http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/03/crufts-clamps-deformed-dogs-outcry-last-years-best-breed/
GSD BIS winner is the motivation for the new rules which address functional conformation.
About time!
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I cannot understand how people who purport to care about dogs can breed dogs into such a state, or reward it in the show ring. Itâs abuse, and itâs disgraceful.
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The minute I saw your thread title --before I opened the thread â I thought of that deformed GSD I read about a couple of weeks ago. Iâm glad you started this thread and posted the link.
Now if we could just get the WKC to do the same âŠ
How about the bulldogs? Pugs? Other breeds that canât breath properly anymore? Toy breeds whoâs eye sockets are too small for their eyes and tear constantly because the duct cannot function? Breeds whoâs brains are too large for their skulls? Breeds like the French bulldog who cannot even give birth without being cut open? Good first step. Lots more that needs attention.
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A while ago, the EU passed or tried to force rules against breeding deformed animals, including dogs, which they considered animal abuse. They meant to cover all of the dogs with the dwarfed legs like Dachshunds and Basset Hounds, and they also targeted the faults you mention.
I have no idea what happened to that initiative. It came along about the same time as the EU rules about no cropped ears, bobbed tails, and whisker shaving.
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Ear cropping and tail docking ought to be banned in the states too. Abominable practices for no health related reason. We ban dying chicks and bunnies but perfectly legal to cut the ears off a dog. Wtf.
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I disagree about tail docking; there are lots of breeders in Europe trying to reverse that after tail injuries in the field. Not every breed needs a tail docked for working, but there are quite a few that are prone to working injuries.
Whether or not docking should be allowedâŠmehâŠas long as we allow parents to cut bits off of their boyâs penis at birth Iâm not sure how we can argue that cutting off part of a newborn puppyâs tail is any worse. Ear cropping is another issue entirely; itâs a much more invasive and specialized/painful procedure.
Itâs not Westminster that makes the rules or breed standards, but the parent clubs. The title of the article is misleading because itâs not Crufts that actually made these rules. The Kennel Club in Britain has had some good ideas to push parent clubs in the right direction. AKC could put pressure on parent clubs to minimize extremes in a breed standard. I donât see that happening anytime soon but it wouldnât be a bad thing; the idea of suspending all judges assignments and making them go through retraining is daunting beyond being reasonable in the U.S.
Parent clubs should do this for themselves, though, and many breeds do a good job.
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Sorry, but where are âdying chicksâ banned? I think the U.S. still allows male chicks to be ground up?
I think she means dying as in coloring - like for Easter pets.
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I think if judges stop rewarding these âdeformedâ dogs, the parent clubs would have to do something. That GSD in the clip could barely stand up on its own. It looked severely ataxic in the hind end as if it was going to collapse any minute now.
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Yes. Is it âdyeingâ? Likely.
OK so they canât be dyed but they can be ground up alive. I guess that is ironic.
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Well yes, thatâs the idea; they are forcing it to be that way. The reality is that it may be difficult to find any specimen in certain breed rings that isnât extreme, so judges would have to withhold all placementsâŠwhich is never going to happen.
Iâm not sure I think the GSD was ataxic but obviously people donât approve of the extreme angulation. There are other breeds with various extremes, although GSDs and bulldogs tend to be the ones people remember. I donât have a problem with the kennel clubs putting pressure on parent clubs to reevaluate their standards and/or revise their judgeâs ed so that extreme trends donât get rewarded.
I still have black and white photos of the German Shepards my great grandparents imported. Those dogs stood four-square and moved straight. They were called Alsations because of WW1. Much has changed. In my opinion thst winning GSD should have been excused from the ring. It doesnât bear to think about the state of the dogs that lost.
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Baby steps - literally.
"Dogs can now only be exhibited if they can âstand freely and unsupported in any way, in structural balance while both rear pasterns are verticalâ.
Today pasterns, tomorrow the world! Seriously, I like purebred dogs and I think they are absolutely necessary to the future of pets, but some of the people in that world amaze me. How can people actually need to be told to keep their breeds non-crippled? Depressing. And such a very big iceberg, considering the physical stuff is only the most visual problem with purebred dogs.
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Itâs a good start but thereâs still a way to go. As a previous poster said, until these dogs stop being placed in the ring the breeds wonât actually improve in a more functional way as breeders start to use the winners in their breeding programs.Ear cropping is illegal here, no exceptions as is tail docking but working dogs (spaniels, pointers etc) can be docked as pups IF a breeder can find a vet to do it, most wonât.
There is a big campaign going in the UK, supported by many celebrities and vets to inform the general public about the downsides of exaggerated traits in pedigree dogs - focussing on the health issues, costs and quality of life - which has been quite successful but it has led to people thinking that the designer crossbreeds are automatically healthier which of course opens another can of worms!
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Well, again, is there really any reason to believe that exaggerated angulation = crippled? One video of a dog in the show ring is not really a fair evaluation of an entire breed. I posted the video about Rumor, the WKC Best in Show winner recently at liberty. She did not look âcrippledâ - although it is not clear to me why GSDs would need such exaggerated angulation.
The breeds that I think are more at risk for problems are the ones with extreme heads - either narrow or flat and breeds with protruding eyes or large haws. But many breeds are in a position where âtoo muchâ could start to be dangerous.
A good, strong parent club should be thinking about these issues. It annoys me that tail docking even gets lumped in with things like protruding eyes, congenital eye problems, and other congenital health issues. If weâre going to care about dogs - letâs care about the big stuff, not something that is nearly equivalent to human circumcision, and has about a 0% chance of complications.
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Sorry but there is a huge difference between intentionally breeding dogs to be deformed and docking ears and tails. I canât believe that it is illegal anywhere to dock tails but you can breed a bulldog that is going to have a c section because they canât naturally give birth. Not to mention that they canât naturally conceive either. I applaud them for making a move to change but I also have seen the extremes that change is taken to. Dogs like pugs that can barely breathe and Brussels griffons that notoriously have knees so bad surgery is inevitable are changes that need to be made but keep your rules off docking and cropping. I would rather have a dog uncomfortable for a few days having a tail dock rather than having a major surgery to have a year plus old dogs tail removed because they broke it. Chronic ear infections in dogs with traditionally cropped ears are no walk in the park when cropping isnât done.
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What breeds crop ears to minimize infections? Iâm not aware of that practice. Most ear cropping I know of is to give the dog a different look and/or make it look more intimidatingâŠBoxers, Dobermans, most of the bully breedsâŠ
But in general, I think we agree on a lot here. I donât have an issue with tail docking at all; or dewclaw removals, or honestly, ear cropping, so long as it is done by a veterinarian.
I think that people latch onto these issues (and the GSDs angulation, and Bulldogs c-sections) because they are easy. There are much more problematic issues for a dogâs lifetime health than a docked tail or c-section birth. Weirdly, itâs often the same type of people who think that cross-bred dogs or âmuttsâ will be healthier - and not affected by hip dysplasia, epilepsy, congenital eye & heart issues, etc. Not true, of course.
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