Yesterday, the Kennel Club announced its plan 'to clamp down on breeders to safeguard health of pedigree pets'. The choice of language is their own, is surprisingly strong, and on its own is interesting. These breeders, after all, on whom they want to 'clamp down', are the core of their business, the Kennel Club's absolute life-blood, and people who historically they have been extremely sensitive with and unwilling to upset, claiming that any attempt to introduce regulation without consent would simply drive these breeders away and make things worse rather than better.
The content of the press release is superficially promising, the KC seem willing to address all three of the issues I raised in my previous blog post - that's to say genetic diseases, extreme breed characteristics, and even, possibly, line breeding. There's some quite confusing stuff in there like the claim that with appropriate regulation behind them the Kennel Club would be able to make it *illegal* to breed and sell pups without being part of their vaunted 'Accredited Breeder Scheme'. How this would apply to non pedigree (working collies and the like) and crossbred pups, I cannot possibly imagine. I'm hoping it's sloppy drafting, but if not would represent a vast and unwelcome extension of the KC's powers, and clearly needs keeping an eye on!
The Times have got an article about the announcement and the immediate implications. The first breed in the firing line is the Peke, which, the KC hopes, will soon have a nose back! I foresee enormous resistance from breeders and judges (who, as we've said, are a horribly incestuous bunch at the best of times) to changes in their breed standards away from the current types. It's going to take a lot of effort and make a lot of breeders very unhappy to get people to toe this line. We will see.
They're talking the talk, at least... Let's see them walk the walk!
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