So, it is 5 years today since THAT program was aired. I was wondering if people wanted to share their thoughts on how the overall situation in breeding/showing is now following the firestorm it all started. What do you think of the standard changes? How about the vet checks at shows? Are you still receiving public abuse as some of you did? The vast majority of breeders and exhibitors on this site are very focused on their animals well being and always have been, do you feel others are getting the idea?

I neither breed nor show, but from conversations I've had with pedigree dog owning friends, I'd say the image of breeders as all being unscrupulous and uncaring of their dogs health has remained .
One friend is vehemently opposed to ever having a KC registered dog again, despite her present BT being 15 years old and having had an incredibly healthy life, and coming from a KC breeder, she wants her next one to be from a Gamekeeper ,for some bizarre reason, she thinks they will be healthier.

I managed to talk ( ranted actually ) one friend out of getting a Cockerpoo thankfully.

Five years on from Pedigree Dogs Exposed, the Kennel Club is still in denial about the extent of the problems   The Kennel Club continues to embrace scientifically and morally bankrupt breeding practices which condemn some dogs to enormous suffering.  By any measure, it is unethical to continue to breed dogs like Pugs and Bulldogs which have such flat faces that they cannot breathe - and yet the Kennel Club registers these breeds in their growing thousands and these dogs continue to be celebrated at Kennel Club shows.   The same goes for Dachshunds who have such long backs and such short legs that their spines crumble; for Cavalier King Charles Spaniels who are blighted by a skull/brain-size mismatch that predisposes them to horrific pain. Then there are German Shepherds who are quite simply crippled by the warped ideal imposed on them by breeders and Shar-pei bred to a Kennel Club breed standard that demands wrinkles that we now know are linked to a horrific condition that destroys their livers.  The KC has done too little to tackle the suffering these dogs endure, despite an increasing amount of science which both articulates the issues and offers solutions.   It is also unethical that the Kennel Club continues to endorse inbreeding. You can still, for instance, mate grandfathers to grand-daughters and then mate the offspring back to their great-grandfather. It's a mess genetically and if it isn't addressed many breeds will go to the wall, bred to oblivion. I find it a particular tragedy that breeders who do see the problems and want change are often dismissed as cranks and trouble-makers by those clinging to the status quo. If the Kennel Club was the welfare organisation that its glossy PR would have you believe, it would be doing so much more to put this right. The problem is that, at its heart it is a trade organisation that represents those who don't want change.  The dogs continue to pay a huge price."

Well thats jhs view.

"It is also unethical that the Kennel Club continues to endorse inbreeding. You can still, for instance, mate grandfathers to grand-daughters and then mate the offspring back to their great-grandfather"

Well, this shows just how ignorant JH is about breeding and genetics.    For 40 years SHOW BREEDERS (not 'working' dog breeders) have been working with the AHT and other health and genetic experts to develop a genetic test to breed out Copper Toxicosis in Bedlington Terriers.   NOT the only breed to have a problem, but the only breed with breeders brave enough to have admitted the problem and spend years paying to find a way of eliminating it.    

For many years, the only way of reducing the incidence of affected dogs was to breed a particular line of dogs which were naturally not affected.    All the dogs in the line came about through one dog who was born without the CT gene who was mated to several bitches and the progeny tested (liver biopsies - extremely dangerous even today!) And then mated back to the parents and eventually grandparents.   All done under the guidance of the AHT and geneticists.

We now have a situation where very few show-bred dogs are affected by Copper Toxicosis, and some lines are completely free.   Work continues to find a definitive genetic test for CT, and biopsy is still the gold standard test - these days we are encouraged to have post mortem liver biopsies which are still being used to continue the work towards a fuller picture of the disease and hopefully , a definitive and reliable test.

Without inbreeding this wouldn't have happened.    Had the breeders followed JH's recommendation, there would be MORE dogs with CT, not fewer.

Believe me, the last thing you want to do, when you've had to say goodbye to your beloved dog, is immediately arrange for a post mortem liver biopsy to be done and sent off to the researcher.   It's another cost on top of normal breeding and testing costs, and not pleasant - even when the vet is up to speed on what it all entails (very unusual)   But we do it for the good of the breed.    I've just recently done it, despite my bitch being from the original (inbred!) CT free line, as even these dogs are contributing to the picture.

Having ignorant people like JH publicly criticising what has been best practise in breeding, according to the AHT  and genetic experts, is hard to take.

I have to say that in my main breed I have seen more problems with the outcrossed dogs than with those quite heavily inbred. Just outcrossing doesn't solve anything at all. Nor does just linebreeding, of course. My best dog of each of my breeds, both as far as looks and temperament and health goes, happen to be the most inbred ones I have. One is 20 %, the other 16 %. For my next litter of one breed I have the choice of using outcross lines that I do not know well personally, and where I have seen the odd problem I don't like, or linebreeding on dogs where I know/knew every dog personally, know the history behind them all, know what lurks in the line etc, so to me it is a no brainer. I could go abroad but have seen too many temperament problems occur as a result of such matings, and the KC would not let me register such pups anyway as I am an AB and continental breeders do not eye test their dogs so I would not be able to find a stud dog who fulfilled that criteria.

The answer is never black and white, is it, always shades of grey. Even as many as 50 of them. ;)

There have been a few things resulting from the PDE program, one as a whole a lot more people are health testing years ago you would have been in a very small minority but not so much now. People are also investing in stock with tested lines so it has really improved many breeds in that respect. However...there has been a HUGE increase in cross designer breeds sold with the misconception of being 'healthy'. The heavey wrinkles, long backs, miniturised bodies are still prevalent but of course it would be it would take many generations of hard work to improve these things and 5 years is really in breeding terms not that long.

A great many of the underclass (shall we say) advertising crossbreeds and unregistered dogs o FB at silly prices have used PDE as an excuse to churn out puppies willy nilly.

Many say they deliberately don't want KC reg "as they are all inbred and unhealthy" yet willing to use unknown and untested dogs for breeding, and making money. I so often hear (mis)quotes deriving from the programme being bandied around, and any attempt to give the bigger picture is met with resistance, "It was on TV so it must be true."

One day the genetic pigeons will come home to roost; they already are, as I heard of 2 unrelated Siberian Huskies bought from BYBs developing cataracts at under a year old, just last week. But will that ever be the breeders' fault?

I had an interesting conversation this evening with a non doggy friend. After listening to us blathering on about our new pup, he said, if I had a dog it would be a mongrel. Why's that, said I? Well, said he, it's because they are more loyal then a pedigree dog! Where on earth did that come from?!?

> and the KC would not let me register such pups anyway as I am an AB and continental breeders do not eye test their dogs so I would not be able to find a stud dog who fulfilled that criteria.

Not to distract from the subject of the thread but actually the KC will register pups from ABs where there is no current eye test but you have to inform puppy buyers in writing that the test hasn't been done.

Not to distract from the subject of the thread but actually the KC will register pups from ABs where there is no current eye test but you have to inform puppy buyers in writing that the test hasn't been done.

Really? Thanks, I shall have to look further into that then!

5 years went by so fast, gosh, time really does fly.......

The vast majority of breeders and exhibitors on this site are very focused on their animals well being and always have been, do you feel others are getting the idea?

In a word NO!  I must admit I have very itchy feet here as I am worried about pedigree dogs as a whole, if I didn't know people in the dog world, I would be very, very, nervous about my next dog.

Just looking at this site alone the amount of dogs who have just recently died at very young ages is very upsetting, if this is an indication of what vets and the public are living with and seeing in many breeds...  I'm actually quite scared, I think we all should be and if JH was seeing this 5 years ago I see why she made the programme.

I know the reasons for it and they are not lying at the doors of good reputable breeders and breed clubs, or in 'close' matings happening, **rolleyes** (that really needs putting right) which as already said can keep a line healthy, if done by people who understand health, genetics and lines........let's face it the dog world is rife with lines full of health problems out there, causing illness, genetic faults and early death, much, much bigger than I realised 5 years ago 'in my safe little bubble.'  dealing with nothing but healthy, long lived dogs, from people who know dogs inside out, and breeding the best quality pups myself, I didn't realise at the time how small in numbers reputable breeders were. But, my eyes are opening.

Taking away the original backlash of laying the blame at the show breeders door, the good points of that programme are it highlighted a lot of problems, it did good in pushing for better breed standards, and it pushed the KC to move their buts a bit quicker re: health testing, (due to the embarrassment) quicker than the breed clubs alone, the vet checks at shows are good, so 5 years on the show has done many good things. I don't agree with everything JH says but some things have moved in the right direction.

But, it looks as though the health of the pedigree dog (away from the show world) is getting even worse, not better...... how did that go so horrendously wrong?

IMO it is purely down to people walking away from the 'bad' show breeders (thanks to the show) into the arms of BYB's and puppy farmers and uregistered 'pedigree' dogs, and not in going to people who know dogs, know the lines and breed carefully.

The show for all the good it may have originally intended with regards to health, has back-fired and thrown the pedigree dog into chaos.

Vets and the GP do not differentiate between a KC (responsibly or not) bred pup or an unregistered 'pedigree' dog, they are all just pedigree dogs, many with health problems.

The responsible show breeder should have been backed in front of the GP (it would have made all the difference) and given all the help needed to improve breeds, it went wrong......... 5 years on the pedigree dog is far from safe, and will continue to be so unless only those with the breeds interests at heart are where people go to get their pups.

That message unfortunately was lost........... for the show world there is much improvement, but as that only accounts for 2% of puppies bred, there's a whole lot of mess out there.

Yes, I had this issue with my AI litter. The semen was collected in 2007. the sire had a current eye test then and was also tested in 2008 and 2009 but because he hasn't been tested since then the KC asked that I just put in writing to the puppy buyers that the sire did not have a current eye test. The fact that he had current eye tests for when the semen was collected and for 2 years afterwards did not count. Strangely (or not. It is the KC) it was the eye tests that caused delays in registering the litter not the fact that it was AI. that side of it was straight forward.

Regarding the repercussions of 'that' programme.

My observations have been that there are now even more BYB, cross bred dogs than there were 5 years ago.     -Sh*t dogs of all descriptions and Bull breed crosses mainly.    And there has also been an explosion of badly bred pedigrees from BYBs - because they are supposedly 'better' than Show Breeders :(

Was JH successful?

Only in making Show Breeders scapegoats for the ills of all the worst breeders.   The public is no better educated now than they were before, possibly worse, because they now believe that Badly Bred is better than health tested!

You couldn't make it up could you?

Have you read this article 'Clarifications of misconceptions by Mike Tempest', 'http://www.dogworld.co.uk/product.php/98764 in Dog World which puts COI's and inbreeding in another light and makes me realise why I always used percentages of blood to see how inbred on a particualr ancestor a proposed mating was (and you could do it with simple maths).

> xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">one as a whole a lot more people are health testing years ago you would have been in a very small minority but not so much now.

Certainly not the case in my breed. 

For over 20 years the breeds code of ethics has required hip and eye testing and now DNA (first available Oct 2008) testing.

Also limit on number of litters a bitch could have of 4 (though it's rare for anyone to have that many litters from one bitch), and minimum age at whelping of two years, etc.

Perhaps in the more popular/commercial breeds some breeders have upped their game.

Sadly the minority of dogs are KC regsitered and the more rules the KC brings in the fewer commercailly motivated breeders use their services, but continue to breed, (and tarnish the reputation of all pedigree breeders),and the GP happily buy.

> Sadly the minority of dogs are KC regsitered and the more rules the KC brings in the fewer commercailly motivated breeders use their services, but continue to breed, (and tarnish the reputation of all pedigree breeders),and the GP happily buy.

Just saw an ad on a FB selling site (in Bristol, Brainless) - Chihuahuas described as "show quality" but the breeder won't KC register them! How misleading and dishonest is that? I think Trading Standards say you can't advertise as 'show quality' but only as 'show potential', and then of course if they actually can be shown, i.e. are fully registered.
(And what's the betting he can't anyway - he's already implied the buyers can KC register the puppies themselves, which we know can't be done on the breed register).

The semen was collected in 2007. the sire had a current eye test then and was also tested in 2008 and 2009 but because he hasn't been tested since then the KC asked that I just put in writing to the puppy buyers that the sire did not have a current eye test.

Thanks! Very good to know it isn't impossible!

Does anyone know whether Trading Standards would be interested in this?   False Advertising, obtaining money through deception etc.  Have they EVER shown any interest in the lies and deception that are so obvious?

To be honest, I do think that this is where the Kennel Club should have been defending it's corner and it's customers from the start.   Why should any of us register our litters with the Kennel Club, if others are allowed to LIE, commit FRAUD and make money out of the name, etc of the Kennel Club and it's associated activities?

We might just as well do the same, for all the difference it's been making.

(yes, I know none of us would behave like this, but just wondering WHY we are fighting so hard when the KC just seem to roll over )

NOT talking about you Marianne ;-)

Somehow I missed that article Brainless so thanks for that. It does explain why Mate Select gets different figures to breeder's own pedigree programmes.

> oes anyone know whether Trading Standards would be interested in this?   False Advertising, obtaining money through deception etc.  Have they EVER shown any interest in the lies and deception that are so obvious?

Would be interested to get that clarified.
I know they do have some jurisdiction on the internet, as there was an advert rehoming a Kune Kune pig on my local Freecycle last year (which sadly DOES allow animal rehomings despite many complaints and a member poll). The ad didn't mention anything about the Holding Licence needed to own pigs or the Movement of Animals docket.

DEFRA said these licences are now handled by local Trading Standards so I contacted them and they wanted all the details of the ad. Presumably even private selling groups on Facebook are subject to the same laws of advertising as anywhere else.... Legal. Decent, Honest, Truthful and all that.

On a positive note I've heard that Income Revenue are looking at these sites now and getting details of any possible unearned income.

Re xbreed 'doodles - there was an ad in local paper this morning which announced 'Labradoodles' Poodle hips are 5/4, clear eye test..............but not a WORD on the Labs hip score...........If scored then possibly too high to want to mention!!!