Pedigree ends sponsorship of Crufts after damning BBC documentary's allegations about animal welfare
 

Dog food brand Pedigree is ending its sponsorship of Crufts after a BBC documentary aired in August, entitled Pedigree Dogs Exposed, made a catalogue of allegations about the health and welfare of animals entered for Crufts. The programme alleged that breed standards set by the Kennel Club are open to interpretation but, as fashion changes, so do the dogs, leading to serious health and welfare problems in some breeds.

Press reports suggest that the sponsorship is worth some £500,000 and there has been speculation, vehemently denied by the Kennel Club, that the show might have to close. Rosemary Smart, Chief Executive Officer for the Kennel Club, said: "Clearly we are very sad to lose Pedigree from Crufts. We have had an excellent relationship with Pedigree for many years and we wish them well and look forward to working with them in the future. "Crufts will go ahead as planned in March 2009". During the documentary, the RSPCA's Chief Vet, Mark Evans said: "The show world is about an obsession, about beauty, and there is a ridiculous concept that that is how we should judge dogs … "It takes no account of your temperament, your fitness for purpose potentially as a pet animal - and that to me just makes absolutely no sense at all". Exaggerations The BBC programme went out on Tuesday, 19th August, at 9.00pm on BBC One. It indicated that seventy-five per cent of the seven million dogs in the UK are pedigrees, and that they cost their owners over £10m in vet fees every week. It suggested that they are in serious trouble, plagued by genetic disease due to decades of inbreeding and are also suffering acute problems "because of the showring's emphasis on looks over and above function and health". Some physical traits required by the Kennel Club's breed standards have inherent health problems (short faces, wrinkling, screw-tails, dwarfism), said the programme makers, while other problems occur because of exaggerations bred into dogs by breeders trying to win rosettes. Deliberate mating of dogs that are close relatives is common practice, it alleged, and the Kennel Club     continues to register dogs bred from mother-to-son and brother-to-sister matings. Scientists at Imperial College, London, recently found that pugs in the UK are so inbred that, although there are 10,000 of them, it is the equivalent of just fifty distinct individuals - making them more genetically compromised than the giant panda. Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics, UCL, said: "People are carrying out breeding which would be, first of all, be entirely illegal in humans and secondly is absolutely insane from the point of view of the health of the animals." Exposed He added: "In some breeds they are paying a terrible, terrible price in genetic disease." Disturbing footage was shown of a cavalier King Charles spaniel writhing in agony due to syringomyelia, estimated to affect up to a third of the breed. They have been bred with skulls too small for their brains, explains veterinary neurologist Clare Rusbridge: "The cavalier's brain is like a size 10 foot that has been shoved into a size 6 shoe - it doesn't fit." The film also exposed famous show champions that continue to father puppies despite having serious inherited disease, and demonstrated that some breeders cull perfectly healthy puppies on purely cosmetic grounds. The Kennel Club robustly defended its position as the guardian of dog health, pointing out the initiatives it has taken to improve pedigree dog health - including their accredited breeder scheme which sets a code of conduct for breeders and asks them to make use of health screening schemes. Suffering It also insisted that "the vast majority of dog breeds are healthy". Ultimately, the film concluded that far from enough is being done, with Professor Jones saying: "If the dog breeders insist on going further down that road, I can say with confidence really that there is a universe of suffering waiting for many of these breeds - and many if not most of these breeds will not survive. "They will get so inbred that they will be unable to reproduce and their genes will come to a dead end."