It is a long time since I watched a documentary that really shocked me. One knows what to expect from those about war, or serious crime, or natural disasters. But dog shows? Well, BBC One has managed it. And I am not a dog person myself. Nor am I at all sentimental about animals.
I had honestly had no idea that, in order to preserve pedigrees, it was routine to breed from brothers and sisters, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, grandparents and grandchildren. But 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. You can imagine the consequences.
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. Dachsunds, 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; the German shepherds still used by the Police are the real, healthy ones, scorned by the world of dog shows. Most bulldogs now cannot mate without assistance and cannot give birth naturally.
And so on, and on, and on.
Something must be done.
No, really, it must be.
"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."
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that identical twins and triplets are not distinct individuals, then?
Not "in genetic terms", no. Of course, there is much more to personal identity than genetics. But not to congenital diseases.
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