Designer dogs with extreme traits may disappear in 10 years under plans to improve dog health in the UK. Photo / 123rf
Designer dogs with flat faces, wrinkly skin and bulging eyes are set to disappear in the UK over the next 10 years under plans there to eradicate extreme traits in dogs.
Breeds such as French bulldogs, pugs and English bulldogs have had features bred into them that cause health problems and suffering. Issues include a high risk of infections and not being able to run. Many are forced to undergo surgery to help them breathe.
Scientists launched a toolkit this week to assess a dog on 10 traits, called the innate health assessment (IHA). Only dogs that score an eight or above will be permitted to be bred under licensing requirements for official breeders.
The list includes merle colouration, which means a mottled or marbled colouring, wrinkly skin, flat faces, saggy or out-turned eyelids, bulging eyes, under or overbite, no tail, twisted legs, shortened legs and stiff spines.
Studies have shown animals born with these features suffer pain, discomfort and frustration from birth.
The scheme is voluntary but has wide support from charities, insurers and the United Kingdom’s Kennel Club. The developers of the IHA hope to lobby the British government to mandate it and use it as a way of enforcing a currently unused law to prohibit breeding unhealthy dogs.
The IHA, developed by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare (APGAW), doesn’t want to ban breeds but to redraw definitions so that animals are born healthy.
It will tighten the criteria from eight out of 10 at launch to nine in five years and 10 in a decade.
Professor the Lord Trees, co-chairman of the APGAW, told the Daily Telegraph: “This tool is a valuable contribution to reducing the chronic ill-health associated with extreme conformations in dogs.
“The fashion for extreme conformation is arguably the most chronic and prevalent welfare issue in dogs in the UK, yet it persists in plain sight in a nation of animal lovers.”
Dr Dan O’Neill, associate professor of companion animal epidemiology at the Royal Veterinary College who created the tool, told the Telegraph: “The IHA will lead to the default setting of a pug or a dachshund fundamentally changing.
“People talk about disruptive technologies, and this is a disruptive action. It is a major change.
“The plan here is that in 10 years’ time, there will not be a single dog bred in the UK by a licensed breeder that has any extreme conformation.
“The tool is there to be carried out by the breeder, by anyone who wants to buy a puppy and by the general public.”
He added that dog owners have been “brainwashed” into thinking that if a dog is a certain breed then it is healthy, even if it has one or more of the problematic features.
“We’re saying that it’s not about breed, it’s about the dog,” O’Neill said.
There is a law prohibiting dogs with extreme conformations being bred, but it is unenforced because of a lack of clarity over what constitutes extreme, O’Neill said. He hopes the IHA can fix this to allow for enforcement, should the law be rewritten to include the IHA assessment as a matter of judging a dog’s fitness.
The 2018 animal welfare regulations state that no dog can be bred if it “can reasonably be expected” based on its health, genes or appearance to have unhealthy offspring. The punishment is a possible loss of licence or a fine of up to £4000 ($9298).
“As of 2018, it became illegal for anyone who needed a dog-breeding licence to breed from any dog who had any extreme conformation,” O’Neill said.
“And since that law has been in place, there has been zero impact. If you actually applied the law there, probably shouldn’t have been a dachshund, a French bulldog, a pug, an English bulldog, a Shar Pei, a Pekinese, or a Shitsu bred in the UK by a licensed breeder.”
For now, the IHA is a voluntary scheme for licensed breeders only as part of a “very, very, very soft launch”.
“The IHA is not aiming for anyone to be prosecuted,” he said. “When local authority inspectors come to a breeder they will probably just give a warning. They will not be prosecuted because that’s not the aim. The aim is to bring everyone along.”
O’Neill said that some breeds are now so extreme in appearance that dogs are often innately sick. “Innate health focuses on if a dog has the capacity to live life as a dog. In other words, to perform all the canine functions,” he said.
“It is not looking for clinical disease, but if the dog can be a dog. The core question is, ‘how dog is your dog?’”
The goal, he said, is not to make breeds prohibited or ownership of dogs with certain traits taboo, but to change the buying and adoption trends of the public to encourage animal welfare as a priority.
“If people like French bulldogs, they should be able to own French bulldogs – but the French bulldog should also like to be a French bulldog,” Dr O’Neill said.
Breed, he says, is a human construct that we force dogs to fit into through ever more unnatural breeding practices and trends driven by social media and adverts.
“Before Victorian England, a dog had to have a function,” he said. “It would be a guard dog, a shepherd dog or a retrieving dog. Then Victorian England came along and humans got rich and had money to spend on frivolities and this led to the creation of breeds and dog shows.”
Over decades it has become normalised for dogs to become more and more distant in appearance from their natural shape, and their health is paying the price, he said.
In some countries, such as the Netherlands, several dog breeds have been banned on health and welfare grounds.
“The idea of the IHA is that we can move towards French bulldogs with tails and noses that can run, breathe and sleep with no issues and have a good life while people also still have the joy of owning a French bulldog,” O’Neill said.
“The tool is there to be carried out by the breeder, by anyone who wants to buy a puppy and by the general public,” he added.
It is understood the Kennel Club will not require its breeders or owners to use the IHA.
The 152-year-old organisation, which was founded by a Victorian aristocrat and now runs Crufts and sets the definition of a pedigree breed, says it supports the principle of the IHA but it is working on its own assessment tool for pedigree breeds which it says is more “veterinary-based and nuanced”.
A Kennel Club spokesman told the Telegraph: “The Kennel Club is committed to the principle that all dogs should have a body shape that enables them to lead a good quality of life. We therefore support the principle of initiatives such as the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare and the innate health assessment.
“While the Kennel Club was consulted during the development of the IHA, it is important to note that the assessment criteria were not chosen by us. While for most breeds, the assessment criteria will not present any issues, and we reiterate our support for any initiatives that promote the health and wellbeing of dogs, we believe that a more veterinary-based and nuanced approach could better support our pedigree breeder community.”
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.