I’ve Counted to Ten

Thomas Jefferson once said that when you’re angry count to ten before you speak. I’ve counted to ten and I feel that I need to remark on an op-ed in the Washington Post by Ingrid Newkirk, president and co-founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). In the op-ed Ms. Newkirk, arguing against dog shows in general and the Westminster Kennel Club Show in particular, lists a catalogue of horrors:

This month at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, more than 3,000 dogs will be paraded around New York’s Madison Square Garden so that judges can scrutinize every inch of their bodies — from their inbred, squashed-in noses and surgically sculpted ears to their coiffured coats and stubby, amputated tails. The judges will look for “faults” much like Internet trolls look for flaws in a celebrity’s injected lips.

Dogs deserve better than this outdated beauty pageant, which is why we should refuse to watch it.

This month at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, more than 3,000 dogs will be paraded around New York’s Madison Square Garden so that judges can scrutinize every inch of their bodies — from their inbred, squashed-in noses and surgically sculpted ears to their coiffured coats and stubby, amputated tails. The judges will look for “faults” much like Internet trolls look for flaws in a celebrity’s injected lips.

Dogs deserve better than this outdated beauty pageant, which is why we should refuse to watch it.

It’s all about the owners and their egos, not the dogs, who are reduced to living mannequins to be tweaked and primped into something that they aren’t. They are often denied a normal life, lest they step out of their crates and get dirty. And to increase the odds of producing a winning dog, breeders bow to the “breed standards” of the American Kennel Club, which values arbitrary physical traits over health and well-being. Breeders are like rats following the Pied Piper — except it’s the dogs who end up in the river.

This is why dachshunds have such long spines and short legs that they’re susceptible to excruciatingly painful disc disease. It’s also why many Great Danes, bred for long necks and large heads, often develop “wobbler syndrome” — including a wobbly gait, pain and sometimes paralysis as a result of compression of the spinal cord in the neck area.

Cavalier King Charles spaniels who suffer from syringomyelia scream in agony because their brains are too large for their unnaturally flattened skulls. One veterinary neurologist, interviewed for the BBC documentary “Pedigree Dogs Exposed,” described the brains of dogs with this condition as being “like a size 10 foot that’s been shoved into a size 6 shoe.”

English bulldogs, who are bred to have flat faces and unnaturally short airways, labor to fetch a ball, walk or even breathe. There’s a name for this problem — brachycephalic airway syndrome. Pugs, Boston terriers, French bulldogs and Pekingese (the breed of the 2012 Best in Show winner) suffer from it, too.

To ensure that these favored traits remain in a dog’s bloodline, breeders have arranged canine incest, forcing mothers to mate with sons and daughters with fathers. The consequences have been dire: Inbreeding increases the likelihood that recessive genes will be passed down to puppies, resulting in a host of serious congenital defects including epilepsy, hypothyroidism and elbow dysplasia, a disease that can cause lameness and arthritis.

Her account is seriously flawed—full of misconceptions, errors, and outright lies.

Dog shows are not “beauty contests”. If they were representatives from the most beautiful breeds, e.g. Doberman pinschers, Samoyeds, would always win. In fact they rarely win. Dog shows are a way of judging breeding stock. Experienced judges compare the dogs presented to the written standard for their breeds. The winner is the dog or bitch that conforms most closely to the breed standard.

I agree with her on practices like tail docking and ear cropping. They’ve already been banned in Europe and are going out of fashion here in the United States as well, through self-interest if nothing else. Dogs with docked tails or cropped ears can’t compete in international competitions.

For you to understand the balance of my criticisms, I’ve got to explain some things. The Department of Agriculture divides dog breeders into three classes. Class A breeders breed dogs for sale through brokers or pet shops. Class B breeders are brokers. Class C breeders are private breeders who do not sell to brokers or shops.

All of the practices about which Ms. Newkirk complains are engaged in by Class A and B breeders. And class A and B breeders do not participate in dog shows. They have no concern about the dogs’ well-being, only about producing as many dogs as possible.

Ethical breeders subscribe to a formal code of ethics, breed to the standard for their breeds, and work to eliminate the flaws Ms. Newkirk lists.

Are there some Class C breeders who breed to the flavor of the month, don’t care about the well-being of the dogs that they breed, and engage in flawed or unethical breeding practices? Sure, just as there are unethical doctors, lawyers, engineers, and architects. But most are ethical and care deeply about the dogs to whom they’ve chosen to devote their lives.

IMO the Washington Post has lent itself to promoting propaganda. Journalistic ethics required that they reach out to the American Kennel Club or the Westminster Kennel Club for their responses to Ms. Newkirk’s op-ed.

There’s plenty of room for reform in the breeding of dogs and the improvement of dog breeds. I believe in some things about which my dog breeder friends would complain bitterly. I think that given the advances in DNA testing there needs to be much more science in the breeding and judging of dogs rather than the purely pre-scientific approaches presently used.

I think that the European system of proctors is a good one and that dogs of working breeds (Sporting Group, Herding Group, and Working Group) should be required to prove their fitness for the work for which they’ve been bred before they’re allowed to be shown.

I think that the AKC needs to do a much better job of monitoring and sanctioning both judges and breeders.

Above all, I think that Americans should never, ever buy dogs from pet shops. Get your dogs from shelters or reputable breeders.