Health Before Type, Debates Bva Congress

[periannath]

VETS are in a strong position to improve the health of pedigree dogs. But should they be forced to report procedures to the Kennel Club, what matters should they report, and what should the KC do when they receive this information?

These and other issues were given an airing during one of the ‘contentious issues’ debates at the British Veterinary Association’s (BVA) congress on Saturday.

The two speakers were Dog Advisory Council chairman Professor Sheila Crispin and vet Emma Goodman Milne who both spoke on the subject ‘Dog breeding – where is it going?’.

There was some tough talk during the debate – the toughest from Ms Goodman Milne who called for showing – ‘human entertainment at the expense of animals’ – to be banned, and more moderately from Prof Crispin, who discussed the advisory council’s work so far and the KC’s efforts to address the issue of canine health since Pedigree Dogs Exposed was broadcast in 2008.

However, Prof Crispin said she believed ‘showing had gone in a funny direction’ and that it was time that show dogs should return to being ‘fit to do what they are designed to do’.

She called on all welfare organisations to ensure they had a single, unified message, even if this meant compromise.

“I said at the first advisory council meeting that we were all there because we liked dogs, and that everything else must be set aside,” she said.

Prof Crispin listed the top seven clinical canine problems as compiled by the advisory council. These are: brachycephalic airway syndrome; limb defects; ocular disease, secondary to conformation problems; heart disease with a known or suspected hereditary basis; separation related behaviour problems; syringomyelia and epilepsy.

During her speech at the Royal College of Physicians in London, Ms Goodman Milne said she believed that as a nation we had become obsessed with dogs’ breeds and that we were ‘not happy with them just being dogs any more’.

Looks were irrelevant and health paramount, she said, adding that the veterinary profession should lead the way towards a sea change by becoming more involved and giving clients advice.

She said she thought the KC should make all health tests compulsory, breeding should be limited, and that all the breeds labelled high profile by the KC ‘should go’.

The two speakers were introduced by BVA president elect Peter Jones.

“It’s been three years since Pedigree Dogs Exposed and the fall-out has been significant,” he said. “Rarely has a TV programme caused quite the amount of discussion and impassioned debate that this did.”

It also resulted in three enquiries into dog breeding and the formation of the advisory council.

Prof Crispin began by saying how easy it was to talk about how many problems there were but not so easy to come up with solutions.

“This is where the veterinary profession has to play a part in helping out,” she said. “What happened after Pedigree Dogs Exposed was screened shows the value of prime time TV and its shock value,” she said.

Designer dogs

One of the three enquiries, Professor Sir Patrick Bateson’s, had been the only one which did not have the word ‘pedigree’ in its title, she went on.

“He realised that there were more problems than just those relating to pedigree dogs,” she said.

After the programme was broadcast many people contacted reputable breeders to cancel the puppy they had previously wanted, she said.

“But dog breeding is not as open and honest as one would wish, and everyone jumped on the bandwagon and started breeding crossbreeds, designer dogs as they are called, and charging £1,500 to £2,000 per puppy. It became big business.

“I think HM Revenue and Customs might be interested in these people’s activities, as they don’t go through the usual tax processes.”

Prof Crispin listed some of the topics discussed by the advisory council and what progress had been made. With regard to breed Standards, she said, discussion was ongoing and ‘very much a work in progress’. Closely-related matings – ‘which caused a certain amount of shock and horror’ – had been banned by the KC, she went on.

Health scanning for breeding and show dogs, including the compilation of estimated breeding values and DNA tests, was also a work in progress, and a lengthy process as there were 210 breeds to look at. The council wanted to find out what the problems were and how they affected the quality of dogs’ lives.

“Are there problems if you breed for this type of face, leg or ear etc,” Prof Crispin asked. “The vet profession is in good position to look at these things.”

Upgrading the KC’s Assured Breeder Scheme was another topic at the forefront of discussion by the council, she said, including deregistration of breeders which fail to comply with the scheme’s requrements. The KC was seeking UKAS accreditation for the scheme, which had not yet been obtained, she said, which was why the original title, the Accredited Breeder Scheme, had been changed.

“This is all a work in progress too,” Prof Crispin said. “There is still quite a lot to do.”

She stressed that it was crucial to make puppy buyers and breeders more aware, and that animal welfare groups should be giving out the same message instead of all differing slightly.

“Some of these big welfare organisations don’t get on as well as they should,” she said. “But they must.”

Puppies need to be identified permanently, which would help in dangerous dog cases and puppy farming.

“Surely it makes sense to identify dogs before they leave their mother and the breeder,” Prof Crispin said. “I think they should be registered in some way so they can always be traced back to their breeder, and that would get rid of nefarious practices in breeding. It’s so simple I don’t know why we don’t do it.”

The council is looking at developing a breeding strategy and management plan for each breed.

“We haven’t yet, there is so much to do,” she said.

Those who buy designer crossbreeds have no idea what they are getting, she said.

“Ruth Barbour said when I first joined the KC committee which was looking at changing the conformation of breeds, that most breeders weren’t readers of the Guardian or the Times. And she was probably right.

“We have to make things as simple as possible in terms of showing them what they are doing is so wrong, because quite often they don’t know. Showing has gone in a funny direction and we probably have to go back to showing with a dog who is fit to do what it’s designed to do.”

The ‘wrong kind’ of dog was being bred out of ignorance, she said, often in poor premises, such as those bred by farmers in Wales, who had been told to ‘diversify’. Prof Crispin turned to the planning permission recently granted to the commercial breeder in Carmarthenshire.

“There are 196 breeding bitches being looked after by two and a half members of staff,” she said. “Surely that can’t be right.”

She suggested that vets should help local authorities make decision in cases such as these, as they were more aware of animal welfare issues.

Some puppy buyers were ‘lovely’ but others ‘completely clueless’, Prof Crispin said, explaining how people were being conned out of money by thinking they were buying a puppy online, being asked to pay more and more – in the region of £2,000 – until they realised there was no puppy in the first place.

“This suits me down to the ground,” she said, “but unfortunately there are also a lot of real puppies from unsuitable outlets who may be handed over at motorway services when the puppies are only six weeks old and should not be away from their mothers, and are then dead by the age of ten weeks.

“Then the purchaser gets one from a pet shop, so perpetuating the problem.”

Educating children at an early age was important too, she added.

Prof Crispin mentioned the recent decision by the BVA and KC that the results of scans for syringomyelia should be recorded and published.

“The KC is tackling this extremely distressing condition,” she said, suggesting that vets should look for pain on animals’ faces more regularly.

She concluded by saying that if a breeder wanted to correct a conformation problem, for example in a Bulldog, the answer was to outcross, ‘although it might not look like a Bulldog when you’ve finished’.

“Happy, healthy and fit – is this too much to ask?” she said.

Ms Goodman Milne opened her speech by saying she was not a specialist but that as someone interested in animal welfare she instead wanted to approach the subject on a common sense basis.

“That way you can cut through a lot of the science,” she said. “We should be bolder and say that what has been done so far needs to go further.”

Breeders’ priorities were, in order, phenotype, temperament and health, she claimed: “I think looks should be irrelevant, although I know that’s not very popular in some quarters.

“I believe we are obsessed by breeds of dog; we’re not happy for them to be dogs any more. We take our dogs out and people want to know what breed they are. All dogs are status dogs to a degree, they reflect ourselves and our personalities.

“There are hundreds of breeds, and with the introduction of each new breed the others must be phenotypically squeezed to allow the new breed to be physically distinct, and this has led to more and more exaggeration.

“Showing is human entertainment at the expense of animals; the only real benefit to the dogs is praise from their owner – which they could get during a walk in the park. It doesn’t allow for normal interaction or social contact, does not concentrate on health, vigour or utility, perpetuates the myth that show winners are the ‘best’ dogs you can get, and creates and perpetuates genetic bottlenecks.”

The attitude to modern showing threatened the species, she said. Why the concern for rare breeds, she asked.

“I want beautiful, healthy crossbreeds full of hybrid vigour,” she said. “Robust, well-socialised, unique individuals fit for the purpose of living happy lives.”

Ms Goodman Milne – who was involved in the campaigns to ban docking and hunting – said the veterinary profession should lead the way to a sea change by giving people advice. Horses were vetted before they are bought, so why not puppies, she asked.

“As vets, we’re always on the back foot. We have to start getting to prospective owners before they buy.”

Data collection should be evidence based so that buyers could make informed choices, and it would be clear that the vet who gave the advice was not prejudiced against a certain breed.

“There should be a shift in the balance of power from breeders to buyers,” she said. And there should be a puppy contract, as for ‘too long’ there had been no breeder accountability.

The KC should make all available health tests compulsory, ‘that is the only way they will have an impact’; breeding should be limited, possibly to one litter per bitch. Rescue centres were ‘stuffed full’, she said, and this would ‘stop the bottleneck’.

There should be no new breeds ‘as of now’; showing should be stopped, and the Government should sign up to the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals. The latter would address a lot of the problems, she said.

Outcrossing had to be done to stop problems such as brachycephalic airways syndrome, and the breeds on the KC’s high-profile list ‘should go’.

“But most importantly there should be honesty about abnormalities, deformities and disease,” she said. “These are being bred in. We should be honest to owners and clients who breed.

“We always tiptoe around clients because we worry about losing business, but if we lose business we should say that that is the right thing to do.”

The subject was then opened for debate. BVA past president Nicky Paull said she had learnt that the average lifespan of the Irish Wolfhound was four years, when Irish dogs of the same breed had an average of seven years. Why not use those dogs, she asked, or was the answer because they were not of show type?

Conformation

“Will we ever get to the point where to get the right health in dogs we accept that some of the breeds can no longer go on looking like they do, not just because of conformation but sometimes genetics?” she said. “Does the advisory council think that showing and an improvement in health can go hand in glove?”

Prof Crispin answered by talking about the working and showing variety of Labradors.

“There are almost two types,” she said. “The working Labrador is lovely, smaller with fine bone and a head with a lot of brain in it. The show Labradors, males certainly, have huge, wide heads, and seem to have no brain at all. It really worries me because some breeds are not helped by showing at all.”

She spoke of her own breed, the Border Collie, and her dismay when the KC recognised it.

“I said, ‘Please, no’. Within a year or so a Border Collie who couldn’t have worked or done its job won a group.

“I think things are changing regarding this with KC, but we have to get back to where dogs can do what they are supposed to do, otherwise we are just breeding for showing.”

She said that eye tests had shown glaucoma ‘creeping in’ to show Border Collies, although working dogs rarely suffered from it.

“That shows how careful we have to be in terms of what to introduce to create different shapes,” she said. “It might bring in other things.”

Answering a question, Ms Goodman Milne said she would like to think that the veterinary profession felt strongly about extremes in conformation.

“A lot of vets are into breeds, and show and breed too,” she said. “I think the KC should hold its hand up and say these breeds have gone too far, and I think the veterinary profession has to take a stance – and has to be bold enough to say something.

“We should be telling people beforehand and get people to ask us for their opinion. We treat them on a daily basis. I think we should put proper pressure on people not to buy these breeds.

“But I find it very frustrating that the profession gets a lot of criticism, it’s unfair. Vets in practice are always on a back foot.”

She said that it would be preferable if vets got to people before they bought puppies so they could give them advice.

Chris Laurence, former veterinary director of Dogs Trust, spoke about the under reporting of veterinary procedures on dogs.

“Most of us would understand why this is,” he said. “Do you think it would help if the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), which has said we ‘can’ report them, said we ‘should’ report them, and make it our professional duty?”

Prof Crispin said this was another ‘work in progress’.

“In the last few days discussion has taken place about what will be reported and what the KC would do with the information,” she said.

She said that it should be easy for vets to report procedures, electronically if possible, or on a readily available form if not. And the KC had to decide how to make use of information.

“Things are changing,” she said. “But there’s going to be a lot of agony out there.”

The biggest nightmare was the collection of robust data, and the sharing and analysis of it.

The KC’s health and breeder service manager Bill Lambert explained that if hereditary disease was reported by a vet, the KC would write to the breeder and stud dog owner giving them a ‘clear warning’.

“It would be foolhardy of them not to pay attention to that, because puppies are subject to the Sale of Goods Act, the same as everything else, and they are leaving themselves wide open,” he said.

Turning to the criticism of showing and breeding for showing, he said that less than one per cent of dogs registered by the KC were exhibited, and many were bred to be pets. And it was often overlooked that a show dog allows a stranger to look at it, go over it and open its mouth.

“The next thing that happens, if it’s a male, is that someone grabs its testicles,” he said. “Dogs with a poor temperament wouldn’t put up with that, so showing and breeding for showing does promote good temperaments.”

He said the KC had done many things to make health and welfare the prime consideration for show dogs. Banning breeds was not the answer; if it was, the Dangerous Dogs Act would not have been so inefficient.

“The KC has no legislative powers,” he said. “We register dogs and we try to encourage good breeders and discourage poor breeders.”

He said the KC did not want to make the same mistake as the American Kennel Club, which had driven away breeders to other registries over which it had no control. Over-restrictive practices does drove people away, he said. Ms Goodman Milne said that if some breeders were driven away it would mean the KC was dealing with only the best breeders.

“The KC could take the moral high ground for losing breeders who didn’t want to conform to rules which insisted they health tested their dogs,” she said, adding that the KC would ‘take a hit’ for a few years but that breeders would return to the KC’s ‘way of thinking’.

“It goes back to us having a unified approach,” she said. “We should all say the same things.”

BVA president Harvey Locke asked what vets should be reporting.

“What about cruciates, if it’s a dramatic rupture?” he said. “It puts undue pressure on vets as the KC won’t allow dogs to be shown if they have had that kind of surgery.

“We need to work on producing guidance on what should be reported – and please would everyone report it if they carry out a caesarean section on a dog.”

On the subject of making reporting compulsory, BVA past president Peter Jinman said: “Once you do that you are into enforcement, the matter becomes a serious professional misdemeanour, and then the RCVS has to decide whether to take away that person’s livelihood, or suspend him,” he said. “How far do we want to take this?”

Bringing the debate to an end, Mr Jones said vets had a role to play in health schemes and educating owners.

“We have to continue to work with the KC,” he said. “I have had discussions with Steve (Dean) about it – we’re old buddies, so I’m sure we can continue to do so.”

The Kennel Club’s response

AFTER the debate, the Kennel Club said it had been pleased to attend as its strategy was to take every opportunity to engage with vets.

“Some very important issues were raised which we all need to work to resolve,” said health and breeder services manager Bill Lambert. “Professor Sheila Crispin acknowledged that some of the solutions to the current issues are more complex than is commonly realised, but the KC agrees that the approach has to be consensual and collaborative and that the education of puppy buyers is absolutely key.

“The presentation by Emma Goodman Milne, who called for an end to showing and of the purebred dog, represented an extreme view which could ultimately be counterproductive. Science is at a stage where we are better able to understand and deal with diseases in dogs. Any dog can suffer from illness, but in pedigree dogs we have the advantage of knowing their heritage and lineage and so are better able to understand, test for and ultimately work to eliminate diseases that might arise.

“As the guardian of Crufts, the KC strongly believes that no dog show should be solely about beauty, and it makes this clear for all of its licensed shows. Unhealthy dogs or dogs with poor temperament should not win prizes at dog shows and therefore the show ring can be, as Professor Sir Patrick Bateson acknowledged in his independent review, a positive force for change.

“Furthermore, it is dedicated and committed dog breeders, such as those who are members of our Assured Breeder Scheme, who offer a genuine solution to the issues raised. It is these breeders who are making efforts to produce dogs who are truly healthy and fit for function, and who invest in the work of organisations including the British Veterinary Association and the Animal Health Trust in order to support and participate in health research and testing schemes.”

[sandgrubber]

periannath, could you give sources for the material you're posting. Many of us appreciate the posts . . . but it's always better to know where information comes from . . . thanks

[Steve]

DOG WORLD UK 29.9.11

[Rottshowgirl]

“What about cruciates, if it’s a dramatic rupture?” he said. “It puts undue pressure on vets as the KC won’t allow dogs to be shown if they have had that kind of surgery.

Does anyone know if that's correct? The KC wont allow a dog who's had a cruciate repair to be shown?

That seems a bit extreme, there are all sorts of reasons for dogs doing cruciates

[periannath]

Should I also be posting the link? Happy to do so...http://www.dogworld.co.uk/News/39-Front-Cover-(1)