by
Catherine McMillan
National Post Dec 17, 2009
©
TheDogPress
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I still recall my first visit to the Small Animal Clinic at the
Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon. As the young
resident took down my puppy’s health history, she advised that if I
spayed my little dog before her first heat cycle, the risk of mammary
cancer could be eliminated.
“Good to know,” I replied. “But how will that affect her future as my
foundation bitch?”
Some 25-plus years later, “Peras” has hundreds of champion descendants
across six continents, while I am quite likely the first and only
commercial artist to co-author a peer-reviewed paper for the American
Journal of Veterinary Ophthalmology.
That young resident’s words were a warning, though I didn’t know it at
the time. Veterinary medicine, once an equal partner with breeders,
sportsmen, and food producers, is being transformed by an activist
viewpoint that reduces owners to “guardians” and elevates health
providers to the self-appointed role of animal “advocate.”
“Spay and neuter” has achieved cult mantra. Dog breeders are held in
suspicion: The only good dog is the “natural” one. Defects are blamed on
breed standards, despite the fact that the majority of purebreds are
produced by family pets and commercial breeders, their puppies as far
removed from the show ring as a second-hand pickup from the Formula One
track.
This attitude is reflected by provincial boards that recently have
moved to impose bans on ear cropping and tail docking. Though long the
subject of some controversy, these procedures serve both aesthetic and
practical ends, injury prevention and hygiene among them.
This current turf war over puppy tails is just a preview of coming
attractions. The state that has no business in the bedrooms of the
nation seeks to insert itself into the fallopian tubes of its poodles.
|
To achieve this, they hint at legislation. After all, who better to
condemn the docking of a puppy’s tail than the person who will, in a few
weeks time, slice open her abdomen to remove a healthy uterus? Who
better to seek criminalization of ear cropping than a profession that
declaws kittens for profit? |
A Canadian Kennel Club (CKC) director recently recounted the hostile
atmosphere at a recent meeting with the Canadian Veterinary Medical
Association (CVMA): “These vets are not only speaking of cropping and
docking. Several, led by New Brunswick, are openly critical of the CKC’s
breed standards, feel that breeders are poorly educated with respect to
health, genetics and breeding practices to support an animal’s welfare
and are censorious of breeders — in particular those breeders who breed
conformation dogs for show. They are
criticizing our standards for
individual breeds and are of the opinion that we are not supporting the
puppy purchasers with healthy dogs.”
To achieve this, they hint at legislation. After all, who better to
condemn the docking of a puppy’s tail than the person who will, in a few
weeks time, slice open her abdomen to remove a healthy uterus? Who
better to seek criminalization of ear cropping than a profession that
declaws kittens for profit?
For as often as they’re consulted by media and policy makers on matters
canine, a veterinarian receives no training in basic breed
identification, much less the diverse origins and forces that shape gene
pools. It’s unreasonable to expect them to — it takes a lifetime of
study to master a single breed, much less hundreds.
The film Best in Show presented the dog-show circuit as a caravan of
loopy narcissists. Omitted from the script were the contributions of the
fancy to everyday canine society — rescue efforts, training classes,
consumer advice, the millions raised, the efforts donated to health
research.
There is no profit in showing dogs, for costs quickly negate the
returns. It’s an esoteric pursuit, driven by love of breed, competitive
reward, and that appreciation of form and symmetry shared by all
artists, a thing we know as “beauty.” The Doberman’s “look of eagles,”
the merle collie’s loud and luxurious coat, the silhouette of the
Schipperke — those things that fill the eye can determine the fate of
breeds, for it is their beauty that so often attracts and inspires human
beings to devote resources to their perpetuation.
The distance between a breed and extinction is five years, for this is
the average reproductive lifespan of a female. For rare breeds and those
with limited genetic diversity, it takes only one ill-conceived edict on
the part of policy makers to start it down the road to collapse.
It seems like a small thing, this battle for a veterinarian’s liberty to
practice as he sees fit, a dog breeder’s quest for perfection. After
all, no one needs to crop ears on a Boxer. But then again, no one needs
a Boxer at all, or any sort of pet. Purebreds (of all species) carry
health risks derived from their genetic founding fathers. Breeds weren’t
created to compile longevity records, but to perform tasks for mankind —
to dispatch vermin, predators, and enemy barbarians, locate game,
retrieve over water, to pull sleds, or warm a dowager’s bed on a cold
winter night. And so, they remain imperfect.
The Borzoi is living history of czarist Russia, the giant Mastiff a
modern echo of ancient Rome — but they suffer high rates of bloat.
Poster artists recruited the English bulldog as a symbol of resolve in
World War II, but the massive head that encouraged a nation results in
caesarian sections. The Dalmatian’s spots are beloved of Disney and
children everywhere, but the genetics that create them can result in
deafness. The merry spaniel can wag an undocked tail to bloody pulp, but
no one hunts woodcock in these parts. Better no cocker, they say, than
no tail.
Like so many other small things in this brave new humane world —
history, property rights, individual liberty, and the beholder’s
permission to declare something “beautiful” — the eradication of the
purebred dog is underway, aided and abetted by those we once considered
friends. And yet, to this breeder at least, so seldom has one small
thing carried with it such symbolism for what it is we are allowing them
to destroy.
There is an air of nihilism in what they do. Like “green” zealots who
insist millions will die from climate change unless we reduce the
earth’s population by billions, their ideological sisters in veterinary
activism would solve the problems of purebred dogs by eliminating them
altogether. They seem oddly disconnected from the reality that for
veterinary medicine to survive, the patient must reproduce.
http://www.thedogpress.com/SideEffects/10032-Right-To-Breed-Dogs_McMillan.asp
Catherine McMillan lives in Saskatchewan and runs the blog “Small
Dead Animals.” In 2009, Miniature Schnauzers descending from her
“Minuteman” kennel line include those ranked #1 in the breed in the USA,
Canada, Brazil and England, along with the #2 MS in Australia and the
Jr. World Winner at the World Show in Slovakia.
Read more at
National Post
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/12/17/catherine-mcmillan-the-right-to-breed-dogs.aspx#ixzz0aWj8Ly6g
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