A Matter of Breeding

by Michael Brandow

  Question their time-honored customs and the experts get real upset. But according to one outside agitator, even show dogs can’t seem to win. If not eliminated from the running for substandard coat color or jaw shape, they die slower deaths for actually meeting their standards and carrying the messages they were designed to convey. A British study, “Inherited Defects in Pedigree Dogs. Part I: Disorders Related to Breed Standards,” won the prestigious George Fleming Prize from the Veterinary Journal in 2009. Focusing on the top fifty of the UK’s recognized doggy dynasties, researchers at the Royal Veterinary College of the University of London identified 322 inherited disorders characteristic of individual breeds. Among these breed-specific defects, 84 were found to be caused, directly or indirectly, by conforming to the very breed standards used to hand out prizes in show rings—and to decide which dogs are worthy of places in our hearts and homes. The number of disorders was observed to be rising each year, and many of these are linked to “extreme morphologies,” like the bulldog’s face that breeders don’t want to lengthen, or the dachshund’s back they refuse to shorten. Among the 238 health problems said to be unrelated to standards, we can safely assume that many are genetic mishaps piled up over years of inbreeding for looks and lineage while giving second-class status to other concerns. Not only have standards not been improving an affected breed, they’ve been “predisposing it to a heritable defect.”26

  The Pedigree Health Report, another radical intrusion published with a noble imprimatur that’s actually starting to mean something by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, also tries to undo damages done in the name of good breeding.27 Readers brave enough to peruse those grim pages will note the high price our best friends have been paying for high birth, and anyone with a stomach for the bad news behind all that cuteness will have difficulty dodging the conclusion that Best in Show winners and their vast progeny are bred to be too “good” for their own wellness. The rising costs of canine nobility and “appearance-driven breed standards” are crippling disability, blindness, deafness, cancer, epilepsy, hemophilia, chronic discomfort and pain, surgery, more discomfort, and more pain. Enforcing standards by keeping populations “pure” hasn’t been inducing order in the animal kingdom but wreaking havoc by distracting from health, performance, and longevity; bending the dog’s mortal frame to fit Procrustean market demands for increasingly “exaggerated anatomical features that reduce quality of life”; and driving gene pools to “extinction” levels, as per Pedigree Dogs Exposed. Dogs have been affected on both sides of the pond, where the Humane Society suggests health problems are on the rise.28 While individual breeds suffer differently in the United States and United Kingdom, it doesn’t take a population geneticist to suspect that the stellar rate of cancer mortality achieved in the American golden retriever might be due to its having one of the poorest percentages of breeding sires. The fetish for rarity and distinction has undiversified the breed genetically, a death sentence for any breed or species, and snobbery threatens to make goldens as rare as Saint John’s water dogs.

  More sad tidings for American dogs were delivered by the University of California, Davis, in 2013.29 The inescapable conclusion of a large study conducted over fifteen years was that breeds finish first against so-called “mixed breeds,” if only in their higher number of health problems. Breeds took ten out of twenty-four classes of disease, confirming what popular wisdom and pet insurance companies had been saying all along.30 Mutts did rival breeds in thirteen disorders, where they more or less tied with their “improved” cousins, but then fell short of breeds in all but one defect, and a minor one at that. Rather than acknowledge the glass of good health to be more than half-full for randomly bred dogs, for some strange reason—AKC funding, perhaps?—UC Davis’ official news release opened with an undignified I-told-you-so: “Purebred Dogs Not Always at Higher Risk for Genetic Disorders,” read the headline and “mixed breeds,” we were told, don’t “necessarily” have certain health advantages.

  No one ever said that any single randomly bred organism was guaranteed to turn out perfect, just that mutts were more likely to be healthy overall, which still turns out to be abundantly true. The slanted interpretation that UC Davis made of its own findings didn’t mention the fact that several of the top-ten breeds the AKC declares socially acceptable each year on the eve of Westminster—with disclaimers on quality in the products it promotes,31 whether prize-winning sires and their vast progeny, or dogs from puppy mills and “reputable” breeders alike—are top-heavy with a number of congenital health problems.32 Once again, the human factor had the intended effect, and the thrust of the UC Davis news release was paraphrased identically in headlines across the country: “Mutts not always healthier, genetically, than purebred dogs.”33 Consumers were misled down the same path, encouraged to go on betting their next purchase would be better than the last. If only scientists would be given a little more time, they were told, a way would be found to salvage their shallow concerns about appearance and make good on those promises of exclusivity that some people need to feel special. A little more fidgeting with DNA in closed registries, and juggling priorities by picking and choosing which illnesses to tolerate in each genetically compromised type, and hobbyists could have their cake and eat it too.

  It shouldn’t take scientists to tell us that animals don’t need to breed “true to type” to be individuals with their own merits, “personalities,” idiosyncrasies, and endearing quirks.34 Any open-minded novice should notice that the way dogs have been bred by experts since the nineteenth century represents a radical break from the past. You don’t have to be an animal rights extremist to see that a fine flush face hinders breathing; prominent eyes can’t be shielded; luxuriant skin and pendulous ears are prone to infection; an opulent coat makes walking a heroic act; a stalwart chest made Marley die from a twisted stomach; a back as long as a family tree supports euthanasia in corgis, dachsies, and silkies—or that fair birth by Cesarean approaching 100 percent probably should lead to the extinction of many breeds with noble brows.35 Not only health and longevity are compromised by esthetics and clubbiness, but again, so is quality of life, which is much harder to measure. “The person who sets the standards has to realize that the way a dog looks will affect the whole of its life,” Chris Laurence, Dog Advisory Council member and former chief veterinary officer for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, tells Dog World magazine. “Some dogs can’t breathe or walk freely because of the way they look. They have to realize that and modify the standards accordingly.”36

  Why not lighten up and give those pups a break by rewriting standards that ask too much and asking judges to reset their priorities? What harm could there be in giving bulldogs an extra millimeter or two of breathing room to the face? How about letting breeds wed outside their social stations? Because they would no longer be commercial breeds as we know them, and scientists who don’t take into account the cultural or human factor fall short of giving the big picture of what, exactly, dogs are up against. Attempts to change breed standards have led to class action lawsuits.37 Expecting the fancy to loosen them is “like asking them to rob a granny,” says professor of animal behavior Paul McGreevy of half-assed efforts to breed hip dysplasia from troubled breeds like the Labrador retriever.38 If only Labs no longer had to look sort of like their ideals lodged at the royal family’s Sandringham kennels, they might be improved to more than a mere 18 percent of one study group—funded by AKC grants—with “excellent” hip configuration. Discontinuing the bulldog might upset fans who put the breed on skateboards because it can barely walk, but would probably push its rate of dysplasia below a shocking 72 percent, or 67 percent for the pug, which ranked number two.39 Conformation, which gets the lion’s share of attention, has magical powers of distraction to customers using dogs to improve their own image, and telling them to change their identities at this late date is like asking a “pit bull” to loosen its grip.

  Not even those cont
roversial designer dogs of recent years are free from the health problems faced by purebreds. Forged from unsanctioned intermarriages between different doggy dynasties to the disapproval of purists like the AKC, established breeders, and owners of more conservative blends who say they prefer the old favorites that can’t breathe, hybrids offered a short-lived hope for a healthier, more democratic form of dog breeding. Done properly, these unions make anatomical extremes like flat faces less extreme, and the benefits of genetic diversity need not be argued. But screening parents is uncommon, and offspring often inherit the worst traits from both breeds instead of the best. The window for improvement is being missed, and though the Wall Street Journal calls them “high-end mutts”40 and the New York Times mentions “the rise of the mutt as commodities,”41 these designer dogs don’t need the AKC’s recognition to be, for practical purposes, the equivalents of purebreds. Flashy nouveaux with preposterous names like Morkies, Chorkies, Puggles, Boggles, Doodleman Pinschers, and Shihtzapoos are born with the same basic credentials for snootiness as their parents from “old” families. Like them, they’re bred from bitches forced to produce dozens of litters, often by Cesarean. They fetch prices in the thousands, come with pedigrees, carry meaningless papers, and are listed in their own social register called the American Canine Hybrid Club. Like purebreds proper, pretenders are sold in mass quantities with little regard for the health or temperament of individual dogs. They, too, arrive in homes sick and distressed, because they were born with all the same disadvantages. Sometimes they even manage to outclass their social betters. Based on a small number of animals included in a study by the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals, the Labradoodle would seem to suffer from a higher rate of hip dysplasia than either the Labrador or the poodle, and a potential benefit of crossbreeding can be offset by economics and carelessness.42

  “It is a myth,” writes the AKC, “that purebreds are more prone to hereditary disorders than mixed breeds.”43 While hybrid vigor is a theory that still has a few stodgy critics and offers no ironclad guarantees, it’s less a transparent myth than purebred superiority in any sense other than social or commercial, and to deny this is to be silly. No-nonsense statistics from the pet insurance industry, sliding premium scales,44 hard-knocks experience of broken-hearted dog owners, and research behind an article from Jemima Harrison, creator of Pedigree Dogs Exposed, agree on this. “Hybrids have a far lower chance of exhibiting the disorders that are common with the parental breeds,” one study concludes.45 “Their genetic health will be substantially higher.” Another finds: “Mongrels were consistently in the low risk category” for fatal illnesses. “Mongrel dogs are less prone to many diseases than the average purebred dog,” adds another. “Crossbreeds lived longer than average,” concludes a study on cardiovascular disease. “In both dogs and cats, purebreds had an almost two-fold higher incidence of malignant tumours than mixed breeds,” are the results of a study on cancer. “Mongrels low-risk for locomotor problems and heart disease,” says another study. “The median age at death was 8.5 years for all mixed breed dogs and 6.7 years for all pure breed dogs,” says yet another. “For each weight group, the age at death of pure breed dogs was significantly less than for mixed breed dogs.” Still another: “Higher average longevity of mixed breed dogs. Age at death when split into three age bands: mixed breeds 8, 11, 13, purebreds 6, 10, 12.” Inbreeding to meet standards seems to be the enemy of good health.

  Many breeds are becoming so special they risk having diseases named after them. “Shar-pei fever,” “Pug Dog Encephalitis” (PDE), “Leonberger polyneuropathy”—puppies with AKC papers are farmed by the thousands at puppy mills, then their illnesses are harvested and studied for the improvement of a small elite by “Breeders of Merit” (unbound by law or oversight to comply with AKC recommendations). At this very late date, a cornucopia of defects accumulated over years of misdirected purpose breeding are also the focus of studies aimed at helping humans suffering from the same problems in smaller percentages. As a kind of throwback to the courtly custom of keeping lapdogs because, it was believed, they somehow absorbed illness from their human holders,46 widespread hemophilia in German shepherds, epilepsy in dachshunds and boxers, enlarged hearts in Newfoundlands,47 degenerative retinal disease in schnauzers and poodles, narcolepsy and obsessive-compulsive disorder in Dobermans, sleep-related breathing disorders in bulldogs,48 excessive skin on Shar-peis49—a growing list of abnormalities offers even less incentive to improve dogs when they continue serving mankind in the most unexpected ways.

  The media’s portrayal of this veritable goldmine for research, including a 2012 National Geographic article apparently timed to coincide with that year’s Westminster show, makes no reference to how this data came about.50 A kind of long-term, institutionalized cruelty that makes vivisection look humane is used to make “good” dogs look heroic for keeping up the good work, and those responsible for the preventable buildup of diseases self-congratulatory for having been so irresponsible all these years to give scientists something to study. “I’m not enthusiastic about line breeding to maintain pure-breed characteristics in dogs—it is the principal cause of many painful disorders that afflict them,” writes Ewen Kirkness, a scientist at the J. Craig Venter Institute who has worked on the dog genome, in a recent e-mail. “But if the practice exists, and it doesn’t look like it’ll go away anytime soon, we might as well learn as much as we can from those dogs that are being bred as pets.”51

  “It is thought that white boxers are deaf or blind,” says one breeder, defending his brand against critics by explaining that the rate of “only 20 percent” is actually “very low.”52 The sad truth is that you can give a devoted breedist all the facts and figures in the world and he’ll still find ways to dismiss or rationalize the most appalling health problems. Once again, that human factor rears its ugly head. For lack of any other conceivable answer, one possible explanation, not an excuse for this denial could be some residual belief that disability and suffering are simply the price of nobility. Noblesse oblige isn’t cheap, and has been around a lot longer than modern science or DNA studies. The same strange reasoning behind breed-specific rescue, where paupers are restored their rightful thrones because . . . well, because they’re princes born deserving special treatment, says dogs must uphold their undershot jaws and bear their heavy armor as worthy ladies and gentlemen must also perform the duties of their social class. In fact, many health problems only recently acknowledged by the mainstream media aren’t as newsworthy as they seem, but have endured over the years perhaps to motivate people to continue buying breeds.

  From the founding of the first breed club in England, it must have been difficult not to notice that bulldogs, currently among the most expensive breeds for veterinary care and the most fashionable to have in New York City (based on AKC registrations),53 were designed less for health, longevity, or mobility—or the purses of prize winners, breeders, registries, veterinarians, and pharmaceutical companies—than to uphold a certain social code. “And yet, with all this dandy dogs die like their humbler brethren—probably sooner,” the Strand Magazine concluded as early as the 1890s54 when Thorstein Veblen mentioned the many “monstrosities” being prepped for luxurious lifestyles in finer homes.55 As the century drew to a close and dog shows were drawing crowds, human and canine elites were paying dearly for their fair birth, and a dog’s suffering may have been seen as a mirror image of a half-mythical human condition known as neurasthenia. The symptoms were quite similar to the effects of inbreeding in dogs. Said to afflict refined and fragile specimens of the old ruling class unable to adjust to the vulgarity of modern life, and “social climbers” as well, this mysterious illness was no cause for shame but worn as a badge of pride.56 Over a century later, poor health in many dog dynasties is poorer than ever, and yet critics continue to be ignored when calling for more sensible standards and less inbreeding—or an end to breeding altogether.57 They’re up against compelling new evidence showing breeds with more inherited d
isorders and behavior problems are, in fact, more popular, not less.58 Add to today’s invisible health crisis the fact that purebreds represent as many as 30 percent of dogs dumped in US shelters and you have a pretty good argument against pet production, period.59

  The assumption of this book has been that the preventable suffering of a single animal is too high a price to pay for flattering the socially insecure, supporting the illusion of the perfect pet, or helping humans. We need to look at our dogs and ask: Do I really need all this formal fuss-budgeting and excess baggage on class and race to love you? If the answer is yes, then maybe we shouldn’t have dogs, and responsible legislation with real enforcement might one day force us to live up to the claim that we’re a dog-loving culture. More terrifying to purists than having no dogs at all is the thought of a mongrel melting pot, so we might also ask ourselves this time: If we’re going to impose human values and beliefs on nonhumans, shouldn’t we at least use the ones we profess to have? Maybe mixing the races won’t solve all canine health problems, but an occasional indiscretion with an outsider is the healthy choice for many a family tree, and an elopement with a chorus girl or groom can be a genome’s best friend.

  Grim and grueling—and avoidable—as the present-day predicament for dogs could be seen at the end of the day, there are some signs of intelligent life. People are learning to shed their prejudices when it comes to canines by breaking inbred habits and renewing this observer’s faith in humanity, just a little. Many will stay snobs about their own race, class, or both, but fewer want to force their companion species into molds even humans have trouble fitting. Evidence of a profound change in public opinion: in recent months, I’ve been astounded on city sidewalks to meet a new breed of dog owner, a type almost overeager to apologize, unsolicited and to every passing stranger, for having a breed by saying it’s “a rescue”—in case anyone should get the wrong idea. More and more, dog lovers are casting aside those “how to find the perfect pet” manuals and bogus breed books, and simply saving the lives of homeless creatures and learning to love them. As an ad for J. Crew that challenges us to stop wearing animals as sweaters observes: “You prefer pedigreed fabrics and shelter dogs. We know you’re out there.”