French Bulldog

[Manyandyoucanwalkover]

I was very sad to see a poor flat faced dog win the utilities section. There were so many lovely dogs in that section, with long faces. A dog who can actually breathe properly with the right shaped face, should have won. Crufts is the biggest dog show in the world and it’s utterly shameful that they are promoting dogs who can’t breathe properly.

Tbf you could say that about whatever dog had won! Jrt need a lot of training and work, they look small and cute but really need an owner who knows the breed.

How on earth do you keep selecting a physical trait you know comes with the risk of suffocation rather than choose a slight adjustment to form?

People who breed for the show ring / pet market select according to the breed standards. This is written down, agreed apon and published by KC members.

I walked away from a perfectly healthy breed puppy because of the breeders attitude towards health testing and how to use that information. According to this person, sometimes a dog is just to good and you have to breed it despite being a carrier* (this is for DNA testing) in order to keep your winning show lines.

My personal issue was, that there were plenty of puppies to choose from where neither parent is a carrier.
I didn't see the need just for that one off chance of creating a top show dog.
If there were issues with inbreeding or not enough breeding stock, then breeding with carriers can help keeping dogs healthy.

*Carriers are perfectly healthy dogs as are their offspring. It's only an issue if you breed a carrier with a carrier for the same defective gene, then the puppies have a 50% chance of getting the disease.

That's probably the only good thing about the KC, they do keep records of health tests and they are publicly available.

But that's the same for pretty much any for that's not a lap or toy breed.

At least Jack Russells are healthy and hardy and capable of doing what they were bred for.

Crufts and the Kennel Club have fuck all interest in the welfare of dogs. It's all about money and self serving interests.

There are lots of people here who are huge promoters of KC and that you should only ever buy a KC puppy after being on a waiting list for years and only ever meeting breeders through shows. Sadly that view is seen as superior to all else.

Personally I think rescues are better but all that matters is that puppies are from well loved and healthy sires. If you compare show to working in breeds then there’s no way the show version could do the job that it’s bred for. The show version of our breed is so exaggerated it would be physically incapable of keeping up with our working version.

Looking at how unhealthy KC breeds are by conforming to ‘breed standards’ the KC and its supporters have no place claiming to be better.

Many of the terriers are - some even have that signs of "fair wear and tear" are acceptable written in to the showring standard, reflecting that they are breeds meant to work.

KC registration is useful in choosing a puppy, because you can look up the health tests of the parent. Also you know that, at that point at least, the bitch has not been over-bred (as they limit the number of litters that can be registered per bitch - but of course that doesn't prevent there being further unregistered litters or moving her across to produce doodle-poos)

@lightinthebox I’m not a KC obsessive. I believe there are a lot of problems with the KC in general. The best dog I ever had was a crossbreed…but despite being mixed with a few different things he was plagued with health problems. I’ve spent my adult life (since 17!) rescuing dogs and the most unhealthy ones have been dogs of a specific breed that were not KC registered. Bad specimens of a breed bred with other bad ones, no thought, registration or health testing. I’ve had some horrific and completely preventable genetic problems, from as serious as epilepsy to something like allergies (also hereditary)

I believe if we can eradicate or at least reduce the changes of a disease by health testing then we should, since we are the ones pretty much playing god anyway. If we do away with the only registration system in place I believe things would only get worse in terms of health testing etc.

Admittedly I do like pure bred dogs now because of the predictability of them. I like to see and meet dogs from the lines as far back as possible to check for health or temperament issues, you can’t do that with non registered dogs. You pretty much know if your buying X dog from X breeder then your doing to get something pretty close to what your told. Rescue puppies are a complete gamble!

Health tested crossbreeds, fine, but they never are. I dont think I’ve seen any health tested crossbreeds actually, maybe a tiny number. It’s always backstreet breeders throwing together poodles with anything that moves and claiming it’s healthier.

This is what some vets thought when the nostril-free Frenchie won its group at Cruft’s…

There is nothing wrong with breeding from carriers of recessive conditions, as long as they are only bred to dogs who have tested clear.

Excluding carriers from breeding can further reduce genetic diversity, & most purebred dogs need as much of that as they can get.