Britain prides itself on being a nation of dog lovers – but is this true? Animal rights campaigners have targeted a leading dog show, accusing the event of promoting ‘deformed’ breeds such as pugs and bulldogs.
Peta wants the Scottish Kennel Club to disqualify brachycephalic dogs, which have shortened noses and flat faces. These dogs ‘can barely breathe — let alone go for a walk or chase a ball — without gasping for air due to their shortened airways,’ said the group.
This isn’t the first time campaigners have targeted dog shows: last month, Peta supporters were removed from Crufts in Birmingham after they complained that it’s cruel to breed dogs with very short legs, like dachshunds and corgis. These breeds, which Peta describes as ‘frankendogs’, can suffer lifelong back and knee pain because of their short legs.
Whether we love dogs or not, we certainly love buying them: between 2019 and 2022, the number of pet dogs in the UK surged from nine million to 13 million as the loneliness of lockdown made people want four-legged friends to keep them company.
But as the world opened up and the cost-of-living crisis set in, record numbers of dogs were dumped at sanctuaries, as some of these new owners decided they didn’t want them after all. They didn’t realise that a dog is for life, not just for Covid.
A lot of these dogs were dumped in a bad way: the BBC has reported that dogs arriving at rescue centres since the pandemic have a higher incidence of health and behavioural problems.
Dogs used in racing don’t get much love either. Greyhounds are often muzzled and kept in lonely cages for up to 23 hours a day. During races, they can suffer broken legs, heat stroke, and heart attacks.
In 2006, the Sunday Times revealed that a builder had killed over 10,000 racing greyhounds with a bolt gun and buried them in a mass grave. The episode was described as ‘canine killing fields’ and people were very angry but not many in this nation of dog lovers stood up and demanded the end of such a cruel ‘sport’.
Between 2018 and 2023, some 3,145 racing greyhounds died, including dogs dying on the tracks or being killed because they were no longer fast or healthy enough to make enough money for their owners.
And did you know that dogs are still used for experiments in British labs? In Cambridgeshire, a controversial American company called Marshall BioResources breeds thousands of beagles each year and sells them to laboratories. Home Office statistics show that in 2020, there were 4,320 procedures carried out on dogs – 4,270 procedures on beagles specifically. Footage secretly filmed at the Cambridgeshire breeding site showed beagles confined to cages and displaying signs of extreme stress. The company insists it’s ‘dedicated to maintaining high standards of animal welfare’.
I wonder if we really love dogs, or if we just love how they make us feel. It’s easy to love a cute puppy but when a dog really needs love a lot of owners go missing. Asked what the hardest part of his job was, a vet said it was when he had to put an animal to sleep. He explained that 90 per cent of owners refuse to be in the room when he injects their pets, so the dog’s ‘last moments’ are ‘usually them frantically looking around for their owners’.
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