Vet who failed dog breeds at Crufts talks about exaggerated conformation

Alison Skipper, one of the two vets who failed six of 15 Best of Breed winners at the Crufts dog show in Britain in March 2012, has aired her thoughts on the experience after coming under fire. They are posted on the website of Jemima Harrison, director of the 2008 BBC documentary “Pedigree Dogs Exposed,” which shed light on the fact that breed standards are becoming so extreme that they are forcing dogs to develop breed characteristics that are detrimental to their health. The documentary led to Crufts inviting the two independent vets to evaluate the health of winners this year.

Arbitrary and exaggerated breed standards for Connemara horses are what drove me to start this website in the first place. The standards are based on the whims of a few officials without scientific backing that discusses their health implications. Standards include such requirements as the Connemara should have a well-defined cheekbone and relatively deep jaw, short ears and “short, very dense” cannons. I have been unable to find any study that say these features improve a Connemara’s health, ability or quality of life. In fact, I’ve found a few studies that suggest short, thick cannons impede a horse’s movement exponentially. The only justification I’ve heard for these standards is they preserve the breed type, yet no one has come forward with any evidence that this is indeed the breed type throughout history. The definitive summary of Connemara breed type says there were five types. Connemara officials recently decided there would be one. Kind of like a certain German ruler deciding there would be one type of human.

Skipper, the vet, says she sees nothing wrong with breeding pedigree dogs, other than the fact that many dogs need homes already and it adds to the dog population. I agree with her there. People should be allowed to breed animals that trace their heritage to certain regions or jobs. It might be wise for people to be limited to how many dogs they can breed to reduce the overpopulation, but that’s a post for another day.

Skipper goes on to say that, if people are going to bring dogs into the world, they should ensure they are breeding dogs that are healthy.

She said purebreds face two big hurdles: genetic issues and exaggerated conformation. Genetic issues have improved, she says. Now, it’s time to address exaggerated conformation.

She said: “Nobody ever said, ‘Oh good, I’ve produced a puppy which is going to suffer pain as a result of the body shape I chose.'” But she adds it’s all too easy to overlook chronic low-level discomfort, which is the result of exaggerated breed standards.

Her description of her instructions from the Kennel Club for assessing the Best of Breeds dogs was interesting. She said she and her colleague couldn’t reject a dog just because it had a short face, only if it had trouble breathing as a result of its structure.

In which case, I think this is a very flawed system. We know that the shape of Cavalier King Charles spaniels’ heads has led to these dogs having syringomyelia, a condition in which the dog’s brain is too big for the skull, leading to nonstop, crippling headaches. But, under the Kennel Club rules, unless the vets could prove that these dogs were having a headache at that moment, they couldn’t penalize them?

Look. We know these spaniels have headaches. The dogs need bigger heads. And if you can’t make people breed toward a healthier head structure, then these dogs shouldn’t be bred at all.

The Crufts vet check process feels like a little bandage on a big wound. All breed standards should be thrown out. They serve no purpose. I defy anyone to describe a real purpose other than a hobby. It gives breeders a purpose, and, to put it bluntly, many of those breeders are wealthy people with time on their hands in need of a purpose, according to research presented in “Pedigree Dogs Exposed.”

Don’t insult our intelligence by saying breed standards are to preserve a breed’s look, particularly with dogs. All dog breeds descend from the wolf, so unless the breed standards describe a wolf, that justification is as exaggerated as the conformation. Since some breeds evolved for practical roles, it would make more sense to say animals of certain breeds must do a particular thing, if you had to make rules at all. I, of course, am aiming for breed registries that only track genetics. If you are a horse born to two Connemara parents, you are a Connemara.

Would any owners of Connemaras disavow their own heritage because someone told them they didn’t fit the type of that heritage? Since the problems in the Connemara world all started on Irish soil, how about banning Irishmen who don’t fit the Irish type? And we can leave it up to a few people with time on their hands and biases based on their own looks to decide what’s the right type and throw out anyone who doesn’t fit that type, altering the genetic makeup of an entire country, since that’s what’s happening to the horses.

Oh, wait, someone tried that already elsewhere. Didn’t end well.