With Crufts upon us for another year, I actually have something good to say about the BBC. And about the RSPCA, even if it is an anti-hunting political party with charitable status, and even if it does have an inexplicable official status in relation to certain types of prosecution. Oh, and about Pedigree Chum, if it matters. All three are now refusing to have anything to do with this horrific freak show. Good for them.
If breeding from brothers and sisters, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, and grandparents and grandchildren is not cruelty to animals, then nothing is. If the result that pugs, for example, are so inbred that, although there are ten thousand of them in Britain, there are in genetic terms only five hundred distinct individuals, is not cruelty to animals, then nothing is.
If the situation whereby fifty per cent of Cavalier King Charles spaniels have heart problems, and many have a truly horrific condition in which their brains are the wrong size, is not cruelty to animals, then nothing is. If the fact that dachshunds, bull terriers, beagles, basset hounds and those German shepherd dogs bred for show are freakish, unhealthy parodies of what they ought to be, and used to be, is not cruelty to animals, then nothing is. (The German shepherds still used by the Police are the real, healthy ones, scorned by the world of dog shows.)
If the plight of most bulldogs, which now cannot mate without assistance and cannot give birth naturally, is not cruelty to animals, then nothing is. If the destruction of newborn Rhodesian ridgeback puppies because they are perfectly healthy rather than having the mild form of spina bifida required by the "breed standard" is not cruelty to animals, then nothing is. And so on, and on, and on. Her Majesty, no less, must now decide. Patron of the RSPCA? Or Patron of the Kennel Club?
As for the hysteria about attack dogs, the American pit bull terrier is bred as a family pet in its native land. And kept as such there. But we like the archetypal Middle American family, and so we should. We do not like sections of our own society, and we all know which ones. So, rather than own up, we blame it on their dogs.
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This might sound crazy, but do you think perhaps the spaying and neutering campaign has something to do with worsening conditions for purebred dogs? I was talking about dogs with a friend of mine recently and we both noticed how it seems mixed breed dogs born out of random couplings between neighborhood dogs seem less common now than they were, say 15 or 20 years ago.
ReplyDeleteYou used to be able to find a lot of people in your area who had litters of puppies available for sale at low prices (or even giving them away free) after their female dog was randomly made pregnant by a roving male.
In my own experience, mixed-breed dogs bred from these random couplings made the best pets for owners that were not using the dogs for some specific task where a purebred would be a better option.
It is harder to find mixed-breed puppies now that most people want purebreds or "designer" hybrids like the Labradoodle. Perhaps if the neutering/spaying campaign had not been so widespread we would have more healthy dogs out there, and unscrupulous breeders and puppy mills would not have so much prominence in the dog market?
Just some thoughts.
I think you are right.
ReplyDeleteMongrels are far healthier as a rule. And remember, the morning after pill was invented for pedigree bitches which had been consorting with the wrong sort.
Interesting. Thank you for the information, Mr. Lindsay. I never knew that about the morning after pill. I believe the eugenics movement was actually based at least in part on ideas derived from the world of animal breeding. Apparently the masthead of Margaret Sanger's "Birth Control Review" read "to create a race of thoroughbred human beings." Scary stuff.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I was actually in a conversation with a libertarian friend who argued that many of the founders of the modern Welfare State were eugenicists. He named Keynes, Beveridge, and Tommy Douglas specifically. A cursory Internet search showed that there was truth to my friend's claim.
So my question is: do you feel that the Welfare State and social democracy go hand in hand with eugenics or abortion and birth control? I feel they don't necessarily need to go together, although some social democrats may have supported such things themselves. I apologize for going off topic.
Thank you and best regards.
Eh, they're only dogs. It's hardly significant.
ReplyDeleteKeynes and Beveridgem yes, but Tommy Douglas was a Bpatist minister. Keynes and Beveridge were also lifelong Liberal Party, not Labour Party members.
ReplyDeleteLike the Fabians, they could only get enacted those aspects of their programme which were agreeable to a movement with deep Christian roots and which had in fact campaigned in its own infancy against their schemes to abort, contracept and sterilise its electoral base out of existence.
Jack, both people and societies can be judged by how they treat animals.
Mr. Lindsay,
ReplyDeleteThank you for clearing that up for me.