Forwarded message - for info, please visit
http://tinyurl.com/dkeja6

ABC Nightline Special Report - Best of Breed? Pedigree Dogs Face Disease

Critics Say Purebred Dogs Have Health Problems Because of Inbreeding,
Show Standards

By Nick Watt, ABC Nightline Special Investigation
March 11, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/dkeja6 - Video

The Westminster Dog Show is the showpiece for a multi-billion dollar
industry, a festival of primped pooches, prestigious prizes and perfect
pedigrees. This year's big winner, a Sussex Spaniel called Stump,
became an instant celebrity.

An investigation into the actual price of owning a pure bred pooch.

The owners love it. But whether such competitive shows are good for
the dogs is debatable.

Consider the Bulldog ring at Madison Square Garden last month,
where the show's smushed-face dogs were getting a cooling spray.

"In the heat and the lights of the show, they can overheat and
actually go down in five minutes," one handler said. "They have,
instead of a long snout where it's an open airway, it's smashed
like a Coke can and the breathing has to go through many, many
curves and many turns." That's the desired look for a Bulldog to win
ribbons at dog shows. In other words, it's a world in which dogs
are bred with exaggerated features to please the judges, features
that can cause extreme discomfort and serious distress, some
veterinarians say.

Backstage at the Garden, a German Shepherd breeder explained
how show-winning traits can be passed from generation to
generation. Something called "line breeding" is common practice.
That's breeding, for example, a grandfather with his granddaughter.
Mating of direct relatives, or inbreeding, also happens.

"That dog I kept, out of the brother-sister breeding," Susan Legg,
the German Shepherd breeder, said. "[It] was one of the best stud
dogs I've ever owned and produced over 80 champions."

Competitive dog breeding has been a popular sport since it was
imported from England more than 130 years ago. The first
Westminster Kennel Club show was in 1877.

"These dogs are some of the most pampered pooches that there
are," Tony Carter, a Chinese Shar-Pei owner, said at Westminster.

Every breed has specific genetic defects. "All Cavaliers are carrying
the potential for mitral valve disease," said Jennifer Wehking, a
breeder of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

According to the Web site CavalierHealth.org, half of Cavaliers will
suffer this heart-valve defect before their fifth birthday.

Similarly, Meg Callea, a Dalmatian breeder at Westminster, said, "We
have a very unique stone-forming disease in our breed. It's uric acid,
which is very similar to gout in people."

Male dogs that suffer from the condition can't urinate properly.

Breeders and the American Kennel Club have long admitted that
pedigree dogs do face health issues. They say they do all they can
to tackle them.

The club declined to be interviewed for this story. The organization
also e-mailed its members and recommended "politely declining"
requests for interviews, although it said in a written statement that
the group conducts hundreds of kennel and breeder inspections each
year and donates millions of dollars to improve dogs' heath.

The club and some of its members appear to be circling the wagons
largely because of a British documentary called "Pedigree Dogs
Exposed," which aired last year. The filmmakers showed dogs in
distress, allegedly stricken by genetic diseases. They likened pedigree
dog breeding to the eugenics principles of Adolf Hitler and questioned
the practices of inbreeding and breeding to a "standard."

Pedigree Dogs Face Health Challenges

"I'm heartened by the reaction to the film," Jemima Harrison, the
producer, said. "We always knew that what we were doing was going
to have a huge impact. Our fear was that it would have a huge
temporary impact." The effect was anything but temporary. After
42 years televising Crufts in the U.K., the world's biggest dog show,
the BBC just pulled the plug in protest, Britain's Kennel Club has
reviewed its "breed standards," and Britain's Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals recently released a report titled,
"Pedigree Dog Breeding in the UK: a Major Welfare Concern?"

The report makes the following conclusions: "Many different breeds
now experience compromised welfare. ... The desire to produce
an unusual, exaggerated or spectacular conformation have often
produced dogs which tend towards abnormality."

In the United States, the American Kennel Club, founded 1884,
is the authority. It recognizes 161 breeds, registers purebreed dogs,
oversees many dog shows and is guardian of the so-called "breed
standards." According to its breed standard, the venerable Bulldog
must have "very heavy" shoulders, "very short" forelegs, a "very
large" skull and an "extremely short" face.

"Characteristics of the breed, say, in the 19th century were much
less accentuated than they are now," said James Serpell, director
for the Interaction of Animals and Society at the University of
Pennsylvania. "I think it was rather like the cartoonist; you know
how a cartoonist can accentuate features of someone's face and
make them look even more like they look."

The Bulldog of today looks very different from the Bulldog of 150
years ago. With their exaggerated, show-winning proportions,
most Bulldogs can't even mate on their own. They need the help of
a cradle, which can be bought on the Internet. Also, many Bulldog
bitches can't give birth naturally because the puppies' heads are
too big. "They do need to be artificially inseminated, and C-sections,"
Linda Johnson, a Bulldog breeder at Westminster, said. Ed Sayres,
president of the ASPCA, said, "If an animal can't reproduce, that's
obviously a message that it's headed for extinction."

Pedigree dogs face two potential health challenges. The first is
breeding them to fit their "breed standard": The Bulldog's large
head, for example, and the Boston Terrier's short muzzle, which
results in 25 percent of them having difficulty breathing. Some
major airlines have, for health reasons, banned Bulldogs, Bostons
and other breeds from flying in warm weather.

"Take your own nose and pinch it, then try to breathe," Patrick Burns
said of the feeling for a Boston Terrier or Bulldog with breathing
problems.

Burns, who hunts in Maryland's fields with terriers of fuzzier
pedigree and longer snouts, and blogs voraciously as "Terrierman,"
is scathingly critical of the dog-show world. "Most of the breeds
don't have a function," he said. "They're not running dogs, they're
not catching rabbits. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that.
But if their only function is to be a pet, then they have to put health
first."

The other potential issue for pedigree dogs is inherited disease.
For example, pure bred Flat-Coated Retrievers have a high incidence
of cancer. And line breeding, which some say accentuates the
problem, is standard practice for show dogs.

"There's nothing to say that a close breeding on one occasion would
produce anything but superior stock, not inferior stock," Tom Bradley,
show chairman at Westminster, said.

Many academics disagree. "If they didn't practice all this inbreeding
and line breeding to begin with, those genetic diseases wouldn't
be a problem," Serpell of the University of Pennsylvania said.

Although the American Kennel Club declined to be interviewed,
it did e-mail a statement:

"The American Kennel Club is the nation's leading not-for-profit
organization devoted to canine health, breeding and responsible
dog ownership. The AKC's breeding policies and high ethical
standards have made us the most widely respected registry in
the world. Each year, the AKC performs approximately 5,000
kennel and breeder inspections to ensure the proper care and
conditions of dogs and has led the charge in regards to advancing
canine health, including founding the AKC Canine Health
Foundation in 1995. Since that time, $22 million has been
given to more than 500 research projects at 74 vet schools and
research institutes worldwide to improve the health of all dogs.
For More Information Visit: www.akcdoghealth.com

Are Mixed-Breed Dogs Better?

With funding from the Canine Health Foundation, vets and
researchers have begun isolating disease-causing genes.

According to its breed standard, the venerable Bulldog must have
"very heavy" shoulders, "very short" forelegs, a "very large" skull
and an "extremely short" face. "Characteristics of the breed, say,
in the 19th century were much less accentuated than they are
now," said James Serpell, director for the Interaction of Animals
and Society at the University of Pennsylvania. "I think it was rather
like the cartoonist; you know how a cartoonist can accentuate
features of someone's face and make them look even more like
they look."

"To be fair to the Kennel Club, they are doing quite a lot to try
and fix some of the problems that are there," Serpell said. "So
they created the AKC Canine Health Foundation. ... But for me,
that's a bit like closing the gate after the horse has bolted."

One approach the Kennel Club and others are trying is to first
isolate a defective gene, treat the dog that carries it and stop
breeding from the dog so the gene isn't passed on.

"I think 95 percent of the people who exhibit dogs here are
responsible breeders," Bradley, the Westminster show chairman,
said. "They want their dogs to be healthy."

But, as seen at Westminster, not every breeder stops breeding
from a dog that they know has a problem. It's not quite that simple.

"I have bred one of my girls to a dog that heard in one ear,"
Callea, the Dalmatian breeder, said. "And I knew that when I
did it. But he was an exceptional dog with a phenomenal
temperament and he had a lot of really good things to offer."

But not every breeder will breed with a Dalmatian that hears in
only one ear, she said.

"My hearing is real strong on my end," she said. "Otherwise, I
wouldn't have done it on that dog." Many breeders at Westminster
raised the million-dollar question: Are mixed breed dogs any
healthier?

"The misconception out there is that mutts are healthier," Legg,
the German Shepherd breeder, said. "That is not true."

It is a gray area. But the records of a Swedish company that
insured 200,000 dogs between 1995 and 2002 found that of
the 80 most popular breeds, the dog requiring the most medical
care was the pedigree Boxer. A "mixed breed" category came in
at 68. Healthiest was something called a Norbottenspitz, a
Scandinavian hunting dog.

Breeders of pedigree dogs say that at least with a pedigree, you
know what ailments your breed is susceptible to. You can treat
them.

With a mutt, Legg said, "You don't know what's in the blood line,
you don't know the temperament behind the dogs, you don't
know anything."

Backstage at Westminster, owners and breeders said the problems
are not on the show floor.

"The problem isn't with the standard, the problem isn't with any
of the breeders in this room," Phoebe Booth, a Bulldog owner,
said. "The problem is with people who see the dollar signs and
want to market these breeds as commodities."

Such so-called puppy mills, or high-volume breeders, produce
up to 400,000 pedigree dogs every year, according to the ASPCA.
In some, the conditions are terrible and dogs aren't screened for
disease. "Some of these dogs are only 8-months when they're
first bred," Bob Baker of the ASPCA's Anti-Cruelty Unit said as
he walked among dozens of dogs he says were rescued from a
puppy mill and are waiting to be adopted at the society's
headquarters in New York City. "And many of them, by the
time they're 5 years of age, they're burnt out. And the breeders
take them out and shoot them."

Baker, who often goes undercover to investigate conditions in
puppy mills, said that the dogs are often treated like livestock.
"Greed takes over," he said. According to the ASPCA, around
25 percent of pedigree dogs bought in the United States every
year come from puppy mills or unscrupulous backyard breeders.
The ASPCA claims that every single dog bought from a pet store,
not direct from a breeder, comes from a breeder they would
deem "irresponsible."

ASPCA president Sayres said, "A responsible breeder would
no more sell their puppies through a pet shop than a responsible
parent would sell their children on eBay."

The ASPCA and the Kennel Club do carry out inspections on
breeders, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture is the ultimate
authority over large-scale puppy breeders.

Putting Health Before History

But health problems are not confined to the puppy mill dogs.
In Philadelphia, Dougie the French Bulldog, bought from an
apparently reputable breeder, cost his owner $4,500 for an
operation to correct a severe breathing problem. "I tried to
look for the best of the litter," owner Lauren Brown said. "But,
obviously, with him we couldn't predict."

The ASPCA said its main concern is abandoned dogs. According
to its figures, up to 4 million are destroyed every year because
they can't find a home. For the ASPCA, dog shows and pure bred
health issues are a low priority, but still a concern.

"Yes, some of the dog show stuff is silly and some of it is
definitely detrimental to the health and welfare of dogs," Sayres
said. But Sayres does not want to see a vitriolic battle, such as
the one now being waged in Britain. "I'm much more solution
oriented," he said. "And I think that has to come from a dialogue."

Dr. Lisa Esposito, a volunteer from the Veterinary Medical
Association of New York City who was on duty at Westminster
agreed. "I think [there should be] some dialogue concerning
the standard," she said. "For example, the tight tails, the tight
nostrils." Serpell at the University of Pennsylvania advocates
cross breeding: Sacrificing purity for health. Why not cross a
Boston with another terrier, he says, give it a slightly longer
snout, let it breathe more easily?

"It would still have the basic features of the Boston Terrier,"
he said. "It wouldn't have such a squashed face."

Burns, aka "Terrierman," said, "Let their faces come out a little
bit. They don't have to have a lot of muzzle to be able to breathe.
But they have to have some. That's all it is. Give the dog a little
bit of face." And, in Philadelphia, Brown, the French Bulldog
owner and vet student, has had similar thoughts. "I think that
would be met with a lot of resistance," she said. "But, overall,
I think, in time, the health issue would win over history. I think
it would be better for the breed. I would like to see that happen."