Canadian veterinary association asks vets to help fix breed standards

An article titled “A New Direction for Kennel Club Regulations and Breed Standards” published in 2007 in the journal of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association addresses veterinarians’ role in the increasing “welfare predicament” of purebred dogs. This article could easily extend to the horse world and the plight of the Connemara breed, which is being genetically handcuffed by Connemara breed societies’ recent obsession with inspections. For reasons that have more to do with socializing than sound thinking, America and other countries are following Ireland’s lead on requiring breed standards and inspections.

While Connemara societies are moving blindly down this flawed path, scientists are pushing equally hard to get breeders to see the fallacy of this type of thinking. Perhaps if Connemara societies would slow down their frantic rule-making and inspections and just do a little scientific research, they would see that this will only ruin the breed.

Unfortunately, scientists currently are not paying attention to the horse world and calling out Connemara breeders specifically. They are focused mostly on the dog world. How long must we wait before ethical veterinarians start looking at what’s going on in the horse world?

The Canadian article starts out by talking about how purebred dog breeding has gone wrong. It describes the 400 current breeds as “artificial constructs of human fancy instead of the evolutionary outcome of natural selection” and blames the many genetic diseases found in purebred dogs on this “unnatural development by kennel club associations and breeders who are largely responsible for this welfare predicament.”

It goes on to say that veterinarians have “facilitated the progression of this situation,” and they need to help turn it around.

The article expounds on how a small genetic pool for a breed is a disaster, saying the number of animals used as founding stock is critical to the breed’s health. It laments that many breeds originate from few individuals, and breed registries are open only for a short time.

The article calls out breed societies for essentially bullying dog breeders into following their criteria:

“Many responsible breeders are saddened by the condition of their dogs but are unable to remedy the situation because kennel clubs bar the introduction of new genetic methodologies. The purpose of cynological associations is to facilitate the work of dog breeders, rather than impede it. Breeders should be allowed to determine where outcross animals may best be obtained for specific breeds in order to improve their dogs’ health. Kennel clubs should not only permit genetic improvement, but they should also reinforce it.”

The article says the Canadian and American kennel clubs overemphasize typology, or looks, calling the Canadian Kennel Club’s physical descriptions for dogs “exhaustive.” It says this type of thinking is harmful to the health of the dogs. “These ongoing attempts to create the ultimate canine conformation, with continually elevated ideals, are precisely what result in detrimentally exaggerated physiques and diseased animals.”

The article calls on veterinarians to be a part of the solution: “Current breed standards give breeders financial incentive to continue using inbreeding methods, and until breed standards are amended, it may be difficult to convince breeders otherwise. However, no matter how great the breeders’ financial reward for producing purebred dogs, our primary duty as veterinarians should be the improvement of our patients’ welfare and in meeting the needs of the owners, even if it compromises the breeders’ business. Similarly, veterinarians must not allow the financial contribution of purebred health issues to veterinary clinics to outweigh the welfare of their patients and clients.”

That last sentence never occurred to me. The health issues of these dogs are a financial windfall for veterinarians. And, yet, the Canadian vet association is asking those vets to put the financial incentive aside and do the right thing.

If Canada can figure out that this is morally and ethically wrong, why can’t the United States?