Animal Abuse By Other Means

As a followup to THIS bit of “Television to shoot yourself by,” tonight I watched “Pedigree Dogs Exposed” on BBC America. I’ve long known that dog breeding to produce “proper” dogs was rife with inbreeding and genetic problems, but wow, damn, this was harsh. Dogs that need to have the back of their skulls surgically removed because they’re so genetically screwed that their brains don’t fit in their heads. Epilesy as a way of life. Cancer, infections, bones that just don’t work right.

The whole thing can be viewed online HERE.

A warning: if that Humane Society commercial screws you up, there will be parts of this documentary that will instantly convert you into a horrible gelatinous blob of sadness. Take, for instance, the dog in agony at 3:30. And particualrly hard to watch was the epileptic seizure at 11:30.

Now, recognize, I’m a cat person, not a dog person. I like dogs well enough, but they’re just not my thing. But that dog seizing is not just in distress… it’s in *HELL.* It makes a sound of such utter agony (about 11:50) that it is instantly heartbreaking, to a degree that is not readily describable.

What’s particularly disturbing is that while whacking a dog with a stick until you screwed it up like this would rightly get you tossed into jail and likely psychologically evaluated, with a good chance of being declared a fricken’ psycho, intentionally breeding dogs with problems like this is seen not only as acceptibale, but in some circles as downright praiseworthy. The level of denial displayed by some of the breeders in this documentary is simply astonishing… for instance, the jackhole with the massively mutated basset hound who claims that his dogs look just the way they did two centuries ago… when it’s massively clear that his critters are almost unrecognizable. Kennel Club rules stating that completely arbitrary physical features that in fact indicate physical problems are the “breed standard.” Breed standard features that are excaggerated over time. Killing puppies that are slightly “off” cosmetically. Mating mothers to their sons. Bleah.
Puppy-mill dog breeders are rightly reviled. But mutant broken dog breeders are not. I think that this inconceivable disconnect is due to class: puppy mills are examples of dogs being tortured for poor people, while “Kennel Club” breeders are doing it for the Upper Class Twits Of The Year. And so just as a homeless crack whore is seen as unseemly, Paris Hilton – who I have trouble seeing as really any different, except for money – is seen by far too many as a role model.

And of course, this breeding mania exists here in the States, not just Britain. I see this as a sign – one of a great many – that the US is in decadent decline. The US broke away from Britain because we recognized that the British upper classes sucked ass, and that they did things dead wrong. And so we set up our society to be in many ways the opposite of how British “royalty” would have society. And yet, more and more, American society is warming to the notion of sucking up to “royalty” (as I ranted about HERE).

I will be much more optimistic about the future of America when and if American dog and cat breeders decide to re-write the breed standards to get rid of the nonsense. When the “best of breed” is the healthiest of the breed on display, and most capable of fulfilling the role the dog was originally bred for – herding critters, guarding things, hunting badgers in tunnels, scarign the pants off jihadist prisoners, whatever – then and onyy then will I lose the desire to grab the Louisville Slugger and go whack the crap out of some breeders.

<> And don’t get me started on Persian cat breeders. Grrrr.