Everything below is posted with liberty and credit to Jemima Harrison and the PDE blog, with the sole purpose for this information to spread as far as possible.
• soon to be 10 years since Pedigree Dogs Exposed
• five years since The Advisory Council on the Welfare Issues of Dog
Breeding highlighted the issues linked to head conformation in
brachycephalic breeds
• 18 months since the publication of research (funded by the kennel
club) spelling out the link between stenosis (pinched nostrils) and
respiratory issues, especially in French Bulldogs
• a year since a veterinary petition demanding urgent reform for flat-faced dogs
• almost a year since the Kennel Club set up the Brachcycephalic Breeds Working Group in response to that petition
.. and of course I have highlighted the issue of pinched nostrils endlessly here on this blog.
Endlessly.
And yet… the picture at the top is one the Kennel Club has used as the
ideal depiction of the French Bulldog in its new edition (2017) of its Illustrated Breed Standards.
And it isn’t a one-off. Here’s the one the KC has used for the Boston Terrier standard.
The Bulldog.
And the Pug.
Dogs are as near-as-damn-it obligate nose breathers. And even if they
can supplement by mouth-breathing when they are awake, they are unable
to do so when they are asleep, meaning thousands of these dogs live
lives of interrupted sleep as they have to wake up in order to not
asphyxiate.
Study after study has shown that these dogs pay the price for not being
able to pull in a decent lungful of air and that starts with the
nostrils.
These pictures are all the proof you need that the Kennel Club is not
taking this issue seriously; that at its very core the KC is paying
nothing more than lip-service to the demands for reform by the
veterinary profession and animal welfare campaigners.
At one of the first meetings of the Brachycephalic Breeds Working Group,
then KC Chairman Steve Dean expressly said that he didn’t want
“changing the breed standards” to be at the top of everyone’s list of
actions that could be taken.
And indeed, it hasn’t been.
There have been some new measures. The KC continues to fund brachy research. There is also now a brachy learning resource
available on the KC website, the promise of better education of judges
and a breed club commitment to educate better about the importance of
keeping brachycephalics slim. There are also now health schemes for the
Bulldog, French Bulldog and the Pug which do test for respiratory
issues.
All this is welcome. But, bottom line, the Kennel Club continues to bat
for the breeders who do not want the basic phenotype to change because
it’s the breeders that pay their wages.
Of course the simplest, quickest remedy is to give these dogs
back some muzzle – to help not just with breathing issues, but to help
protect their eyes from trauma and to give their teeth some room in
their overcrowded mouths (a Pug here compared to an Australian
Shepherd).
The problem is that breeders are wedded to flat faces, particularly in
Pugs and Bulldogs. They talk about the perfect “layback” – which
essentially means that the nose should not interrupt the line between
the forehead and tip of the dog’s chin.
In fact, there’s a new book out on the Pug head (yours for only $159)
which reminds everyone that the word Pug comes from the latin for
“fist” and that this is the shape the Pug’s head should be in profile –
i.e. totally flat.
Here’s a reminder from a top UK show breeder of what the Bulldog’s head should look like.
As you can see, a protruding nose or a less severe underbite is considered a fault.
There was a big review of breed standards following Pedigree Dogs Exposed
but it was mostly to add vague qualifiers such as, in the Pug standard,
"relatively" short rather than just short when describing the length
of the muzzle. This gives the breeders way too much wiggle room. We
need proper metrics – a defined minimum skull/head/muzzle ratio and we
need to find more profound ways to change their minds about what
constitutes their breed in their eyes.
Large open nostrils are a requirement in brachy breed standards, but
this is widely ignored because other points of the breed are considered
more important. There would be outrage if a Frenchie with one lop ear
or a Bulldog with a liver-coloured nose won in the show-ring, but dogs
with slits for nostrils continue to be made up to champions.
Meanwhile, on my CRUFFA group,
whenever you post a picture of more moderate examples of the breed,
current of historical, the breeders heap scorn. A few days ago, one
breeder insisted that the dog featured in this famous painting of a Pug
by Carl Reichert, dating from the late 19th century, was a crossbreed.
Same for these ones. Mongrels, the lot of them.
She admitted that the eye-white showing was undesirable but preferred the look of this Crufts dog.
Today, this was posted on a public Facebook page by one French Bulldog
breeder in response to a plea by vets for more moderate dogs.
(My bolding below)
To those who say you cannot rebuild Rome in a day I say… rubbish. There are already more moderate versions of these breeds out there being
bred by breeders more interested in health than the current fashion.
For more than 10 years, I have called for moderation and hoped it would
come from the breeders. But I now know it won’t. If we want anything
more than a wee bit of tweaking round the edges, then we need to demand
it.
It is time to get tough. These dogs suffer – not all of them all the time but too many of them too often.
Brachycephalics live a third less long than non-brachy dogs. Fifty per
cent have significant airway disease. Almost all struggle to cool
themselves. Most Bulldogs still can’t mate or give birth naturally. Pugs
have 19 times the risk of developing corneal ulcers. All suffer from
very low genetic diversity. And so on.
Today, Bulldogs, French Bulldogs and Pugs make up one in five of the
dogs registered with the Kennel Club – up from one in 50 in 2005.
Yesterday, a new petitionwas launched asking for a ban on brachycephalics. Over 20k people signed it in the first 24 hrs.
Have we reached a tipping point? With your help.
I haven’t been able to blog much recently because I am busy finishing
off a television series for BBC2. But I have taken time out to write
this because the new breed standard pictures made me so angry.
So please… Although it’s moderation I want, not a ban, sign the petition. Make your feelings known to the Kennel Club (see here). Complain if brands or media use generic pictures of brachycephalics to sell their wares.
Vets: thank you so much for all that you are now doing, but please keep the pressure on.
And, of course, to everyone out there – please don’t buy that puppy.
It is not safe to buy a Pug, Bulldog or French Bulldog. Not safe for them and not safe for your wallet.
Seriously people. This deserves 6000 notes. It’s not even my text, so it’s not like I’m attention-fishing.
Not my normal post, but please spread this around!! I live fairly close to the fires and I know that is bad and how frightened they are! I lost my house in a fire once and the experience was traumatic. So if you, or someone you know lives in the area of the Paradise, or Malibu fires, please do this or share it if you don’t!
No no no no no. Do not leave food and water out for the animals. Definitely bring your animals in because the wild ones will be more frequent in your area but do not leave out food and water for them. They will become dependent on people and if that happens then they cannot survive on their own which harms them more in the long run. The department of wildlife has warned of this as it gets spread through social media every time we are on fire. The animals will be fine. They can find what they need.
Actually, you should probably leave out pans of water, because these animals are fleeing fire and need to cool down and recharge. Food, no; water, yes. They will be able to find food, but leaving some water out for them won’t hurt anything, I don’t think.
water is probably fine, I think? but absolutely avoid any contact with wild animals who show up. keep your own animals indoors out of reach, and stay out of their way and let them go about their business. stay safe out there!
OK we do this pretty much every year in CO and this is how it goes:
WATER IS FINE, WATER IS GOOD. Animals fleeing the fire are more dehydrated than anything else. I reccomend filling up a kidde pool with a couple inches from the garden hose, and leave a couple large rocks in to stablize the pool/let things like birds and bees drink from it. Also include a 2×4 with one end in the pool and the other over the edge to be an escape route for smaller animals. I also reccomend leaving some plates with a bit of water in them for really small animals like spiders, snakes, toads and other things that would have difficulty getting into the pool.
Beyond the necessary stuff to keep your own house safe in the event of fire, SKIP THE YARD WORK- you probably shouldn’t be exterting yourself in the smoke anyway, and fleeing animals will appreciate the additional cover.
LET THEM NAP. Most animals that come to your yard will usually keep moving within a day or so and are only there to rest until they’re well out of the smoke. If you find an animal in your yard that isn’t obviously injured or ill, just give it a wide berth and let it rest. If it’s in EXACTLY the same place after 48 hours, then you should call animal control.
KEEP FOOD, PETS AND CHILDREN INSIDE. Keep your trash in the garage, bring in birdfeeders, and if you let your cats roam… just don’t in general, but right now is a super bad time becuase there’s hungry coyotes about. Stick your head out the back door and give your yard a quick look before letting the dog or children out and supervise them while they’re outside.
EXCEPTION TO THE FOOD RULE: GARDENS. When animals learn there’s food in houses or trash cans, that’s not great. Foraging food off of plants like munching your tomatoes and that zucchini you weren’t going to eat is less of an issue, because it doesn’t really teach them to associate humans and houses with food. Let them monch your crops.
SECURE YOUR HOUSE COMPLETELY- lock doors, block off any pet doors you have, cover your window wells, and lock all your windows, even the ones on the upper floors. This will keep both displaced wildlife AND smoke out of your home. If possible, see if you can seal off your attic. If not, make sure your attic acess is secured. Racoons and bears are sneaky.
OBEY ANY AND ALL EVACUATION NOTICES, BURSH-CLEARING INSTRUCTIONS AND ANY OTHER INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN TO YOU BY EMERGENCY SERVICES. Stay safe kids.
The funniest thing to ever happen to me in a D&D game was when I’d been invited into an online group, and there was this one guy playing a dwarven barbarian that was the worst.
Now… whenever I talk about “those kinds of guys” involved in tabletop, I usually refer to them as “Dwarven Barbarians” because of this dude – even if that’s not the character they play. You get the idea.
He’d been AGGRESSIVELY hitting on the characters of me and the only other girl in the party for like an hour, but when the DM told him to cut it out, he went silent. Except it was only silent on mic, he’d dropped into private messages to send both me and this girl in character messages. I was copying all this over to send to the group so I could get him kicked out, when I heard the girl gasp in horror on her end. The message popped up on mine a moment later – he’d blasted us both with the same dick pic.
I didn’t even have a chance to react, she immediately jumped into action, and loudly proclaimed “OH! Oh!!!! [laughter] Daniel’s cosplaying his character that’s so funny. You’re very good, you got the proportions right and everything! That’s so cute, how’d you ever manage to get everything reduced down like that?”
And of course the other dudes in the game were like “Oh really? Let’s see! Daniel why aren’t you showing us?”
And I’m losing my shit because Daniel’s muted himself. Then he promptly drops out of the call. We explained everything, which MORTIFIED the other players, but my god I wish I’d been that quick on the draw. She’s my hero.
aceofsquiddles 