'Demand for certain dogs is far greater than the number of good breeders

Collaboration between the veterinary profession, the Kennel Club, breeders and owners is the only way to tackle extreme breeding, concluded the Dog Breeding Reform Group (DBRG) at its inaugural symposium last week. Sophie Beckwith reports. ‘There is one golden rule for dog breeding – only fit and healthy dogs should be used.’ That is the opinion of Carol Fowler, founder of the Dog Breeding Reform Group (DBRG), which had its inaugural symposium at Surrey university last week. She described dog breeding as a lucrative business and said that unscrupulous individuals with poor regard for animal welfare were producing dogs that were suffering from a lifetime of serious health and welfare issues. This had negative consequences. ‘Dogs in the UK are suffering or dying young as a result of unethical breeding,’ she said. ‘Tackling inherited and conformational problems in dogs’ examined a range of health and welfare problems...
Source: Veterinary Record - Category: Veterinary Research Tags: News section Source Type: research