Month: January 2021

Don’t Ignore The Snore

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Distressed pug In a world where some people try to designate truth as “fake news”, perhaps it shouldn’t be so shocking that some people are also unable to distinguish severe distress in dogs for “cuteness”. Then again, it’s imperative that it is shocking otherwise we can neither uphold evidence-based factual reporting or make the world better for dogs.

Just as an anorexic needs to adjust there distorted perception to realise that their image in a mirror is not, in fact, obese, owners of brachycephalic dogs need to realise that dogs that can barely survive a night of (greatly disturbed) sleep are not struggling purely for the perverse entertainment of humans.

Pedigree Dogs Exposed has again highlighted the plight of these poor dogs with their Don’t Ignore The Snore campaign and a terrific video.

This video is distressing (I hope). It’s meant to be. It is of course the struggling dogs that I find distressing, but perhaps if people see humans in a similar condition it may, just may, trigger them to get their dogs treated and best of all, to stop buying them in the first place.

How Dogs Won The White House – and Georgia

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We noted that dogs were coming back into the White House and that the Democrats made a witty add that could have been subtitled All The Presidents’ Dogs (with apologies to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein).

It seems that it was not just DC that scored by playing the canine card. Georgia was a surprise win for the Democrats and it seems that dogs played a part there – well, to be precise, a beagle called Alvin who doesn’t even belong to the successful candidate. It seems that political campaigns are rarely fought without smears and other dirty tricks these days but the US presidential election of 2020 caused even the hardiest of journalists and commentators to run out of superlatives.

Republican scare tactics against the black candidate were not pretty but the Democrats countered by setting up their man as being an apple pie regular guy, complete with borrowed dog.

Alvin must surely go down in history as being the lockdown dog par excellence and, in a country where more than half the population own at least one dog and where approximately 40% of the population are neither Caucasian or Hispanic, the numbers are clearly pro-dog.

Animal Wrongs

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RSPCA logo There are not many signs of hope in 2021 so far but some good news was announced by the Countryside Alliance today concerning the RSPCA.

The RSPCA has been a toxic brand for many years. It is hard to find any people responsible for animal welfare that has a good word to say for them and the Charity Commission has been obliged to investigate their governance after several exposés. Membership declined and the board of governors became dysfunctional and politically influenced by the so-called animal rights movement. £330,000 of supporters’ money was spent in unsuccessfully trying to prosecute just two members of the Heythrop Hunt as just one example of scandalous behaviour. There was a glimmer of hope RSPCA To Prioritise Animal Welfare At Last in 2016 when yet another CEO, Jeremy Cooper, acknowledged that the charity had become “too adversarial” and will now be “a lot less political”. He was swiftly sent packing by the board as punishment. By 2018, the Charity Commission had placed the RSPCA in special measures which have now been eased.

It is to be hoped that the RSPCA may return to its original remit to improve animal welfare because, goodness knows, there is still a great deal of need out there.