Breeding Difficulties part three - Breeders, and what to do about it all

In the last couple of blog posts, I've talked a lot about dog breeding, and the problems associated with it. In this final part of my epic trilogy. I'd like to briefly discuss the people responsible (and I do use the term very loosely) for producing puppies - breeders.

You can, I think, break breeders down into several types (rather than, say, their component atoms, which readers of my previous blogs may suspect would be my preference). Let's start with the type most commonly encountered by vets in general practice: the 'responsible' breeder.

'Responsible' breeders

The reason we encounter this type of breeder more frequently is, sadly, not because they are more common than any other type, but simply because these are the breeders who do everything possible for the pups that they produce - vaccinations, worming, flea treatment, nutritional advice, hip scores (or whatever test other the breed needs to pass to make it's suffering less than it otherwise would be) - and so they're the ones who come to the vets. Often. Very often. In general practice, you'll often be on first-name terms with them.

'Responsible' breeders occupy a strange position in many veterinary practices; generally liked (or at least tolerated) by practice owners, and largely resented by all the other vets, nurses and support staff - and by resented, I mean that their faces are likely to be pinned to a dartboard in the coffee room.

Here's the problem in a nutshell: breeders bring in a lot of money to the practice - both directly and indirectly, because if they like you, they're going to recommend you as the vets to go to. They are well aware of this, and as a consequence of this they frequently feel (not entirely without reason) like specially valued customers, which usually translates into them behaving as if they own the practice.

Responsible breeders have a tendency to be inpatient with (if not downright rude to) the receptionists, nurses, and junior vets who have the temerity to obstruct them in their quest to be immediately seen by the senior partner. They'll assume their particular problem is going to be more important to the practice than any other client's, and they'll be very ready to write a complaint letter if it isn't treated as such. They'll expect vets to drop everything to kowtow to their wishes, and they will usually hold the views of younger vets in disdain.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard some variant of the mantra 'I've been breeding dogs for thirty years, young man,' , with the strong silent implication that my own decade or so of treating sick animals every single day of my working life preceded by five years at university is worthless in comparison to this enormous achievement. Being my usual diplomatic self, at times like these I bite my tongue rather than point out that it's really not too difficult to produce a dog (if you're not familiar with the procedure, the main requirement is to have two dogs - ideally of opposite sexes, but I am clearly not an expert in such matters, as I am often reminded). Even if they personally haven't been breeding dogs for very long, they will almost certainly be accompanied by a friend who has been, and with whom every single statement you make as a vet must be checked and verified.

Now, I'm being unfair here, because for every two obnoxious, rude and demanding responsible breeder, there is one that is extremely pleasant (yes, that's the correct ratio as far as I can make out). Not only that, these are, and I mean this genuinely, people who care about what they are doing. They care about the puppies that they breed, and the mothers, and they want to see them go to good homes. They want to do the very best medically for their animals, and they would be horrified to think that they were causing any degree of animal suffering at all.

However horrified they might be, however, they are most certainly causing suffering. Quite apart from the severe, dreadful misery caused by inbreeding (which I wrote about in part two of this post), for every puppy sold to a new home, there is a dog in a rescue centre denied one. A dog that will either ultimately get put to sleep, or will spend the rest of its life in a kennel. Every single puppy. They don't mean to cause misery, but I am here to tell you that even the most caring, responsible, well-read and clued in breeder is causing it nevertheless.

And these are the good ones.

Irresponsible Breeders

If responsible breeders are likely to find their faces on dartboards in vet practices, then irresponsible ones are more likely to find their way onto the toilet roll. Irresponsible breeders don't really care about vaccinations, or worming, or nutrition. All of those cut into the profit margins. They care about mum, in so far as they need the bitch to keep producing puppies, but when she's past breeding age they'll pass her on, or put her to sleep (vets are not very commonly involved in this last procedure).

Irresponsible breeders are the type who lead to situations like my first blog post. They may attempt lip-service to the fact that they're dealing with a living creature rather than, say, a money-printing machine, but their actions belie their motives.

Breeders like this are frequently encountered for the first time in the middle of the night, having 'just moved to the area' or 'not registered the dog before', both statements being euphemisms for having run up a huge bill at one of the other vets in the area and having no intention to pay it. It's considered unprofessional for vet practices to inform other vets in the area that such clients haven't paid their bill, but you usually get the idea pretty quickly.

Despite the fact that a single puppy from a pedigree breed would generally cover more than double the cost of a caesarian, irresponsible breeders forget to bring their wallets with them surprisingly often - and frequently find them again very quickly when they are informed they must pay at the time they collect the dog.

Such breeders are the cause of immense amounts of suffering - principally to the deformed, unhealthy puppies that they produce, the females of which are destined to become dog-shaped money machines like their mother, but also to vets and nurses. Being faced with a client that simply refuses to pay and an animal that is in severe pain and in need of a caesarian is every vet's nightmare scenario. Yes, we can, in principle, simply offer to euthanase the animal on humane grounds, but if anyone else can manage to do that an still get to sleep at night, I'd appreciate some tips.

Not only this, breeders of this type are far, far more likely to report your actions to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons - so for those people who suggested to me, after reading my first blog, that performing the caesarian described without speying the poor bulldog was unethical, all I can say to you is this: not according to the Royal College. Performing a surgical procedure on an animal without consent is very definitely going to get a vet struck off, and so is the 'whoops, the uterus broke so I had to take it out' strategy that has been whispered about behind closed doors.

As time goes on, and I become (yes, I admit it!) more of a fundamentalist about breeding in general, I am starting to include anyone who breeds dogs of such obvious anatomical unhealthiness as pugs, bulldogs, basset hounds and so on as automatically, and by definition, irresponsible (yes, I know pugs are beloved by the internet. I also know that, because of their shape, they suffer; perhaps if you had treated several that prolapsed their eyeballs because they had a nasty coughing fit, you might feel similarly).

Puppy Farms

It is with sorrow that I even have to include this category, as I would have thought these would have died out years ago, but nope, they're still going strong. Puppy farmers are, effectively, irresponsible breeders who have embraced the principles of battery farming, and applied it to dogs.

A lot of vets know very little about what goes on in puppy farms, because the never visit them, and they never hear from the breeders. The first they know anything at all about such places is when they are presented with a puppy that someone has bought from them. Even by pedigree standards, puppies from here are going to be in pretty poor states. Often these puppies are bought on the internet, and while it boggles my mind that anyone could be so stupid as to order a puppy in the same way that your order your shopping, it still happens. Thankfully, a recent petition requesting the banning of the such places by the excellent PupAid charity has very recently topped 100,000 signatures, which means the issue must now be debated in parliament.

I haven't got much to say about puppy farms at all, to be honest, other than to say that they are vile, evil places, which cause about as much suffering and death as anywhere I can think of outside of... well, outside of a battery farm. Which does spur me to make one last point about them - if, like me, you can't stand the thought of a helpless dog, trapped for its whole life and forced into repeated pregnancies to produce animals simply for profit - then please stop and consider what you're doing when you buy cheap eggs, or pork, or veal.

What to do?

Now, I promised that this last blog in my trilogy would be proactive. So far I have, I hope, given a pretty clear indication of the suffering that is caused by the puppy trade. Is there anything that can be done to prevent it?

Well, fortunately for me, I've saved the easiest part of my blog for last. Yes. Yes there is. It's really very, very simple.

I could give some simple advice here about never, ever ordering a puppy if you haven't seen and visited it's mother, and made sure it's in comfortable surroundings, and healthy, and well. Never even think about buying a puppy online, and don't ever, ever get anyone a puppy for a present, no matter how good an idea it seems. But, y'know, typing out the words 'ordering a puppy' makes me feel a little queasy. Here's my much simpler advice (and I warned you I'm a fundamentalist on the topic):

Don't buy puppies. Don't breed puppies. Get your animals from rescue and rehoming centres. Always.

That's it. That's the sum total of my advice. Follow it, and I can guarantee you'll be reducing animal suffering, and you will have a wonderful new addition to your family.

As to the rebuttals to that advice that may have sprung instantly to your mind, then I'll deal with them below.

But... if everyone did that, there wouldn't be any pet dogs! Is that what you want?

No, it isn't, but... don't be silly. Rescue centres are absolutely full. Animals are getting put to sleep right now. Read my blog post Dog #86324.
You know what, if they ever get even close to emptying, I'll change my advice. I suspect that I won't ever have to do that. Don't spring your reducto ad absurdum on me, it's a logical fallacy.

But... I want to know what I'm going to get!

Well, I can tell you what you're going to get with a pedigree dog, but let's not go there. You can, and I hope I'm not sounding rude here, possibly get a reasonable idea of what you're going to get by, y'know, looking at the dog you're rescuing, as opposed to assuming that a dog that you've ordered from a breeder and that doesn't yet exist is going to be fine.

But what if the rescue dog is aggressive?

What if the pedigree dog is? At least the rescue dog will have been screened for its behaviour. The pedigree one won't. I've met plenty of 'well-bred' dogs that took a disliking to my nose too (maybe it's my nose that is the problem here...)

But I want a dog that won't shed any hair, I'm sort of allergic to dog hair. Think of my children!

Well, labradoodles need to be rescued too, y'know. Failing that, buy a better vacuum cleaner, or, if you and/or your child is allergic to dog hair then, am I'm only suggesting this, possibly a dog isn't really the pet for you. I'm extremely uncomfortable with this idea of getting a pet 'to order' - it's this sort of thinking that got dog breeds where they are today, which is to say, suffering.

But... my Brunhilde is amazing, I just want one litter of pups from her.

I understand this impulse. You love your dog. You don't want that to be it when they're gone. Listen, no one in the world loved their dog more than I loved Geri - but I wouldn't have bred from her, even if I had the option. Why? Because there are thousands of dogs like Geri, and yes, like Brunhilde, already waiting for a home. The world doesn't need more of them. It really doesn't.

I'll be happy to answer any more queries, but until then, here's my final word on the subject... once more, with feeling...

Don't buy puppies. Don't breed puppies. Get your animals from rescue and rehoming centres. Always.

Breeding Difficulties part two - breed predipositions

As a vet student, and as a new vet, I hadn't really thought much about dog breeding. Dog breeds, to me, meant a list of predisposed diseases that I had memorised by rote as part of my training - something a little like this:

            West Highland White Terriers: Atopy, Lens Luxation

            King Charles Spaniels: Mitral valve insufficiency, syringomyelia

            Boxers: Aortic stenois, neoplasia, idopathic syncope          

            German Shepherds: Anal furunculosis, atopy, pannus, dilated cardiomyopathy, hip dysplasia, chronic degenerative radiculomyopathy[1]

 ... and so on. Questions on this would pop up all the time in exams, so you needed to know this stuff[2], but I never really considered what this list meant. It was just something else to learn: parathyroid hormone is responsible for the regulation of calcium levels within the body, the average pH of a pigeon's rectum is 6.3, and greyhounds are predisposed to develop osteosarcomas.

 Our family pet when I had been growing up was a cocker spaniel, Silky[3]. I loved her dearly, as you would expect. It was harder for my dad to; she was extremely protective of her bed, and would growl and snap at him whenever he approached. She did the same to all of us if she ever wriggled under the bed, and she once bit me quite badly on the finger when I tried to extract her. At university, I learned that this was in inbred trait of spaniels - rage, it's called[4]. So, it turns out, was the heart disease that claimed her life. Still, these things never really connected; by the time I qualified, Silky had been dead a long time, and my parents had another spaniel at home[5]. We knew the breed, you see. We liked them.

In practice, this knowledge of breed diseases was very helpful. Young labrador, unsteady on its back legs? Definitely worth x-raying the hips for dysplasia. Westie with breathing difficulties and crackling noises on auscultation of the chest? Need to investigate the possibility of pulmonary fibrosis. Very helpful. Essential, in fact.

In those first few months, I was living from one consultation to the next, terrified that I was just one slip of the needle away from making some colossal mistake. Eventually, though, as the terror of being a new graduate slowly settled into a dull, lurking fear, and I started to see consultations that weren't wholly new to me, I began to notice just how much of my time was being taken up treating diseases that were on that list. Even for someone as slow on the uptake as me, when faced with my third westie in the same week with severely inflamed and infected skin due to its chronic allergic skin disease, I started to ask myself questions about whether there might be a better way of dealing with this stuff.

Suffering. It's a word that's followed me through my life, and through my career. As vets, we use it a lot. We are, we like to think, its enemy. Our whole raison d'etre, our vocation, is to reduce it whenever and wherever we can. It's the reason we can euthanase five animals in a day, and still get to sleep at night  - we didn't want them to suffer any more.

Working in general practice, it finally started to click with me - this rottweiler with entropion wasn't helping me out by presenting me with a disease I knew it was predisposed to. It was in pain, because its eyelashes were pressing onto its cornea. This springer spaniel with purulent otitis externa was yelping when I examined it because it hurt. That great dane that I put to sleep last week due to dilated cardiomyopathy wasn't just another tick box on my mental list of breed diseases. It was dead, because it's heart gave out. Because it was a great dane.

That's when I started to wonder about that list. Breed predisposition. It meant that, genetically, these breeds paid a price for their long ears, or their curly tails, or their short, cute, forelimbs. It meant that they were more likely to get certain diseases - and, from my experience in practice, I was realising that this didn't just mean a bit more likely. Something like fifty percent of westies have atopy. The same proportion of bulldogs can't give birth without a caesarian. I was coming to understand that the price a dog pays for being a certain breed is that it suffers.

          

I finally started to think very seriously about dog breeds, and just what we were doing to man's best friend. 

The bulldog caesarian I described in my last post is, I don't deny, an extreme example - but the point of this post is to demonstrate that no breed is immune. The pedigree dogs we have now are not the same creatures that existed fifty years ago; through more and more inbreeding, they've become caricatures of themselves.

Next time, I'm going to talk about breeders, puppy farms, rescue centres, and what we can do to try to fix this problem, and therefore stop me blogging about it - something I think that we can all agree would be a good thing ;).

---

[1] This is not, by any means an exhaustive list for any of these breeds.

[2] And why, due to a particulcarly stressful 'steeplechase' exam in my fourth year, I will remember to my deathbed that Belgian Shepherds are predsiposed to gastric adenocarcinomas.

[3] This is what happens when you allow your children to come up with names for your family pets, of course. We all liked the name, anyway. Don't judge us.

[4] Which puts me in mind of the excellent not-zombie film, 28 Days Later. Definitely worth seeing! But I digress - I suppose I'm allowed to in a footnote, now I think about it...

[5] Bilbo, if you must know. Hey, I like The Hobbit, okay? (The book, obviously).

Breeding Difficulties Part One - The Truth about Breeding

Heidi, the three-year old bulldog, waddles across the floor of the prep room. She tries to sit, but her hugely distended abdomen makes that uncomfortable for her, so instead she stands, and pants. Her thick eyelids droop with weariness. Sam and I lift her onto the prep table with some difficulty. Heidi gurgles and splutters as we set her down, then starts panting again. Green viscous fluid drips from her vulva, onto the table. We haven't much time.

            Sam raises Heidi's vein with some difficulty; this is uncomfortable for Heidi too. Not because of her distended abdomen, this time, but because her elbow dysplasia makes it hard for her to stretch her leg forward. I look sadly down at her. Her whole life is a struggle with her own body - whenever she tries to walk, or eat, or defecate, or breathe, she has to wrestle against her own bizarre anatomy. I inject the propofol into her vein, her eyes roll downwards, and she starts to sink to the table.

            'We'll take it from here, love,' I say, and Sam smiles. Placing an E-T tube is difficult too - Heidi's soft palate is too long for her mouth, and it takes some searching before I manage to locate her epiglottis - but the moment it's in place, Heidi's tongue loses its alarming bluish tinge and turns a reassuring pink.

            'Probably the best lungful she's had for a while,' Sam says, as she ties the tube in. We roll Heidi onto her side and start prepping her abdomen for surgery. I don't want to roll her on her back until absolutely necessary; her abdomen is so bloated I'm worried what the weight of it would do to the spine, and the blood vessels that run below it. We can't support her blood pressure nearly as well as I would like - Heidi's owner has declined intravenous fluids on cost grounds - and so I just want to get on with the caesarean as quickly as possible.

            It's late on Monday night. Heidi was booked in for an elective caesarean this Thursday, which would have been her 63rd day of pregnancy; a sensible precaution, because fewer than fifty percent of bulldogs manage to give birth without the operation, but in the last few days Heidi's abdomen has swelled to alarming proportions, and over the course of the day it's become clear that the pups need to come out, ready or not, or Heidi isn't even going to make it to Thursday. The green discharge, which started in the last hour, generally indicates that the placentas have started to separate from the wall of the uterus.

            Sam and I carry now extremely-heavy dog into theatre, and I only swear and complain about my back once; something of a record, as Sam, who is just over half my size, politely points out. I look at Heidi's immense abdomen, and suggest there is probably more swearing to come. I'm right.

            As I scrub, my mind wanders back to a consultation I had with Heidi and her owner, three years ago. It was her first adult vaccination, when she was about fourteen months old. Heidi's owner, a short, likeable man, tells me that he was thinking of breeding from Heidi, and wants to know what I think. I glance at Heidi's clinical notes, and try to hide the expression of dismay that must have crept across my face. Despite her tender years, Heidi has had surgery four times - twice to replace prolapsed tear glands, once to correct her entropion (a condition where her eyelids are so fleshy that they scroll inwards, allowing her fur to press against her eyeball, leading to chronic pain and frequent eye ulcers), and once to surgically remove her tail, which is so deformed it has formed a tight-corkscrew shape, leading to repeated severe infections around her back end and, again, chronic pain. I wonder how I can delicately state that Heidi is about the worst candidate I can imagine to have more progeny. I want to grab him by the lapels, and scream 'No, no! A thousand times, no! Can't you see how much she is suffering, just trying to walk?', but I feel that's not very professional.

            While I am thinking, the hitherto likeable owner, who seems slightly surprised that I am not immediately excited at the prospect of Heidi producing puppies, says, 'I'll have all the tests, you know. I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing.'

            This gives me an in. I calmly, and, I think, quite logically, explain that I don't need to do any 'tests' to tell me that Heidi is a poor choice of mother, both medically and genetically. All the conditions that she has had surgically corrected, as well as the many she has which can't be, are heritable conditions, and any puppies that she has is likely to suffer from them too. I further explain that the Kennel Club, finally drawing a line in the sand long after the country behind the line has been invaded and razed, wouldn't allow any pups to be registered, due to the number of corrective procedures that Heidi has had to endure.

            As I talk, I see Heidi's owners attention start to wander. I'm not saying what he wants to hear, so he's stopped listening. I say it again, in a slightly different way, and then again, finally ending with an extremely strong recommendation that Heidi is speyed as soon as possible. This last is too much for Heidi's owner. At reception, I hear him asking never to see 'that vet' again.

            Now, three years later, Heidi's owner doesn't have much choice, because I'm the vet on duty tonight. When I admitted her tonight, he didn't mention his request not to see me, and I didn't mention my advice never to breed from her. There didn't seem like much point.

            Now scrubbed up, I enter theatre and don my surgical gloves. Heidi's abdomen already has a long scar along it; this isn't her first caesarean. In fact, it's her third. Heidi's owner says he won't let her have another litter after this one. He said that last time, too.

            I open her abdomen with a large incision, cutting through the scar tissue of her previous surgeries, and ease the huge, bloated uterus out of the wound. Incising it, I remove the first puppy in its amniotic sack. It is enormous: truly a camel would have more chance passing through the eye of a needle than this puppy would have had of passing through Heidi's pelvis. I hand the puppy to Sam, who quickly breaks the sac, clearing the fluid, while I start to milk the next puppy towards the incision in the uterus.

            'Nick...,' Sam says. I look up, and understand why Heidi was so bloated. The puppy looks like someone has been at it with a bicycle pump, bearing more resemblance to a hippo that a bulldog. The skin is thickened and distorted with fluid, and has torn in a number of places around the mouth. As Sam gently shifts the puppy's position, its abdomen splits open, and she gasps in dismay. Fortunately, was dead before I ever removed it from the uterus.

            'Anasarca,' I mutter. Also known as 'water' or 'walrus' puppies: a condition of bulldog pups that causes severe oedema in the days leading up to birth. Mild cases might, just might, survive. The pup I have so far removed is not a mild case.

            So it goes for the remaining four puppies that I extract. All of them are severely affected. Two of them have weak heart beats, so I ask Sam to euthanase them for me.

            Heidi's colour has improved dramatically now that we have reduced the load on her uterus. I wish, once again, that we had her on fluids, but she seems to be doing well now that all the puppies are out. I start to suture up the uterus. When I admitted Heidi, I asked the owner if he would like me to spey her at the same time, as he already had suggested that Heidi wouldn't have any more litters. He declined.

            Suturing up a caesarean is often done to the noise of puppies crying for their mum's milk, but tonight Sam and I finish the operation in silence. Afterwards, Sam stays with Heidi while I telephone the owner with the news. He's annoyed and depressed. Of course he is: a single live pup would have recouped double the cost of the caesarean. He wants to know how many of the pups were female. We didn't think to check at the time, and I do so now. Only one of the five was a bitch, which seems to be some comfort to Heidi's owner. Bitches are worth more than dogs. Finally, with genuine concern, he asks how Heidi is. I reassure him that she's fine, and he sounds relieved. He thanks me for my help. I put the phone down, and sit down in dispensary, looking up at all the medicines I have at my disposal to treat sick animals, and wonder just how complicit in Heidi's suffering I am.

*

Well... this was going to be a short introduction to a post that discussed dog breeding, breeders, and some of the difficulties I encounter in practice... but I'm afraid it rather got away with me! I'm going to follow this post up, hopefully at the weekend, with a (hopefully) less emotive piece discuss some of the points I touch upon above. The above caesarian is an extreme case, but the details are not, I'm afraid, exaggerated. This exact scenario was occurred, with minor variations, to me personally, on three occasions, and I suspect it won't be entirely unfamiliar to any vets reading it, either.

Breeds Apart

Imagine, if you will, I go to the doctors. There's nothing particularly wrong with me, I'd just like a check-up to make sure everything's tickety-boo. The doctor (I'm imagining an elderly distinguished chap, something like John Le Mesurier, but hey! It's your imagination, they can look however you like. So can I, now I think about it. Can I be handsome, please? More hair than that. Great, you've got it.) asks me about my family history, and at this point I break into a broad grin.

'Oh, no problems there, doc,' I say, reaching into my man bag (what? They're fashionable now, aren't they? Or was that the nineties?) and retrieving a document. 'Take a look at this!'

I then proceed, proudly, to show the doctor my family tree. 'All great specimens, doc! Champions, the lot of 'em.'

Doctor Le Mesurier, at this point, can't help but notice that three of my great-grandparents appear to be the same person. Not on that, it looks (to his increasingly concerned eyes) as if my grandfather also produced several other children from my own mum, and my dad has likewise done the nasty with with maternal grandmother. At this point, he could be forgiven for thinking that this particular family tree would not be out of place adorning the wall of a backwater redneck banjo-playing (and if you're reading this, Jon, I do apologise. I don't mean to drag the good name of banjos into the mud, but it's an easy stereotype, and I'm sticking with it) web-toed buck-toothed cannabalistic clan, and he's starting to wonder if it might be a good idea to page the nurse.

'What do you reckon, doc?' I say, proudly. 'Impressive stuff, eh?'

Now lets talk about dogs, and the concept of a 'pedigree'.

Canis lupus familiaris is a remarkable species - genetically speaking. Think of the smallest adult human in the world. What are they? Let's say two feet tall for the sake of argument and unnecessary googling. That'd be about twenty kilos in my money. Now think of the tallest. Shall we go crazy and say ten feet tall? Tiny bit of googling suggests this would give you a weight of about two hundred and fifty kilos. (I won't get into obesity, because I'm really thinking of body frame rather than fat, plus that's a far too depressing subject to get into this close to Christmas). So, quite a difference - the tallest human weighs about 12 x more than the tiniest.

Back to the dog. The smallest breed that springs immediately to mind (and there's probably smaller out there) can weigh in, as an adult, at as little as 1 kilo. (Sorry about metric weights, but I'm sorry to tell you it makes a hell of a lot more sense than pounds, and a lot easier to do in your head). Now, the largest dog that springs to mind that I see regularly is a great dane - and squashes the scales in our practice to the tune of 80 kilos. It doesn't take Stephen Hawking to work out there's an 80 fold difference between the teeny tiny yorkie and the great dane - and there's definitely bigger dogs than her out there.

The point of that slightly tedious maths exercise was to illustrate the amazing genetic variation that exists within the doggy gene pool. Remember, this is the same species. Tiny tim the yorkie could (with some mechanical aids probably best left only to the imagination) in theory mate and produced fertile offspring with Gerta the great dane (their names have been changed to protect them so don't go ringing the Daily Mail in disgust). I picked on body mass as it's the easiest to visualise, but just about any characteristic in dogs shows the same variation - tail length, hair thickness, nose size, ear shape - they're all incredibly variable. Astonishing, and fascinating, and unlike most other species on the planet.

Which is why it's upsetting to me, and to many vets, that this variation has been turned into a torture implement.

Now, I'm aware torture is an emotive word (certainly our governments seem to think so. Good job they don't do it, then, and thank heavens for these new-fangled advanced interrogation techniques that I'm hearing so much about. They sound terribly effective) but I use it quite seriously. The wondrous genetic variation within dogs has, in the hands of humanity, caused more profound suffering to this beautiful, loyal and trusting species than anything I can think of (and trust me, I can think of some pretty horrible diseases).

Y'see, the concept of breeding like animals together to get offspring that were similar to their parents has been around for a long time - long before Darwin (and Wallace) developed the elegant theory of evolution, people knew it happened. They just didn't know why. (The difference in evolution, of course, being -natural- rather than -artificial- selection, but let's not get into that now). Farm animals have long been interbred to produce more meat, more milk, more honey, more pencils (okay, not the last one). Even this form of breeding has it's problems - you select for one trait, and often get weaknesses in others - but at least you're trying to get something useful out of it (well, useful to you, anyway. Quite what the cows get out of it is another matter, for another blog). That is...you're breeding for a function. It's when you stop needing your animal to do anything, and you just want it to look a particular way (breeding for a form) that the problems really start.

Enter the dog.

Poor Canis lupus familiaris may be man's best friend, but I must say if any of my friends treated me like we have them, they'd be off my Christmas card list before you could say 'inbreeding'. Dogs, who are unlucky enough to have a very wide gene pool, have been moulded over the years into the craziest shapes since the invention of silly putty. The difference is, silly putty can't suffer. Dogs can. And 'pedigree' dogs most of all.

Roughly 50% of my canine consultations for ill animals (i.e. not vaccinations, neutering or check-ups) are to try and deal with pain and disease caused by inbreeding. In the practice right at this moment we have a bulldog on a drip because it can't stop projectile vomiting (due to a hiatal hernia - guess what? An inbred trait), a spaniel recovering from surgery to repair a condylar fracture (inbred weakness), and a labrador that can barely walk because of it's chronic severe hip arthritis (caused by hip dysplasia - you get the idea). This is not an unusual day for us.

The minute some idiot (sorry, did I say idiot? I meant the kennel club) that they'd like this particular breed's nose to be shorter than a certain length, or it's spine to be yea long, or even something relatively innocuous, like thinner, shorter hair, you're asking for trouble. Two dogs that look very similar on the outside are likely to share genes that affect more than their looks. Genes for a slight propensity to have malformed hips, for instance. You'll be fine the first time you do it. Probably the third. Possibly the tenth. But sooner or later, along with those genes for lovely silky coats, you'll have a whole load of crappy genes that you really didn't want.

All this is pretty basic genetics, and apologies if I'm patronizing my readership, but this fairly simple point seems lost on a large proportion of dog breeders, not to mention the Idiots (oh, oops, I did it again, sorry, I mean the Kennel Club). Of course, this happens when you're breeding for a function, too, but there comes a point where you have to breed out with a different stock, so your animal can still do what it was supposed to do in the first place. The problem with breeding for a form instead is that your animal doesn't need to be very healthy to do what you want it to do, which is just to sit there looking (according to Idiots) pretty.

This is a problem when the form you're breeding for is relatively sensible - you still get poor genes when you're inbreeding, hence my little doctor scenario above. It's a major problem when the form you are breeding for is actively, and obviously, deleterious to an animal's welfare - and it still blows my mind that there are so many breeds like this out there. Daschunds bred with legs so short and spines to elongated that you can almost hear their discs slip as they walk in the door (and it takes a deal of self control on my part to try and make that sound funny, considering the number of cases I have seen with dogs in absolute agony because of it. Thanks, Idiots), bulldogs bred with such short tails that they grow in upon themselves (and that's only one of many many anatomy problems I could suggest about a bulldog. More than 50% (in our practice, probably 75% of bulldogs are brought into this world via caesarian, because they can't give birth unaided. Doesn't that set any alarm bells ringing with the Idiots?), pugs bred with noses so short they can barely breathe (and if Hal or Lindsay are reading this - please don't take offence, Ruby is clearly one of the sweetest loveliest there ever was. But given the choice, she'd like to be able to breathe a bit easier, trust me).

The Idiots, when discussing Basset Hounds, like to talk about 'furniture' - which basically means the amount of skin folds they have on their stumpy legs. This is, apparently, a good thing. The fact that the majority of bassets suffer from chronic pain due to their malformed elbows seems not to matter very much to them (which makes me want to drop large pieces of furniture on them. Maybe that's where the term comes from?).

In bassets, as in other breeds where the genetic problems have reached crisis point (like West Highland White Terriers with skin disease, or Labrador Retrievers with hip dysplasia) the Idiots have instituted 'screening programs' to 'breed out' the unwanted traits. I have a very simple breeding program - stop breeding mother with grandparent, and your problems will go away.

All of which means, to me, that a 'pedigree' is simply a history of how inbred your dog is. The longer your pedigree, the less healthy you are likely to be, no matter how many bloody times your ancestors won at Crufts. These dogs cost hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds, are going to cost you a great deal of money in veterinary fees, and also, (and this is my key point, which is why I keep returning to it) they will suffer.

Things are changing a little. A few years ago all this information was news to my clients, but no more often than not they are well aware of the problems. I can't tell you how many westie puppies I've seen with the first hints of atopy which will likely mean they will be on steroids for the rest of their life, only for the owner to tell me 'Oh, I know they suffer from that, our last one did.' It depresses me and upsets me that they can't see that perhaps going out and purchasing another one will, ultimately, lead to more animals spending their whole lives in pain.

I'm aware my tone has shifted from flippant to angry, and that's the very reason I've avoided writing this blog for some time. The unfairness of life aside, it was probably the main reason I wanted to start a veterinary blog at all. Because I'm tired. I'm tired of seeing wonderful dogs in pain and chronic misery because some shithead decided his legs needed to be -this- short, or his eyes should bulge out just so. I'm sick and tired because our profession, the 'champions of animal welfare' have let this misery go on for far too long. It took a BBC documentary on the subject to bring it to peoples attention, and finally have the horror show that is Crufts taken off air.

Okay, I'm going to stop ranting. For those gluttons for punishment who want more of the same, here is a letter Kerry and I had published in the veterinary times several years ago. For everyone else - please reconsider buying that puppy with the long pedigree. I know it's nice to know exactly how big it will get, and you can buy a nice bumper sticker that looks like them - but remember Dr Le Mesurier, and try to consider what that means for the dog, and not you.