The Zim Family Cocker Spaniel Forum

Three years ago the BBC ran a documentary on the harm being inflicted on dogs due to pedigree dog breeding, even by supposedly reputable breeders of champion show dogs. Cockers weren't mentioned, but in particular they highlighed GSDs, King Charles Cavaliers, and flat faced dogs like pugs which are bred so flat faced now that they need operations to breathe or c-sections to whelp. Because of their documentary, the showing of Crufts has been removed from BBC programming for the past few years.

This week, the BBC ran a follow-up to see if any strides have been made to improve the health and fitness of pedigree dogs. Their answer was largely not, that really many dog breeds have become mutants which are suffering agonizingly in health and leading vastly shortened lives due to breeders breeding for the exaggerations desirable in their breed standard out of limited or compromised gene pools. They suggested that some breeds should be thrown out altogether and newly bred from scratch as they've declined so much in health or fitness for purpose from original standards which were usually for working. The documentary has been very controversial amongst breeeders and the public in the UK, but it's very interesting all the same and makes you think twice about pedigree dog breeding. Probably most people in the US won't be able to access the latest documentary on first link below, but you should be able to see the one from 3 years ago which has been posted on YouTube in several segments (part 1 in second link below). Probably the new documentary will come on Youtube at some point..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... _Years_On/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O0l0f50AAk

I lost a lot of respect for the BBC when they ran the first documentary. From the reports of the show breeders, the responsible ones pulled out of the interviews when they figured out what the angle was going to be and began to distrust the interviewer. And then for the BBC not to broadcast Crufts, it just reenforced the political nature of the endeavor.

Thus, it is no surprise that a follow-up story is similarly an attack on purebred dogs. First, any one who knows anything about reproduction will tell you that 3 years is not enough time to recover from poor breeding practices. How many generations can there be in 3 years! One generation if it is a responsible breeder; maybe three if you are a puppy miller who breeds at maturity.

I, for one, am not interested in the purposed "Eurodog" to replace purebreds that the Big Animal Rights organizations have deemed too damaged to be saved.

Colleen

And anyway, you can see much more of Crufts on More4 now, a 2 hour programme each evening plus live streaming. I'm not saying my breed and many others don't have some problems, and some breeders aren't caring enough about health & welfare. But they need to be attacking puppy farmers, not the majority of show breeders. People with no idea about the breed standard or any health testing. And I take a certain evil delight when the RSPCA come door-to-door collecting in saying that I can't support them as I own and show 'evil mutant freaks', to use the words of their ex-chief vet.