Just watching Noel Fitzpatrick - Supervet.

Four month Bulldog pup, broken front leg from RTA.

Turns out the accident least of her worries.

Both hips dislocated from Hip Dysplasia, both Patellas dislocated.

Severe Boas, elongated Soft Palate, Airway 5mm thin as a drinking straw.

All Genetic issues.

Yet hardly any UK Bulldogs Hip Scored.

They are listed in USA Hip stats as Number 1 worst hip status.

Very upsetting.

It's not only the dogs that suffer. Hearbreaking. Pup Put to sleep.

We now know better, and can breed dogs with much better chance of good health.

Sometimes I wonder how he keeps his mouth shut re poor breeding and he sees, I really do.   But I suppose he's there to put right, not to lecture - and other than questioning where these owners buy their puppies from (relevant) it's not usually the owner's fault, other than perhaps RTAs!

The RTA was not the owner's fault in this case, the puppy was hit in a car park whilst waiting to be put into the owner's car. A woman drove into the car park & carelessly too close to the owner's car & hit the puppy.

That's the case, and they were so distraught only to find that their pup was a physical disaster, and would only have suffered more had it not happened.

on camera it would be very hard to discuss a specific dog and its breeding especially when u have often distraught owners infront of you .
Being told that effectively u have bought into bad breeding and suffering would be more than most could handle.
Doesn't of course mean he doesn't have string views about how some are bred its just not where his show is going

The silent suffering of the.pup who had been crippled since birth, so knew nothing else, and then the hearbreak of the loving owner and their friends daughter was heart wrenching to see.

How the breeders who don't even try to breed with health foremost is beyond me.

This breed is one of the high priced and fashionable ones too.

I'd totally agree that he shouldn't speak openly (during filming) about what's going on with some dogs he has to mend and a lot of what comes in doesn't have to do with how the puppy/adult is bred but I do wonder whether he might push the message about people being careful about where they buy their puppies at least, from.

Of course HD and ED can develop if the youngster isn't reared as it should be - even if there is a disposition for this to develop.   But allowing too much too soon, big puppies on slippery floors, allowed to jump on and especially off furniture and beds and so on.   I wonder if, if he's asked by owners off screen, he talks to them about such risks.

Was this a new programme, or a repeat because I'll have to try to avoid watching that one!!

Upon speaking to someone wanting a puppy they had been to Noel for a dog years ago and he said what to look for in a good breeder of the breed, as in health testing and good results. So he does offer advice but I do wonder only if he is asked?

Not sure I was watching on Ch4 as I posted.

Being considered one for the foremost orthopedic surgeons, along with his prominence in the media & the popularity of the programme.
I've often thought he would be the idea presenter of a separate programme regarding breeding of poor standard dogs with the effects it has on their health.

There was uproar after this episode as the breeder in question is an eminent show breeder. She was publicly shaming the owner for abuse that she let the puppy be hit by the car and stating it was an opportunity to publicly bash pedigree dog breeders. The very fact is that some breeds have been allowed to be bred into disfigurement and in my mind there is only one source big enough to stop them. Time and time again we see evidence of why the KC should only be allowing health tested dogs to be registered as a way to show that is how the very healthiest dogs are being bred:

74Alexandra:  > There was uproar after this episode as the breeder in question is an eminent show breeder

Well I Never! What on earth has the whole 'doggie' world come to? From what I hear this show breeder SHOULD be bashed and I don't mean just verbally.

Forgetting the ABS shambles, does anyone know how the KC make their decisions on reputable breeding, health testing & show standard 'perfection' to the point of cruelty?

Senseless.  Perhaps it's a case of too many chiefs lining their pockets and not enough indians who are more likely to be involved with the KC for welfare reasons who sit
on the board. 

The whole establishment needs a good shake up but which governing body oversees THEIR practices? Seems to be a free for all at the expense of the
animals they claim to protect. 

The Kennel Club attitude is we need to keep breeders under the KC umbrella and educate them to do better.

Mandatory Health testing would simply remove people from their sphere of influence.

Now that attitude may be correct, as yourself as an example. If I understand things from your posts, you have learnt about Health testing over the last few years.

But sadly in the UK the Kennel Club already only register an estimated 30% of dogs.

Even the Price of unregistered puppies is no longer lower than KC registered.

So I and many of the little guys think there should be Mandatory Health testing.

My personal belief is that ALL breeds should be Hip, Elbow and Patella tested (BVA need to make the accepted Patella grading into a Certified Scheme).

All breeds should be eye tested, as surveilance for emerging/potential issues.

After that Breed Councils should inform the KC of Breed Specific issues, and those with available DNA tests be mandatory.

As there is no time Limit on testing puppies born to untested parents can be registered once the parents are tested, or once the owner tests the pup.

Perhaps breeders could put in Pending registration, and papers issued to breeder or owner once tests done.

What we don't want is to reduce the Gene pools, so there needs to be some way to bring purebred stock back into the KC mainsream once Health Tested.

The mechanism already exists to apply to register dogs of unconfirmed heritage, once assessed as purebred.

Peer pressure can be very useful, and I think this is why in numerically small breeds where breed club membership is high, compliance in health testing is high.

Sadly in some breeds there is no 'shame' in not testing.

That is one reason I am so cross that the KC are no longer going to print Health Test results on Registration documents.

They should go further and Print Health results, including overseas ones on Pedigrees.

On the reverse of the pedigree would be a key and description of the condition.

I do agree with all your points brainless, bar one. Individuals should have the ability to submit evidence of emerging breed conditions and the KC should assess independently in addition to breed clubs. In my breed there has been an identified dna test for the risk of an auto immune issue that to date across all the dna samples, no ‘clear’ dog has been identified, it is risk based so only “low risk” has been matched to certain haplotypes.

There is evidence across social media pages of many many of this breed in the U.K. suffering from the effects of this disease and it’s been proven to be linked to inbreeding, of which the gene pool is already small. Breed council not interested as apparently all the research has been led in the USA, despite all those dogs being from U.K. lines. Plenty of U.K. and european samples made up this research but the council says they haven’t ‘seen it’ in their lines so no need to even make the dna test a recommended one. Of course, this means it won’t appear on KC health test results finder.
Disappointing as not sure how you can make progress in a breed.

And yes in my breed hardly any testing if you look at total numbers tested to date :(

Breed standards and what health tests are required/recommended are basically the responsibility of the breed clubs, not the KC. They propose changes and submit to the KC for approval.

sorry but some breeds are so bad and the suffering so dreadful best thing would be to neuter every last one of them and not breed dogs for that shape again.

I agree with you, it's one reason when collating the MyDogDNA results since 2015 (the KC only agreed to list them since Jan. 2020) for Glaucoma and Dwarfism I included all the Overseas ones that I was able to get certificates and parentage details for.

It has actually encouraged US breeders to test, where Health testing is less often carried out, even among supposedly reputable/influencial breeders.

Amazing how disseminating this list has encouraged others to follow suit when their rivals have done so.

Sadly in the USA thete is no open reporting of individual Health test results.

Of course there is nothing to stop concerned breeders doing extra health testing.

For example even though researching statistics in 3 Scandinavian Countries, and USA data our breed out of around 500 Elbow scored all have been 0/0 and I think 3 in Scandinavia scoring 0/1.

I have decided to Elbow Score my own breeding, and encourage any I have bred to be scored. Several breed colleagues have also started.

The reason I did so was a puppy I had bred being referred to specialist for suspected ED.

This 6 month puppy had been allowed to reach 32kg!!! where a weight of half that would have been right for age.

Unfortunately the email re lameness had not reached me until after vet intervention, it had wandered the ether for a month!

This wiped out their Insurance.

I collated the ED data for the breed for them to present to the vets, who had insisted it was 100% genetic, which my orthopaedic vet disagreed with when he scored the litter sister).

The pup on arthroscopy was found to have a piece of loose cartilage.

As investigating ED seems very expensive, for my own piece of mind, and to avoid puppy owners vets jumping to unlikely conclusion, having testing for parents, even if only mine may be helpful.

Despite the Vets undermining my relationship with my puppy owners, they took my information to heart, and more importantly got their dog down to a proper weight.

Brainless: 

> The Kennel Club attitude is we need to keep breeders under the KC umbrella and educate them to do better.<br /><br />Mandatory Health testing would simply remove people from their sphere of influence.<br /><br />Now that attitude may be correct, as yourself as an example. If I understand things from your posts, you have learnt about Health testing over the last few years.

Yes all very true and with that ongoing learning I wonder if the 30% that do register would be willing to commit to at least a basic set of tests pre registration with a view to an ongoing plan
of action for future testing to be done before further litters produced could be registered?  Incentives may well need to be offered. (don't know if this is even possible but just putting it out there?

> After that Breed Councils should inform the KC of Breed Specific issues, and those with available DNA tests be mandatory.

Could be a slowly. slowly approach may be taken up by many more interested in doing the best for existing & future Dog Breeds.

> KC are no longer going to print Health Test results on Registration documents.<br /><br />They should go further and Print Health results, including overseas ones on Pedigrees.

I have no idea which 'body' of advisors would vote for this to happen and if it's the Breed Clubs then surely thay are completely shooting themselves in the foot when so much effort
has gone into educating owners about Health Testing.

And unfortunately the most extreme canine physiologies seem to be among the most popular with the General public, now being a higher proportion of the Total canine population.

Those within these breeds trying for more moderate forms are dwarfed by those who won't accept change is needed, and worse still growing numbers of so called breeders breeding even more extreme versions!!!

The Kennel Club are taking that exact approach trying to use education and persuation re Health testing, but are largely preaching to the choir.

Even you who have been involved with canine activities, and obviously care about your dogs, seemed unaware until more recently about Health testing schemes, some of which have been around many decades.

Until the Puppy Buyers know and understand about Health testing, and refuse to buy from untested stock, those who don't care or are ignorant/uneducated will continue to breed badly.

I thought the new KC site might be easier for the General public to access this information.

But the search facility is still awful, as I found when I tried searching for the AI policy, for another thread.

Somehow The Kennel Club needs to become the first and.autimatic pirt of call for potential pedigree dog owners.

The Kennel Club should also then point searchets to BREED CLUBS first, and only then their ABS scheme.

The ABS scheme has requirements if it's breeders, but they aren't neccesarily the best in their breeds.

weimed:  > sorry but some breeds are so bad and the suffering so dreadful best thing would be to neuter every last one of them and not breed dogs for that shape again.

Yip, that would be a starting point.  Some identified breeds have been made illegal & confiscated by Police/Animal Welfare as a danger to the Public.

Perhaps adopting the stance that these little bull dogs are a danger re concerns of cruelty to themselves could be the main reason for also banning?
Sad state of affairs whatever way you look at it.

Brainless: > Even you who have been involved with canine activities, and obviously care about your dogs, seemed unaware until more recently about Health testing schemes, some of which have been around many decades

Yes again and my first point of call was the old KC Site where you were given details of advised or mandatoryn Testing.  Nothing about the reasoning behind it all or how to go about it, what
the goals for Breeders were over a period of time nor any timeframes, estimated turn around for results or costs involved. 
My local Breed Club was made up of the old fashioned
Gamekeeper type who's interest in health was guaged by how well the working grp performed & for how long without health issues and COI values were probably well over the acceptable
levels of today - things do evolve and become better.

> <br />Somehow The Kennel Club needs to become the first and.autimatic pirt of call for potential pedigree dog owners.

Even with their new website, I don't believe the Public will navigate around all the different segments required to gain enough knowledge in a short space of time.

An earlier poster mentioned Noel Fitzpatrick & his influence/popularity etc etc and I believe that would be a great example of the public taking notice/advice of a 'celebrity?' in the promotion
Testing.  Paul O'Grady is very entertaining to some but he's more about rescues than pre Breeding.

Perhaps these types of people alongside Breed Clubs could begin national fundraising to highlight the prevention rather than cure philosophy?

Any programme to highlight  poor breeding would have to be very carefully put together and the right presenter chosen . The last time something like this was done as in Pedigree dogs exposed it was an absolute disaster totally unbalanced .Anyone who bred purebred dogs become even more seen as the "devil "

The overall effect imo was to push people not towards looking for properly bred dogs but towards breeding more and more cross breeds still without health testing

furriefriends:  > The last time something like this was done as in Pedigree dogs exposed it was an absolute disaster totally unbalanced

> Anyone who bred purebred dogs become even more seen as the "devil "
> Pedigree dogs exposed

The title sounds very negative to start with!
Why 'exposed'?  What happened?

Google it, she did 2 and has a Blog, very anti breeder biased.

I expect you can find both programs on Youtube.

A lot of the views were over simplified, but sadly some breeders and breeds have ignored health issues creeping in.

If u google the title there a number of articles about it .as the title suggests it was aimed at bringing forward the often very serious health problems in dogs and how many breeds have changed and not for the better.
Unfortunately it was very biased and didn't not teach people what to do to avoid bad breeding .some points raised were blatantly incorrect  Just damming the purebred breeding community as a whole
I belive some changes have been made by the kc and breed clubs so some would say good has come from it and much work to be done but the general public on masse have not learned from what I can see and many just feel purebred dogs are to be avoided

Looking for something else amd tripped over the whole story about molly the bulldog. Noel FP did discuss bad breeding and what he thinks
It makes awful reading

Have you a link please?

For some reason this particular story really upset me.

I rarely start posts.

http://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.com/2020/02/exclusive-bulldog-breeders-attack.html?m=1   I didnt realise it was pde

Sadly some people in the Dog World and especially some breeds really do huge damage to the reputation of breeders of pedigree dogs.

I am horrified that breeders in this breed do not routinely hip score when evidence is there, at least in the USA that they have the worst hip status of any breed.

' unfortunately the most extreme canine physiologies seem to be among the most popular with the General public, now being a higher proportion of the Total canine population.

Those within these breeds trying for more moderate forms are dwarfed by those who won't accept change is needed, and worse still growing numbers of so called breeders breeding even more extreme '

What u have said here brainless i think is very pertinent . Very sad . Maybe judges need a change of attitude and not put up dogs that are more extreme going back nearer to what is healthy for the breed

I have read the.linked blog post on the.pde site, and have to say I agree with it, it's shameful.

I'm very surprised that although she mentioned the comments from Bulldog people that you cannot test a 20 week old puppies hips & didn't shoot down this comment as it is in fact wrong as hips can be tested from 16 weeks using the PennHip method, something that makes possible to tailor a dog's exercise etc to it's known needs from a very early age.

Breeding using this scheme has produced far more improvement in hips than the OFA/BVA/FCI schemes.

Interestingly the producer of PDE has actively been importing"foreign"rescues to the UK for many years via her Black Retriever Rescue. Of course these dogs come from unknown ancestry & definitely no health testing. Somewhat hypocritical I think.

OMG that poor puppies hip x ray in the linked article .. she must have been in so much pain.
The breeder should be bared from registering any further puppies and all dogs in her name barred from further litter registration

Oh overall I am far from a fan of JH, the hypocricy and bias is patent, which is why it galls me when she's right.

Even worse is the fact that we (those within the Kc auspices) are our own worst enemies, handing our detractors so much ammunition against us!

> she must have been in so much pain.

That's what upset me so much the pup had never known anything else, and yet gave so much devotion, and a sunny disposition as evidenced by it's attachment to the young neighbour daughter who was so distressed along with the owners.