three years, and you do not need to get it done at the vet. The cheapest rabies tag in your community can be gotten from the local animal shelter.
8. Has your new puppy been spayed or neutered? Ask to take it home that day. Some veterinarians are big on keeping pets overnight, but this is medically unnecessary and just another "tack on charge." In many cases, your dog will spend the night at the vets without an overnight attendant even being on duty. Why would you pay to leave your dog in a cage far from home with no one to even check up on it?
9. Ask the vet for a prescription for a generic and get the prescription filled at WalMart or Costco for a few dollars. You can do this with a large number of pet medications, including antibiotics, and you can even get antibiotics without a prescription. If WalMart or Costco don't have the drug you are looking for, and you will need it for the life of the dog or cat, see if it can be ordered mail order. And yes, you can ask for a double-dose and split the pill for your dog, same as is done for humans.
10. Are you kenneling your dog at the vets while on a short vacation? Just say NO to the "guilt" charges they will suggest adding -- nail trimming, baths, "vaccine boosters," and those "extra walks" that will either not be done or will be just a "once around" a 12-foot yard. A kennel is not a spa, and a short trip out of town is no reason for you to allow yourself to be gouged. Remember: the dog will be walked so the crate does not have to be cleaned and the dog washed (for free!).
    
    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Related Links

• A Business Plan Based on Fencing Out the Truth
• Is Your Veterinarian Clean? Don't Count On It.
• Veterinary Trades Say It's Time to Rip-off the Rubes
• The Billion Dollar Heartworm Scam
• Rimadyl: Relief From a Swollen Wallet
• Vet Care Reaches Human Care Costs
• SuperGlue to Close Wounds
• The Billion Dollar Lyme Disease Scam
• Veterinary Billing Without Oversight or Regulation
• A Season to Everything
• Cruciate Ligament Injuries in Dogs
• Vet Pricing Has Nothing To Do With Care

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Payola, Pushers and Profits in the Vet Business

AAHA convention, Long Beach, 2010.

Look at the sign.

Who's convention is this?

A casual passersby might think this is a convention of Pfizer, Merial, and Hill's dog food salespeople.

Do you see any other sign? No?

Look carefully, and you can see a sign that says "Welcome AAHA" that fades into the gray of the building above the pharmaceutical and dog food signage.

This sign is smaller than the corporate branding, is less colorful, and also says quite a bit less.

AAHA?

What the hell is AAHA?

AAHA is the American Animal Hospital Association, and it seems to operate as a sales point or front for big pharma and pet product vendors.

How do we know that AAHA operates as a front for pharmaceutical products and other vendors?

Well the above signage is one small suggestion.

So too is the background of AAHA's new Executive Director, Dr. Michael T. Cavanaugh.

Just before coming to AAHA, Cavanaugh was Director of Veterinary Hospital Services for Pfizer Animal Health.

Before that he was an employee of Hill's Pet Nutrition, a dog food company that pays kickbacks to vets for recommending their food, and which gives seminars to veterinarians on how they can price-gouge their clients.

Prior to his tenure at AAHA, Cavanaugh also worked for Heska, a veterinary laboratory sales equipment company which does things like sponsor veterinary dermatology symposiums in Hawaii.

AAHA itself is a direct middleman vendor to veterinary hospitals through its MarketLink web site. As they note:

Our lineup of more than 400 manufacturers features all the familiar names and more: Pfizer, Bayer, Covidien, IDEXX, Merial, Novartis, Ethicon, Intervet/Schering-Plough. We also offer complete specialty product lines including orthopedics, oncology, ophthalmology, dermatology, and emergency products

Nice!

On another page of the web site AAHA notes:

It takes a lot of inventory to support a modern practice. We supply more than 18,000 products from more than 400 manufacturers including Pfizer, Bayer, Novartis, Merial, Schering-Plough, IDEXX, Fort Dodge, Purina Diets, and Royal Canin Diets. As the only supplier to come close to stocking 100% of the items veterinary practices need, AAHA MARKETLink provides a one-stop source for drugs and supplies. We cover your day-to-day needs as well as your big-ticket-item purchases with items ranging from pharmaceuticals and biologics to diagnostics and equipment.

What's nefarious about this?

Simple: AAHA sets the guidelines that tell both veterinarians and the lay public how often a dog or cat should be vaccinated, how diabetes in pets should be managed, whether dogs and cats should have routine dental cleaning, and what level of expensive testing and intervention is appropriate for a geriatric dog or cat.

Think about that.

Is AAHA a disinterested party? They are not!

AAHA itself directly profits when goods and services are purchased through its MarketLink web site.

Sales are sales, after all, and so long as the prescribed medicines or tests do not kill a dog or cat too quickly or too often, junk billing promoted by AAHA benefits AAHA directly.

Of course it also benefits AAHA's financial patrons, the pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Abbott, and the medical testing companies and kit-makers, such as Idexx and Heska.

Of course the gravy train does not end there, does it?

The veterinary hospitals also profit when medically unnecessary goods and services are pushed to a gullible public, and of course vets and clinics also profit when they pocket jaw-dropping profits from direct sales of medicines and services that they themselves prescribe.

Some business model!

So who loses?

Well a few thousand dogs and cats lose their lives every year due to autoimmune diseases and cancers triggered by over-vaccination.

Mostly, however, it's consumers who lose when they pay out billions of dollars a year for unnecessary veterinary goods and services.

The obvious ethical conflicts that exist between veterinary hopitals, vets, drug companies and veterinary trade associations are considered "business as usual" in the world of dog and cat care.

If a human doctor over-vaccinated and over-prescribed meds and services like most vets do, lawyers would be camping in their waiting rooms to serve them legal papers.

If your own doctor said you you were over-weight, and he was going to prescribe you food he sold in the lobby and a Pfizer drug he also happened to sell directly from his desk, you would run screaming into the parking lot. Quack!

But in veterinary care this kind of nonsense is normal, and legal actions are rare because most state consumer laws that govern veterinary care are weak, most lawyers are expensive, recoveries for even a dead pet are likely to be only a few hundred dollars, and state veterinary boards are packed with veterinarians who rarely find for consumers.

This is the way it goes in the world of veterinary care.

Everything is done with a wink and a nod, and most of it is facilitated at the highest levels by the AVMA and AAHA who see nothing wrong with putting payola and paid endorsement at the center of their own business model.
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The Billion Dollar Vaccine Scam

Line for rabies shot, Chicago

Nothing has done more for dogs than the rise of vaccination.

It's hard for folks today to understand how devastating distemper was just 60 years ago when going to a dog show was often the precursor to losing entire kennels, with one sick animal serving as a disease vector to hundreds of other fine animals.

Thanks to Britain's fox hunters, and America's fur farm owners, the world now has a decent distemper vaccine, and other vaccines have continued apace -- parvo, adenovirus, and parainfluenze to name the four most important.

I have written in the past about how to give a vaccine and how to obtain vaccines for less. Now, let me turn to another topic: the continuing scam -- and medical danger -- of over-vaccinating dogs.

Most people have the attention span of a sand flea, so let me cut to the chase and tell you what Ronald D. Schultz, chairman of the University of Wisconsin's Department of Pathobiological Sciences does with his own dogs.

This man is one of the world's foremost expert on dog and cat vaccines and, as he wrote in the March 1998 issue of Veterinary Medicine:

"My own pets are vaccinated once or twice as pups and kittens, then never again except for rabies."

What? Never again, except for rabies?

Is this man crazy?

No, he's educated, and he knows a simple truth: After a booster shot at the age of one year, dogs and cats have lifetime immunity from parvo and distemper.

As for other vaccines -- Corona, Lepto, Lyme, Bordatella -- those vaccines should generally not be given at all due to their lack of efficacy, relative danger, or the rarity of the disease and the ease of post-infection treatment.

Only in the case of rabies -- because it is a legal requirement -- is a booster shot needed, and in that case it is only needed once every three years after the first year.

But, what about all those booster shots? "My vet has been sending me reminders every year, and I have been paying a small fortune..."

Right.

And you have been ripped off.

The information I am giving you here is NOT NEW; it is old.

Let me quote directly from Kirk's Current Veterinary Therapy XI (Small Animal Practice), page 205, which was published in 1992 -- more than 24 years ago:

Annual vaccination is a practice that was started many years ago and that lacks scientific validity or verification. Almost without exception there is no immunologic requirement for annual revaccination. Immunity to viruses persists for years or for the life of the animal. Successful vaccination to most bacterial pathogens produces an immunologic memory that remains for years, allowing an animal to develop a protective anamnestic (secondary) response when exposed to virulent organisms. Only the immune response to toxins requires boosters (eg: tetanus in humans), and no toxin vaccines are currently used for dogs or cats. Furthermore, revaccination with most viral vaccines fails to stimulate an anamnestic (secondary) response as a result of interferance by existing antibody (similar to maternal antibody interferance).

What's that all mean?

Let's start with the first line: "Annual vaccination is a practice that was started many years ago and that lacks scientific validity or verification."

What that means is that dog and cat re-vaccination is an old scam.

From the beginning, vets have known it was bunk.

Think about it. Vets love their children, but they have not been vaccinating their kids for measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox and polio every year, or every three years, their entire lives, have they? No. By the time a kid is an adult, he is also through with vaccines.



Line for polio shot, Chicago


That's the way it should be for dogs too, but there's no money in that.

And absent regulation, veterinary care is all about money.

Besides, over-vaccination does not appear to be obviously bad medicine to pet owners, while it appears to be obviously good business for both vaccine makers and veterinarians.

How good a business? Well, let's do the math.

A "booster" shot requires an office visit, for which you will typically be charged $75.

In addition, there will be a $15 charge for a distemper and parvovirus combination shot.

Doing only 2,000 of these a year will generate $180,000, for which the vet will pay about $3,000 for the vaccine, and about the same for the postcard reminders.

A nice business!

And, for the record, I am being very conservative here. The "nonsense billing"at this veterinary practice (see link) will set you back $165, as they are bundling their vaccine protocol with a worthless stool sample (you can worm your dog yourself for $2) and a worthless Snap test which will, no doubt, be used to drum up more testing of a perfectly health and asymptomatic dog.



Of course, the vet is not the only entity in business here. So too are the vaccine makers.

A key part of the vaccine scam is that vaccine makers have taken a page from the playbook of antibiotics salesmen, and "short-listed" their vaccines in order to generate more business.

Shortlisting an antibiotic is done by putting a short expiration date on the bottle -- typically one year after manufacture.

But, as I have noted in the past, research by the U.S. military shows that all non-liquid antibiotics are effective for many years past their printed expiration dates. By shortlisting the expiration date, however, antibiotic manufacturers are able to get scores of millions of people to throw billions of dollars of good antibiotics down the drain every year. The result, of course, is an artificial boost in sales, and never mind the public health and environmental consequences.

Vaccine makers do essentially the same thing, shortlisting the length of immunity provide by their vaccine. By saying a dog vaccine is good for only one year or three years, vaccine makes increase product sales anywhere from 4-fold to 10-fold.

How pervasive is this scam?

Consider this: even when the law requires a booster shot, as it does for rabies, the drug companies are still cheating you. Pfizer, for example, sells an identical rabies vaccine formula under two different labels - Defensor 1 and Defensor 3 - depending on a state's vaccination requirements.

If you happen to live in Alabama -- an annual rabies vaccination state due to the easy larceny within that state's legislature -- your dog will be jabbed every year with a three-year vaccine labeled as a one year vaccine, and never mind that it will provide your dog with no more protection than that given to dogs just one state over, where the three-year vaccine protocol is in effect.

Perhaps now is a good time to stop and explain how vaccines work -- and why modified live virus vaccines generally work for life.

The short story is that humans, cats and dogs inoculated with modified live virus vaccines, end up creating "memory T-cells." Memory T-cells are cells that contain the recipe or code that the body first used to fight off the attenuated (weakened) infection when it was introduced to the boyd body in the form of a live virus vaccine.

If a body is challenged by the same infection later on, Memory T-cells swing into action and, using the old code, generate a vast reservoir of new antibodies to fight the infection.

This is how ALL vaccines work, and how they have worked since cowpox was first used to fight off smallpox back in 1796.

Not only are "booster" shots never needed except for rabies, but over-vaccination is actually dangerous, which is why it is considered very bad medicine to revaccinate your children again and again outside of a clear immunization protocol.

Not only is infection a possibility, but so too is a the possibility of over-stimulating the immune system, which can trigger rather serious autoimmune disorders. In addition, jabbing any area with needles increases (however slightly) the chance of a cancer occurring at that spot.

While the science of vaccines has been known for a long time, it was not until the advent of the Internet that consumers began to understand the degree to which their pets were being over-vaccinated -- and the health and financial ramifications of this practice.

Thanks to the information and work of folks like veterinarian Jean Dodds, folks began asking questions, and as a consequence a lot of vets "punted" from an annual vaccination schedule to a once-every-three-years vaccine schedule.

But three year vaccines are a ruse too. This protocol has not been embraced because of any proven efficacy, but because it is a transitive business model for veterinarians once dependent on annual vaccination income.

The American Veterinary Medical Association, for example, will not come right out and say your dog or cat should be vaccinated at all after the age of one. Instead, they have issued a "guideline" suggesting every three years might be a good idea, but they note that vets are free to "develop individualized vaccine recommendations with the input of their clients for every patient."

What's that mean?

It means every vet is supposed to size you up as a possible mark, and then play you as they see fit. AVMA offers no real treatment protocol after the first year, because they know it's all bunk. If a veterinarian wants to rip off his or her customers every year, they can. And if they want to rip them off every three years, then they can do that too. And if the customer is really smart and knowledgable .... well find something else to bill for!

The AVMA knows the truth: That after age one, distemper and parvo protection is for life, and that aside from a rabies shot every three years, no other shot is ever going to be necessary.

But, of course, they want to keep this information secret from the customer base.

But secrets have a way of leaking out.

In 2003, the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) published their Canine Vaccine Guidelines, Recommendations, and Supporting Literature. This report was only made available to veterinarians, but copies have gotten out, and right there on page 18 it tells the truth:

"We now know that booster injections are of no value in dogs already immune, and immunity from distemper and vaccinations last for a minimum of 7 years based on challenge studies, and up to 15 years (a lifetime) based on antibody titer.”

Lifetime immunization. There it is, in black and white.

As the truth about the billion dollar vaccine scam has leaked out, needless routine dog vaccination has plummeted, and a tightening of purse strings has occurred in many veterinary offices.

What to do?

The answer, of course, is to invent more junk billing.

And so, just about the time that vaccine revenue began to fall off, vets suddenly began encouraging annual teeth cleaning, with expensive lab work attached. Veterinary trade journals shameless suggested that veterinarians should bill-pad more by offering to "check on thyroid levels" and by pushingn regular "deworming." Titer levels could be checked on old vaccines (and never mind that low titers are not an indication of lack of immunity). And, of course, keep those three-year vaccines going. In fact, you might want to spread those vaccines out a bit - give the rabies vaccine one year, and the parvo the next, and the distemper in year three. That way a dog or cat will have to come in every year just as before. Brilliant!

Across the board, the advice of the veterinary trade associations has been simple and direct: It's time to rip-off the rubes and find a new scam to replace the old one (annual vaccines).

How do you, the customer, fight back?

Simple: Get informed and don't be afraid to say NO.

Ask questions, "use the Google," and draw a line through unnecessary charges that are put on your "prospective bill."

Finally, let me close by saying this: If you want to vaccinate your dog and cat every year, or every three years, or every two weeks, then go right ahead. It's bad medicine, but it's still a free country, and you are free to waste your money and increase the chance of serious negative health consequences to your pet for no health benefit whatsoever. As I have noted in the past, more pets are killed every year with a can opener than any other tool.

By the same token, you are also free to give your animal the whole panoply of worthless and/or dangerous vaccines a vet might try to push your way: Leptospirosis (the least effective and most dangerous vaccine), Lyme, Giardia, Bordatella, and Corona. Probably nothing bad will happen to your dog, and all you will lose out of the deal is money.

Vets, of course, will continue to push worthless vaccines. It's a proven fact that it's easy to scare patients into additional unnecessary veterinary charges, and it's a proven fact that a lot of people think that the more they spend on their dog or cat -- and the more jabs it has gotten -- the healthier and safer their animal will be.

But just remember this: No doctor in the world would vaccinate their child the way they want to vaccinate your dog.

Yes, it's a good business practice for the vet to over-vaccinate your dog, but is it a good health care practice?

No.

And on that point, there is no longer serious debate.

This is a repost from 2009.

Related Posts
** Veterinary Trades Say It's Time to Rip-off the Rubes
** Vaccines for Less
** A Quick Guide to Common Canine Diseases** The Billion Dollar Heartworm Scam
** The Billion Dollar Lyme Disease Scam
** Rimadyl: Relief From a Swollen Wallet
** SuperGlue to Close Wounds
** Antibiotics for Less Without a Prescription
** Saving Big Money With a Ball Point Pen
** Bitter Pills and Veterinary Care
** Health Care Basics for Working Terriers and Other Dogs
.

Does the Breed Standard Require a Rape Rack?

Remember when Michael Vick got busted for dog fighting, and they found "rape racks" in his basement?

What's a rape rack?

It's exactly what it sounds like -- a rack to which a female dog is bound while a male dog mounts her from behind.

In the case of Pit Bulls, the rape racks are supposedly necessary because "some females don't want to be mounted by any old male." Imagine!

Of course, a rape rack is not just used on "awkward bitches," is it?

No, it turns out that's it's also used on dogs that are so deformed they cannot even have sex on their own.

Take a look at the picture at top, or the score posted here where this breed-blind fellow has come up with his own version of a rape rack for British Bulldogs.

Of course he doesn't call it a "rape rack" does he?

No, the more politically correct term is "mating cradle."

And why do you need such a thing? Simple: because the British Bulldogs is a complete and utter mess. As I noted in an earlier post:

"The famed English Bull Dog ... 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 chondroplasia 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."

But wait, there's more.

Did you know that the Bulldog is now a "Top Ten Breed" in the American Kennel Club?

True!

And for those know-nothings who claim it's only recent "exaggerations" that have led the British Bulldog to be incapable of having sex, giving birth, or actually running across a field, consider this from Rawdon Lee, an authority on bulldogs writing in 1894:

"It is known that time plays grim jokes on historical monuments.

There has probably never been a dirtier joke, however, than the one played on our national symbol, the English Bulldog.... The lunacy of breeding for extreme exaggeration, for extreme foreheads and huge skulls, for totally exaggerated low-slung front legs, for shoulders pointing outwards at almost a right angle, for Bulldogs with a front wider than that of the opposing bull. None of this used to be the case and only recently came into fashion."

So there you have it: the British Bulldog has been a basket case for more than 115 years!

And what has the Kennel Club (either American or British) done about it?

Nothing!

To which I would only ask one question .... Does the breed standard require a rape rack?

• Related Posts:
  ** Bull Dogs in Rape Racks & Canaries In Coal Mines
  ** The AKC Top Ten: A Sad & Grim Joke
  ** Defective By Design at Crufts
  ** We Want Our Mutant Dogs, Never Mind Their Pain
  ** Bulldogs: How Did We Come to Select for Defect?
  ** What the Hell is an American Staffordshire Terrier?
  ** A Dog Show We Need to See
  ** Pit Bull Enthusiast Michael Vick Signs With Philly
  ** Michael Vick or Ingrid Newkirk?
  ** Black and White and Redneck All Over
  ** Get Your Michael Vick Rape Rack Here!.

A Drug Pusher for Dogs?

A repost from 2009.

Novartis has a training course for dog

trainers.

And you know what folks learn in that course?

Simple: If a dog has separation anxiety, give it drugs.

Specifically, give the dogs Clomicalm.

Guess what the press release says?

Go on -- guess.

That's right: 14% of all dogs need this drug! That's one in seven.

And guess what dogs need to be medicated most often? You guessed it! The young ones and the old ones -- just like with people.

I ran across a press release informing me of all this when I perused a list of The 10 Weirdest Drug Stories of the Month for November 2008.

Now, for the record, I understand there may be a place for medication with some animals. But one in seven dogs? That seems a bit much!

The dog trainer quoted in this stilted press release was someone by the name of Ami Moore, and I had to wonder what kind of business she was running to be pimping for Novartis. I mean, most dog trainers I know consider drugging a dog a sign of failure, not success.

And so I Googled her. And guess what I found? It seems Ami Moore, who calls herself "The Chicago Dog Whisperer," was charged with two misdemeanor counts of animal cruelty for putting shock collars on very young dogs. According to Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County Illinois Attorney's Office, "In one instance, she had three shock collars on one dog. One was near the genital area of the dog."

Woo-eee! That's a good dog trainer.

For the record, Ami Moore says the charges were "racial" and were filed only because she happens to be black. I will let folks read this story from The Chicago Reader and judge for themselves.

Now, to be fair, Ms. Moore was acquitted because the District Attorney fumbled the ball and did not get the officers and expert witnesses to court.

So no harm, no foul, right? Just pump one in seven dog with drugs, and put multiple shock collars on the others while you are training them.

Cue the calming music.

For those who want to know more, I have good news. Ms. Moore says her:

Friendly two hour Rapid Rover Rehab Consult™ will resolve 99% of your dog training, behavior and potty training problems in 2 hours. Yes, just two hours.

Wow. And guess what? This two-hour program, which costs $499.99+ works on "pushy dogs, hard-to-train dogs, stubborn dogs, out-of-control dogs, dominant dogs, fearful dogs, anxious dogs, obsessed dogs, hyper dogs, mouthy dogs or just driving you crazy dogs."

Of course, the $499.99+ price is not for dogs with separation anxiety or aggression. For those dogs, the two-hour course costs $999.99+

Did you notice the plus sign? I bet that's important!

Ms. Moore goes on to say her methods "give you results just like you see on television" and that in just two hours "Rapid Rover Rehab" can fix barking dogs, biting dogs, nipping dogs, chewing dogs, jumping dogs, humping dogs, growling dogs, snapping dogs, snarling dogs, mouthing dogs, dog chasing cars, dog chasing squirrels, dog chasing rabbits, dog going in the trash, dog stealing paper, dog pulling on the leash, dog running away, dog bolting out the door, dog growling when feed, digging dog, dog stealing food, dog stealing clothes, dog socialization, growling at your family, dog to dog aggression, dog to human aggression, on-leash aggression. sit-stay in the real world, down-stay in the real world, come in the real world, heel in the real world, bad manners in the house, crazy dog behavior in the car, ignoring your commands, annoying you when you watch a movie, bothering you while you eat, dog jumping on your friends.

And you know what's best of all? There's a PayPal link right below this claim. Excellent. Everything is so easy!

I just have one question: If the two-hour course for $499.99 will solve everything, why is there also a 31-day "boot camp" (the cost is $3,999.99) for dogs with anxiety and aggression issues?
.

Swag the Dog

Bill Kurmes of the Skeptivet blog (check it out!) was kind enough to send me an article by veterinary student Michelle Dally about the payola, kickbacks and free swag that veterinary school students have come to expect these days:

Every first-year veterinary student at Colorado State University is assigned a small desk in a dingy warren in the Anatomy building affectionately known as “the cubes.” These desks are unremarkable in all ways but one: when students first arrive, they find their desks piled high with a variety of freebies: pens, notepads, backpacks, notebooks, highlighters, academic calendars, pet treats, pet food bowls, reference books, and more — all emblazoned with pet food, pharmaceutical, and other corporate brand names from across the veterinary industry. And that is only the beginning.

As the year unfolds, students discover that they are entitled to free and sharply discounted dog, cat, and horse food; free heartworm preventative; a free laboratory coat; and a free clipboard for use in their gross anatomy laboratory. Soon, first-year veterinary students are receiving e-mails through the official veterinary college e-mail distribution list encouraging them to apply to be corporate student representatives for a variety of companies positions that typically involve little more than distributing additional freebies to their classmates and organizing one or two free lunchtime lectures. In return for their efforts, these student representatives are generally paid between $750 and $2,000 per semester.

Some companies employ as many as two student representatives in each of the 4 veterinary college classes, whereas others employ only a single representative for each class or a single representative for the entire college. Regardless, the upshot is that there are typically one or two corporate-sponsored free lunches each week for veterinary students, and the corporate presence in the veterinary college is palpable.

Veterinarians, like human doctors, pocket every freebie and dollar they can get even as they proclaim themselves immune from such cash-for-prescription influences -- a classic case of the "Semmelweis effect." 

"As if I’m going to be influenced by a pen” is a common refrain when concerns about the provision of freebies to veterinary students are raised. But social science research has suggested that gifts, no matter how insubstantial, do indeed bestow the giver influence over the recipient.... a study of third-year medical students at eight U.S. medical schools found that 80.3% of the students thought they were entitled to receive gifts from drug companies. Sixty-nine percent of the respondents believed that gifts would not influence their practices, but only 57.7% believed that the same gifts would not influence their colleagues’ practices. Additionally, 59.6% of the respondents simultaneously believed that sponsored grand rounds seminars are educationally helpful and likely to be biased.

Michelle Dally notes that it's not just pharmaceutical companies lining veterinary pockets with pens and payola; it's dog food companies too.

Even if one accepts that veterinarians have the same or greater conflicts of interest as do physicians when it comes to industry relationships, the question arises as to whether veterinarian relationships with pet food companies are somehow different. After all, animal owners can much more easily choose another dog food than they can choose another drug.

And yet, a number of pet food companies market therapeutic diets that often are available only through a veterinarian, making these diets somewhat akin to prescription medications. In addition, veterinarians, because of their professional standing, can influence owners with regard to the pet foods they choose. I would argue, therefore, that pet food companies could see value in obtaining influence over veterinarians as to the pet foods they recommend.

I have said all the same before, and added quite a few more bits too as a check of the links at the bottom of this post will confirm.

Ms. Dally somewhat timidly notes:

As of this time, neither the AVMA, American Animal Hospital Association, nor Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges has adopted a policy regarding provision of corporate freebies to students.

No kidding! And you know why? Simple: the AVMA and the American Animal Hospital Association and the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges are like pigs with all four feet in the payola trough.  Tell veterinary students to quit taking payola, kickbacks and promotional items?

Hell no! Their advice is going to be to ask for bigger checks, better free vacations, more "free samples," and more "Key Opinion Leader" contracts.

The AVMA and AAHA do not care a whit about ethics, integrity or good medicine at a fair price.  These trade associations have become nothing more than snake oil peddlers who long ago sold themselves out to drug companies, device makers, and laboratory corporations.

In the veterinary field, the trade associations are not part of the solution; they are part of the problem!  [This  blog post is a re-post from 2011]

• Related Links:
  ** Veterinary Trades Say It's Time to Rip-off the Rubes
  ** Is Your Veterinarian Clean? Don't Count On It.
  ** Conflict of Interest? What Conflict of Interest?
  ** Veterinary Billing Without Oversight or Regulation
  ** Pfizer, Pfrauds and Pfools
  ** A Business Plan Based on Fencing Out the Truth
  ** Payola, Pushers and Profits in the Vet Business
  ** Year Round Dosing for Big Veterinary Profits
  ** The Billion Dollar Heartworm Scam
  ** The Billion Dollar Lyme Disease Scam
  ** The Billion Dollar Vaccine Scam
  ** Cruciate Ligament Injuries in Dogs
  ** Vet Pricing Has Nothing To Do With Care
  ** A Vet Writes About the Veterinary Business Model
  ** AVMA Says Fear Your Pet and Go to the Vet 
  ** More Promotion of Veterinary Junk Billing
  ** Puppy Mills, Veterinary Bills and the AVMA
  ** Ridiculousness at the AVMA Convention
  .

The Wrecked German Shepherds of Crufts

A German Shepherd and owner wait at Crufts.  This is a re-post from 2009.

Max von Stephanitz, the creator of the German Shepherd wrote:

"The breeding of Shepherd dogs must be the breeding of working dogs, this must always be the aim or we shall cease to produce working dogs.

"In contradistinction to working and utility breeding is 'sport' breeding, which produces a temporary advance but is always followed by deterioration, for it is not done for the sake of the DOG, nor does it make him more useful, it is done for the vanity of the breeder and the subsequent purchaser."

Max von Stephanitz, further wrote, in 1929:

"My main 'warning-cry' concerns itself with the direction of the breed, which many breeders – many novices – still subscribe to, a direction that would lead us off the beaten path, far off of our breed goal; toward breed ruin.

"In all my articles, lectures, and judges reports of the last few years, I have desperately tried to point out that we must cling to the breed standard of the working dog, and I gave reasons why we must do so – as it was once laid down, as a model of the breed’s design. I have emphasized over and over again that we should not get overly engrossed in details of outward characteristics, even if they are ever so attractive, when, for the breeding value of the dog, he must be based entirely and decisively upon the totality of hard constitution, good health, endurance, authentic working structure and stable temperament.

"The vision, the understanding of this standard, is thus sometimes lost. Many young fanciers have unfortunately hardly ever seen correct conformation in respect to these dogs. They become intoxicated with appearance which so often has so little in common with the working dog as he is supposed to be. In this case, the only thing that helps is trusted faith in the system, until one’s pondering leads to eventual understanding. The belief in what is well meant – the thoughtful suggestions and guiding principles – are for the welfare of the breed’s future.

"As with so many breeds, sport and fad breeding led to more severe evidence of natural traits, and therefore to bad breeding situations that had nothing more in common with working ability.

"This may seem nice to the faddist, however, for the true lover of Nature, who doesn’t engage in matters based on eye appeal, it appears as a strange caricature.

"Over-sized, massiveness, height, racing ability, straight front or tucked up racing dog body would be for the shepherd an adverse perception leading to the death of the breed. And actually, some of our dogs and especially those who receive applause among the novices resemble the racing dog type in his over-sized, narrowness, tucked up appearance and effemination. The Borzoi, who hunts the wolf on the Russian prairies does not look like this; he is still a correct, rugged fellow. He who looks around at dog shows, pages through dog magazines, will find often enough that there are still a few other breed’s destinies which are threatened, that is, they are about to step out of their breed type because they are not bred upon a breed goal, but rather upon an imaginary 'beauty concept'."

• Related Links:
  ** Let's Do to Horses What We Did to Shepherds
  ** Shitzhund Work at the AKC
  ..