What a load of tosh Im looking forward to Crufts and seeing all the dogs and doggie people. I just hope a few people will not ruin it for the rest of us.

It was good last year and I expect this year will be even better with less media intrusion. Ive got BIS tickets as well and my OH and I are making a long weekend of it. Good luck to you all and I hope you all do as well as possible.

I do wish people wouold just live and let live and stop tarring everyone with the same brush - 1 bad dog breeder does not equate to all dog breeders being bad. Bit like teenagers there not all bad in fact 10% possibly are and they ruin it for the other's.

How is this for the PDE influence? I got this tonight from Joe Inglis who makes dog and cat food.

Crufts and the pedigree dogs debate

I'm off to Crufts tomorrow, but only for the day, and only as a visitor.

For the last few years, we have had a large stand at the world's biggest dog show, and have seen it as an important platform for talking to our customers about our foods.

However we took the decision after the BBC 'Pedigree Dogs Exposed' program back in the autumn not to have a stand this year as we are not comfortable with the response of the Kennel Club to the issues raised in the program.
I had lunch with the secretary of the Kennel Club, Caroline Kisco, and found her to be very defensive and almost in denial about the scale of the problem, and the Kennel Club's responsibility for many of the problems we now see in pedigree dogs. 

So until we see some real signs of change, and the welfare of the dogs is placed right at the top of the Kennel Club's priority list, we're going to be staying away.

If you are going, have a great time, but don't forget to think about the welfare of the dogs you see as well as appreciating their looks, as the two are usually closely linked - and not often in a positive way.

Never liked him, even in Vets in Practice.  He is a big JH and BC supporter.  If he was that against it then he wouldn't go at all.

Hi Polly,
          Does he not see that by his action he will be percieved not to be only boycotting the K.C.
but also the breeders and exhibitors of pedigree dogs in general, yet he will still stick his hands out
to take there money no doubt.
Pardon ignorance but what food brand does this individual supply ? hate to think I might put some
of my money in his pocket

Stan Berry

He is one of my vets and I have exchanged a few emails about PDE after I saw his comments on his website.

Luckily I don't have to visit the vets with my pedigree dogs that often as think we would have many interesting conversations over the vets table :-)

His brand is Joe and Jacks.

Stan, google pet's kitchen and you should find him.

Preferred him to his ex. but now can't stand either!! 

LJS and others,
        Thanks for that, thankfully it is not a brand I use
            Stan

well i met hime today and he didnt look too bothered about all the mutant dogs around him!!

I see he was on the Hearing Dogs stand too.

> as I will do, blank out watching the B.B.C.for the full duration of Crufts

I think I'll watch Dancing on Ice with a glass of wine instead :) with Crufts online on in the background to keep an eye on things, although the picture is so slow to load :(

I thought the article very balanced, and a good summary of what has happened both in the PDE prog and what has happened since.
Then again, I always did agree with the prog.

> It's almost an admission of guilt, a need to prove that we're not really baddies.The general public at Crufts will be mainly folk who own dogs themselves, love dogs and are intesested in them....the few others don't need pleading with.

I own dogs myself, love dogs and are interested in them, but I would like to SEE that health tests are being done. From the original prog it is clear that some 'breeders' care not a jot for health testing and I would have thought that if you do health test that you would want to set yourself apart from those (apparent) few. I have never understood how someone who doesn't do something wrong is so averse to showing it. It's a bit like the ID card debate. I would be happy to carry one as I have nothing to hide.

Although this sounds like a great idea to me, anyone could say their dogs have been health tested, it doesn't mean they have. I think the only way forward is the KC introducing legislation that only health certified dogs (with the appropriate certificates being produced) can be registered for breeding. Prob solved.

"Dancing on Ice" !! O.M.G. Would almost prefer a re-run of P.D.E. (I dont think )
alcohol idea sounds good mind, make mine a large whisky !
Stan

"THEN AGAIN I ALLWAYS DID AGREE WITH THE PROG"    Sorry ChinaBlue how can people accept as factual a programe
who's writer/producer is quoted in print as stating they decided not to show the good things (soley) for the sake of impact
such editing by definition can only give a very deliberately biased viewpoint to the viewing public what further editing/biasing slant
took place we may never know !
In relation to health tests I got impression that idea was for exhibitors at benched shows to indicate what health testing
had been carried out, possibly with photocopies of test results available to view on bench or upon request by prospective
Stud dog /puppy  enquirers.
Stan Berry

Regardless of the good things not being shown, it was still factual - just showed the negative side of breeding/showing. I can understand and accept that the media will slant a programme so as not to dilute the message. Had the programme been made this way it would probably have left people feeling ambivalent towards the situation, and I believe that most certainly then that the KC would have just continued as they were, and in my opinion that was just not good enough. I am still waiting to see whether the action the KC are taking is actually going to be strong enough, but at least finally they have had to acknowledge some of the wrongs going on.

If the health tests were shown and posted on the benches then I think that it is a superb idea. If you're good then flaunt it!! It would certainly make people who didn't health test stand out like a sore thumb.

>I can understand and accept that the media will slant a programme so as not to dilute the message.

On the contrary, by showing the other side of the coin - how straightforward it is to health-test to minimise the risk of the varied conditions - it would have strengthened the message against poor breeding practices, not diluted it.

ChinaBlue I worked all day yesterday on our breed booth at DD and have to say more than once 'that' program was sited as some bible of all that ails dogs!  Even with copies of health test results, not a KC requirement who take their lead from the BVA I might add, I was told they were fake anyone can forge an eye cetificate or a vets letterheaded paper on a PC! 

I must confess I enjoyed running rings round these ignorant folk with my knowledge of both breed and science behind our newly imported health problem from the USA, 99% left feeling a lot more upbeat about the KC and pedigree show dogs in general for me that's a  job well done.  I explained my reasoning for NOT DNA testing my puppies before they left me, many agreed that a fatal genetic flaw was a great deterant to the backyard breeder, especially as our past line of they are NOT a rare breed just a minority one with few homes available so very difficult to pet home, was like water off the preverbial ducks back with show breeders paying the price via rescue funding!

The KC CAN'T put new legislation in place, they have no legal powers to do so, they have to see if breeders AND clubs will follow the new guidelines or breakaway to form their own clubs,groups,registrations etc as you are seeing in the USA. 

> The KC CAN'T put new legislation in place, they have no legal powers to do so

I wish more people would remember that and consider that only by supporting them and the measures they have put in place will they have any hope of carrying the clout necessary to continue on from there.

Have to agree Isabel, so many people had a new understanding of their plight almost yesterday when we explained it to them that unlike the Swedish KC they don't have statutory powers to enforce so have to persuade.

> Joe Inglis

I had no idea who this chap was... a little googling later... suffice it to say he will remain off my Radar. This strikes me as a self publicist rather than someone with an important message

But he did go!  What a fool!
I've posted a little comment :-)

Joe Inglis has now posted a video on Youtube, taken at Crufts, and repeating his thoughts, in the same vein as Polly's post.  He couldn't find any unhealthy dogs to tape, so he showed us some images of what he admitted were healthy terriers being shown in the ring.  He said he didn't get "the show thing, with dogs kept cramped in cages all day and poked and prodded, appearing in the show ring for the glory of their owners" (paraphrased).
Personally, I don't get the celebrity vet thing.  Why would anyone who really cared about animals spend their time taping themselves and their ill-informed opinions (he admitted he didn't know about the show scene, or understand it), rather than being in the surgery attending to sick animals?  Surely only for their own glory, self-gratification and self-aggrandisement.  Oh, and he managed to get a plug in for his own company and the company he was there to support.
He should be at our house when the show bag comes out.  The mayhem that ensues with three happy elkhounds leaping up and down with excitement at the thought of GOING TO A SHOW!  We wouldn't do it if they didn't love it - they like meeting all their canine friends as much as we do ours.
Edited to say: Sorry HG, I should have followed your link first... *blush*

I believe that Pedigree petfoods pulled out of the sponsorship BEFORE that programme was shown. They were going to sponsor 2009 and discontinue in 2010.

Take a look at this link www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5864228.ece

The headline is

'Nothing's breedin' changed at Crufts, mate
Her film on the plight of inbred show dogs caused a storm. Jemima Harrison visits Crufts incognito to look for progress'

I wonder if Jemima Harrison could say how many breeders she spoke to and give a balanced report?

> On the contrary, by showing the other side of the coin - how straightforward it is to health-test to minimise the risk of the varied conditions - it would have strengthened the message against poor breeding practices, not diluted it.

Sorry, I disagree. The message would then have been that a lot of good breeders do health test and the few mavericks who don't are a few bad apples. The general feel of the program would then have been OK, the show and breeding world is largely OK.
Now we are not just talking health testing here, we are talking about the exaggerations that have been allowed to happen over the years, and what that actually means to dogs health.  I have heard very few comments on this board that acknowledge that there are  extremities in their own breed, even though they DO EXIST. So in that case how can any change be made if not for programmes like this? Breeders have had the opportunity to do it for years. How many breeders of pugs, bulldogs, cavaliers, bassets, neapolitan mastiffs etc etc actually do recognise that detrimental exaggeration has taken place? And those exaggerations have taken place based on looks for the most part, and have been driven by judges/breeders, often one and the same.

If this had been acknowledged by breeders at any time, surely changes would have already been made? If not - why not? Money I suspect. I hear continually about the good breeders who breed for the betterment of their chosen breed (never for the money) - in which case why has this not happened already for the betterment of the dog - especially in those breeds mentioned? 

Schip - I doubt that it was cited as the bible of all that ails dogs, but it has clearly made people think. I am guessing from your name that you breed schipperkes, a breed that I know little about, but that certainly doesn't seem to have any detrimental exaggerations. It's great that you health test. Also, given the response of some of the breeders responses in 'that programme' is it any wonder that people question what is true.

By the way, JP that keeps getting mentioned in such a disparaging way on here are actually the people who fork out a lot of money for your puppies. That is a general observation by the way, not just your case Schip.

The KC can introduce it's own rules in terms of what the requirements are to register puppies with them. (perhaps legislation was the wrong word).  If this were to produce the split offs you cite, then surely the KC would be in a very good position in terms of pointing out that unless the puppies were from KC reg parents, there was no guarantee of health testing. Personally, I think in this country there would be few split offs, and in any case - if you do all health test what exactly IS the problem with it becoming a formal requirement for registration? Hmm, that one confounds me.

Well no doubt I will be hung drawn and quartered here now - but it is my opinion, and I do believe in expressing it honestly.

Hi ChinaBlue
               "The message would have been that a lot of good breeders do health test and the few mavericks who dont are a few bad apples,
The general feel of the programe would then have been OK, the show and breeding world is largely OK"
If programe had been presented in a straightforward way and the outcome was to show that on the whole the foregoing was the case what
would be the problem of showing the public both sides of the coin in a balanced presentation and allowing them to decide for themselves what
problems existed and where the blame lay, rather than someone forcing there own personal views on the public.
Stan Berry

>add this dog is regularly health tested and health tested prior to breeding.

Breeders can health test, health test; health test and health test some more and it will still not make one blind bit of difference if they continue to breed into genetic bottlenecks.  There will just be new health problems to take up where the last ones lay off.

Genetically, the show line GSD for example, is heavily saturated for 15 generations on Canto/Quanto and folk seem to think they can continue to breed these genetics to each other and health checks will make it OK. It will not!!! 

The real problem here is lack of genetic diversity which underpins a deterioration of health and while health testing is useful, I fail to see how it's to going to improve the total health of breeds in bottlenecks without genetic diversity. 

In fact, I can see it making things worse if there is a swing to relying on tests only, of which are not all believed to be fully conclusive anyway (science is a long way from perfection), without researching the lineage, listening to old timers in the breed, developing a keen eye, watching what others are doing, and gaining knowledge on what dog produces what when combined with which line and equally important, watching the development of progeny.  That's a lot of research and a lot of time!