For over 100 years the pedigree dog has been mutated. The human species campaign for perfection has finally crossed the last line and demolished the last barrier between enhancement and cruelty. “Pedigree dogs need our help” they are living in pain, agony being the norm of day to day life. A trip to the vets compulsory every few months, just to check when the next costly operation must be performed. We walk past the victims every day...
Animals that were once a symbol of pride and honour reduced to pitiful crippled creatures. Legs so short they’re stomachs drag in the dirt; ears so heavy and oversized their hearing is impaired, neck deformed; sores all over their bodies due to excess flab. These once legendary hunters perfectly proportioned for a life of exhilaration “the chase”; No longer do they stand tall. For as much as they long to take up the stance bestowed upon them by nature, their exaggerated limbs will no longer support it. Why? Because we have all taken perfection ten steps too far.
No more “survival of the fittest.”! Puppies born in sensible, unexaggerated proportions are culled, new bourn necks... Broken, because... Although it would have a better quality of life than their siblings; although its life expectancy is significantly longer; despite the fact that the newly bourn squirming playfully in the breeders hands is able to breath with ease, unlike the dogs around it. It is useless, worthless it doesn’t look right. It doesn’t fit directly into a definite category and there for is not entitled to continue living. It doesn’t meet breed standard so is unable to be registered as pedigree or compete in shows.
This breed standard is created by the kennel club, a society that claims to have the welfare of the animals at heart. Is it just me or does something seem amiss here?
The number of dogs suffering from hereditary diseases such as...
-neurological conditions
-sever joint problems
-epilepsy
- And spinal defects
Is increasing at phenomenal rate. How do they spread? Dogs affected with the diseases are bred from, the disease are passed down to the pups then pass it on generation to generation. At this point any sane human will have come to the solution... stop breeding from effected dogs. This would be unreservedly successful. However it is apparently not that simple. You see the dogs that are affected or more simply put malformed are the dogs that best fit the kennel club breed standard, therefore the dogs that win the competitions and consequently the dogs that are bred from.
The winner of Crufts best in show was a dog which had had to have two operations to enable it to breathe in a reasonable amount of oxygen. He had over 8 litters bred from him.... this means those tiny pups would grow up to most likely have the same costly operation, the same terrifying experience, the same pain of recovery. This is a recovery to what... to become a dog that cannot walk over ten steps without having to pant continuously. It is not only small dogs; the most common sufferers of epilepsy and Labradors and boxer, two of the most popular breeds.
What is wrong with crossbreeds I don’t know... My dog, Milly, is pure mongrel and proud. She has no pedigree registration... but she has quality of life and to me that’s what matters. However breeders still insist on breeding for aesthetic perfection... slowly cutting out healthy pedigrees who don’t quite “fit the bill.” Leaving the disfigured to be bred from produce even moor extreme damaged dogs.
If we don’t stop this downward spiral of reckless breeding: soon... Sooner than we could ever imagine all pedigrees will be effected then soon... Sooner than we could ever expect all pedigrees will be too malformed and feeble to breed from, in short there will be no pedigrees left. And who will be mans best friend then?
