Welfare
Breeding, buying dogs, rescue dogs...
Herosim Or Horror?
I received the latest blogpost from the excellent Jemima Harrison at Pedigree Dogs Exposed today. It links to a video showing a person identified as Jodie Marsh attempting to revive an unconscious bulldog. Apparently, this woman is a “UK media personality, glamour [sic] model and bodybuilder”. Ms Marsh states that this poor dog collapses approximately six times a year – not surprisingly because humans have bred her to have a skull that is too small and squashed to contain her facial tissue which blocks her airway when she is asleep. Humans that buy dogs in this condition perpetuate the misery and legitimise the practice of breeding extreme brachycephalic dogs.
As Jemima notes, Ms Marsh is not even performing CPR correctly. She has also publicly deterred people from seeking corrective surgery for their animals.
Whilst I may have never heard of her, this woman clearly has a public profile and thus may influence more ignorant people to mimic her in buying dogs such as this and in literally mis-treating them when they inevitably fall victim to their misshapen bodies. Apparently some of her fans have hailed her as heroic. What a sad indictment of our society that people find heroism in pummelling a lifeless dog for minutes half a dozen times a year. Yet again, evidence gives lie to the sentiment that we are “a nation of animal lovers”. That would only be true if this had never been possible in the first place. We could even make up for lost time by wielding the power of the Veterinary Surgeons Act and the AWA.
Royal Mail Dog Awareness Week 2017
Royal Mail workers make deliveries to more than 29 million addresses across the UK. Not all of them come away unscathed.
An average of seven postal workers are attacked by dogs each day. Attacks increase during the school holidays and in the summer months especially when dogs are left unsupervised in gardens, allowed to roam or taken out off lead. Owners who do not keep their dogs under control could be in breach of the Road Traffic Act, The Control of Dogs Order and/or the Dangerous Dogs Act to name but three pieces of legislation. Since 2013, the DDA has covered attacks by dogs that occur on private property. The majority of the dogs reported as stolen have been left unsupervised in gardens, so, it is not just postal workers who are at risk.
2,471 postmen and women were attacked by dogs between April 2016 and April 2017. Some were left with permanent, disabling injuries. 71% of attacks happened in gardens or on the doorstep. No one should work in fear of their safety and no one should be traumatised or injured through preventable causes.
All dogs have the potential to be a danger to postal staff, regardless of their size. What you might perceive as being boisterous and friendly may seem frightening to your postman and even the tiniest of dogs can inflict nasty injuries. Even if your dog’s intentions are benign, your postman should not have to endure being jumped on, scratched or barked at every day. (Neither should anyone else for that matter). Every time that your dog barks at someone delivering letters and they go away, his confidence increases because he has defended his territory from an intruder. (A territorial dog is not protecting you, he is asserting his possession). The next time that you have to open the door to sign for something or receive a parcel, your dog may escalate his defensive aggression and bite.
- Keep your dog away from the front door every time that visitors call – use a child gate or shut the door
- Do not allow children to open the door and make sure that they do not allow the dog out if confined
- Train your dog to lie quietly on a mat when visitors call and reward him for staying there
- Control your dog’s greeting behaviour and do not allow jumping up, scratching or over-excited barking
- Control territorial barking – get professional help if necessary
- Do not leave a dog unattended in a garden and secure the garden so that your dog cannot get out
- Always put your dog on a lead before you leave the house even if you are putting your dog in the car
- Fit a secure mail box on the property boundary or a wire receptacle behind the door to contain the mail so that postman cannot get bitten when using the letterbox and to prevent your dog from damaging the mail.
Postal workers’ safety is YOUR responsiblity.
Idiot of the Month Update
A few months ago I wrote about a rescue dog that was being handled badly.
Owner and dog are still together and, as dogs often do, this lovely girl is muddling through in spite of the way that she is being treated. The owner has shaved her coat off so she now has no protection against the elements and her once-beautiful coat is now growing back as spikes. No doubt the owner is congratulating herself that the dog felt cooler in the recent hot weather and of course, she no longer has a coat that can be groomed.
In common with many rescue dogs, she seems to be enjoying a late-flowering puppyhood and was having a wonderful time romping round with my dog and the others on the lawn. She flung herself at his feet and happily kicked his face as he nuzzled her belly and mouthed her affectionately, growling softly. The other owners looked on in delight, with the exception of the owner of the rescue dog.
She was squirming in horror and covering her eyes as the dogs took it in turns to rough house. “Stop it, stop it: I can’t bear it. I don’t like to see them like this”, she said. I replied tartly that her dog didn’t seem to share her view and was in fact having a whale of a time. Faced with the pressure of other quiescent owners, she backed off and let the dogs have their fill of fun.
What a sad example of a human-dog dyad. Perhaps there is something very wrong in her life that makes her incapable of recognising her dog’s enjoyment. She no longer has the excuse that her dog is old and ill, but she seems hell bent on squeezing the joy out of her glorious young dog and, in the meantime, is oblivious to all the truly wonderful moments that dog ownership can bring.
As ever, it will be the dog that suffers most in the long run.
Mad Englishmen and Dogs
The Evening Standard reported on Monday that two Labradors died following exercise in 21ºC heat. With temperatures reaching ten degrees higher and more I am horrified to see dogs racing after balls and being left outside shops in full sun and being forced to run. Pads can also burn on hot pavements. If it uncomfortable to keep your hand on pavement for longer than 5 seconds, then it is too hot for your dog’s feet.
Dogs have a core body temperature on average 2 degrees higher than a human and are wearing a fur coat. Dogs do not lose heat as efficiently as humans and can continue to overheat for quite a while after exercise even if they are in a cool area. This is particularly true of young, old, overweight and brachycephalic dogs and dogs with underlying conditions such as heart, liver and kidney problems.
Many owners now clip their dogs which means that they have removed any effective natural protection against the sun (or cold and rain) and the ability to reflect heat.
Signs of heat exhaustion (hyperthermia) start at a temperature around 40ºC-41ºC (104ºF to 106ºF). At this stage and if caught early, dogs can usually make a full recovery but veterinary advice should be sought. A temperature over 42ºC (106ºF) can be fatal: immediate veterinary assistance is needed.
A dog suffering from heatstroke will display several signs that can include:
- Rapid panting
- Bright red tongue
- Red or pale gums
- Thick, sticky saliva
- Depression
- Weakness
- Dizziness
- Vomiting – sometimes with blood
- Diarrhoea
- Clinical shock
- Coma.
Remove the dog from the hot area immediately and lower his temperature using cool water (tepid water for very small dogs). Increase air movement around him using a fan if possible. Do not cool the dog too quickly. The rectal temperature should be checked every 5 minutes and cooling stopped at 30ºC (103ºF). Dry the dog thoroughly and cover him. Go to your vet as soon as possible as the dog will need to be checked for dehydration or other complications.
Allow free access to water. It may help to put a pinch of salt and sugar in or use a veterinary rehydrating powder. Do not try to force the dog to drink.
Dogs who suffer from heatstroke once have an increased risk of suffering again.
The best remedy is prevention. Do not take your dog out in high heat and humidity and use a cool coat if that is unavoidable. Use a damp towel or cool mat for your dog to lie on at home and keep him in the shade. If you have a brachycephalic dog and/or one with BOAS, keep his weight down and monitor continually in hot weather as well as taking all the usual precautions. Consider surgery to alleviate the problem.
What’s In A Meme?
Meme is a neologism coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1989 classic The Selfish Gene that describes an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. A meme acts in a similar way to a gene that carries genetic information in plants and animals but instead acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or anything that can be mimicked. Like genes, memes can self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures.
So what has this got to do with dogs?
Anthrozoologist Hal Herzog has proposed that keeping dogs as pets and, in particular, preferences for specific dog breeds are memes. He proposes that he acted as a “vehicle through which the dog-as-pet meme” replicated… “inadvertently spreading the dog-as-pet meme by raising my children with dogs and by extolling the joys and tribulations of having companion dogs in my classes.” He thinks that this may well be a mechanism to explain the explosion in popularity of specific dog breeds as such cultural changes can replicate many times faster than genetic changes.
This monkey see, monkey do approach would explain why, against all rational, and I would argue ethical considerations, the expected registrations of the French bulldog, to name but one brachycephalic breed, is expected to exceed 28,000 this year with the UKKC alone. It would seem that the desire to fit in by conforming to popular behaviours and the reverence for supposed role models – indeed actual models – that have helped to make this breed fashionable is much stronger than the obvious fact that most cannot give birth naturally and cannot breathe without extreme difficulty. (In addition to the common occurence of cleft palate/hare lips, anasarca puppies, congenital abnormalities of the vertebrae, hip dysplasia
luxating patellas, straight stifles and loose ligaments, hindquarter paresis and spondalytis). One owner happily stated to me that he spends a fortune on air conditioning so that his dogs do not overheat and that he would prefer his dog to sleep with a ball in his mouth so that he does not die from sleep apnoea than contemplate surgery to correct BOAS.
Perhaps, as well as providing many enlightening insights into attitudes towards animals in his excellent book Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat, Professor Herzog may have solved the mystery why otherwise kind and straight-thinking people can profess to love their dogs and perpetuate and ignore misery and deformity.
No Room for Complacency
High-level campylobacter prevalence (>1000cfu/g) among the nine retailers surveyed by the FSA was 5%, compared to 7.8% in January – March 2016. Marks and Spencer, Morrisons and Waitrose had significantly lower levels (2.5% – 2.8%) compared to the average and to smaller retailers and butchers where the average was 16.9%. There was a slight reduction (50% – 48.8%) in chicken skin samples that tested positive for campylobacter at any level compared to the same period last year.
However, there is no room for complacency as 7% of chickens surveyed still tested positive for the highest level of contamination. It is also possible that people feeding raw diets may also buy chicken from smaller outlets, believing it to be healthier and there is no control over the source of raw chickens in commercially prepared diets.
The reduction in the level of campylobacter whilst welcome, does not negate the very real dangers of raw feeding for dogs, not least in respect of other pathogens, inbalance of nutrients in the long-term and the mechanical damage caused by ingesting and excreting bone fragments.
A Valediction for John Noakes
It is with mixed feelings that I heard of the death of television presenter John Noakes. His final years had been blighted by Alzheimer’s disease and he narrowly escaped death when he wandered from home in the summer of 2015. The pain of realising that this complex, intelligent man, so full of life on screen, had been transformed by the ravages of the illness was visceral for those of us who only knew his work persona as well as those who were his friends and family.
In so many ways this marks the passing of an era; not just because those of us who grew up watching him on Blue Peter are now well into middle age, but because the creative environment that enabled him to shine on television is long gone. His colleagues on Blue Peter providing inspiration and leadership for a generation as well as enabling those of us who did not have pets at home to experience what it was like to own tortoises, cats and, of course dogs, even if it was vicariously.
Although his first official companion canine was Patch, son of the unforgettable Petra, it is Shep with which he will forever be associated. Although officially “property” of the BBC, one suspects that Shep may have been the dog of a lifetime for John Noakes; Shep was gifted to him when he left the programme in 1978. Contractual restrictions to which John Noakes did not agree meant that they did not live together for Shep’s remaining nine years, although Shep appeared in
Go With Noakes which overlaped his time at Blue Peter and ended in 1980.
What is striking looking at still images and videos of John Noakes with Shep is the bond between the two. Even when a still puppy, they had clearly established a strong rapport.
Television is a very different place today. Blue Peter is screened on a specialist channel as the medium has fragmented and, tragically, Television Centre and the Blue Peter garden were sold to property developers in 2013. Although the outer fabric of the building is Grade II listed, it will never be more than an empty shell, a sad monument to the greed that has trampled over the creativity and idealism that allowed the likes of John Noakes to flourish.
KC Plays Tail End Charlie
The KC has just published a report entitled What the Kennel Club does for Dog Health
Many dog owners may feel that the title is a bit rich given that canine health would probably not be in such dire straits were it not for the KC’s implementation of closed stud books and perpetuation of breeding for looks.
The Kennel Club has been playing tail end Charlie in the court of public opinion since at least 2008. Its brand is being seen as being increasingly toxic and any efforts that it makes to improve the situation are likely to be doomed to irrelevance in the face of the scale of the problem that is, after all, largely of their own making.
Is it too little too late?
Man Bites Dog
Last year, an American bulldog dog killed a three year old. Although fatalities from dog attacks are still extremely rare, incidents such as this still crop up a few times a year and of course attract far more attention than the 1,700 people killed in traffic accidents or the 78,000 deaths directly attributable to smoking that occurred over the same period.
The owner of the American bulldog has just been given a 12 month custodial sentence, suspended for two years. She was also disqualified from owning a dog for 10 years and ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work.
The dog of course was euthanised.
So how will this punishment help? It certainly won’t bring the dog back. It won’t prevent other people and other dogs from ending up in the same position, not to mention the 7,000 or so people who will still be bitten by dogs and require hospital treatment in any given year.
In theory, this woman and others like her could just go out and get another dog in 2027 and nothing will have been done to educate her in responsible dog ownership. Her community service is likely to entail removing graffiti, clearing litter or decorating public buildings. How much more beneficial if she spent those 100 hours – equal only to two weeks work – learning about dogs.
The causes of such attacks are usually depressingly similar. Bad breeding, lack of socialisation, bad handling, lack of stimulation and exercise, lack of training, poor diet.
The owners often live in similar depravation. It is hardly surprising that most of the people who get bitten and even killed by dogs are relatively poor; the impoverishment being as much social as financial. Just as the status dogs of the relatively wealthy often comprise gun dogs that suggest the landed estate, the dogs of the poor are usually musclebound hulks providing the illusion of power that is lacking for people with minimal education, poor job prospects and limited opportunities. There’s also the chance that they will protect you from the loan shark or the drug dealer or the gang member.
Wealthy people just give their dogs away when they can no longer cope with their lack of training and socialisation or dump them on the dog minder for most of their lives. The poor compound their errors until, every so often, the dog, through no fault of its own, kills someone.
I Hope That Bad Owners Don’t Come In Threes
My poor dog hasn’t had too good a time of it in the last few days. First we encountered a dog running loose in the park, owner nowhere in sight. It wasn’t until after he had happily played with my dog that I realised that his eyes were oozing with a green discharge.
Yep, conjunctivitis. I eventually caught up with the owner who casually remarked that he had been “Meaning to do something about it”. Somehow refrained from adding “What? Infect as many other dogs as you can before you consider that your dog might not be very comfortable and his eyesight might even be compromised if you leave it any longer?”
So much for the Animal Welfare Act.
Half way through a week of chloramphenicol tid, he was attacked by a seriously aggressive boxer that actually pursued him when he had moved away. OK, that was annoying. What made me really mad was that the owner admitted that she knows that her dog is aggressive and had done nothing about it. Needless to say, the dog is uncastrated. She did proceed to hit it and shout at it. Miraculously, the dog didn’t turn on her – this time. She was a polite woman who was in total denial about her dog and, even though she knew that she had little control, still let it run loose in the park, unmuzzled.
Warning other owners on the way out of the park, I discovered that they all knew exactly which dog I meant as every one of them had either had a problem or witnessed the dog attacking other dogs. So had the park warden.
No serious damage done this time, but it remains to be seen if the dog wardens from the two boroughs that run the park will follow it up.