Pedigree Dogs Exposed - The Blog

George  8 May 2003 - 11 May 2013 George the Pug died today. I felt ridiculously sad to hear the news. George featured in the first Pedigree Dogs Exposed - billed as "the sickest Pug in Britian"-  so he did well to get to 10. Tn years and three days to be exact. George had just about every ailment it is possible for a pug to have, as you can see in the clip below. But my over-riding memory of him will always be that he was such a sweetie. The picture above was taken about a year […]

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a well-spoken chap called Nick who runs a shoot in Scotland. He was looking for a young Flatcoat x Labrador bitch to pursue a family tradition. His father before him used to having working Flattie/Lab crosses and said they were the best gundogs he'd ever had. Nick contacted me because I run a rescue specialising in retriever crosses. But of course I rarely know the ancestry of the dogs and just because they may look the part doesn't mean they can do the […]

Mary Evans Picture Library/THOMAS FALL There's a good piece by judge and dog-show globetrotter Andrew Brace ("Air Miles Andy" as dubbed by the irreverent Gossip Hound) in this week's Dog Word explaining the mechanics of how and why exaggerations occur in some show dogs. (See the whole article here.) Brace focuses on the Pekingese, and features the above dog, Ch Caversham Ku Ku of Yam - a 1950's-vintage Peke. "Although the study by Thomas Fall, who photographed so many of the […]

Whoa.... is Monica Barry an animal rights activist? Perhaps she, you know, gets jiggy-jiggywith the Humane Society's Wayne Pacelle? (This was the accusation by one desperate dog breeder re NBC anchor Natalie Moralis in an attempt to discredit the Today Show's item on the AKC last week.) But no. A quick check reveals that Monica Barry is a Borzoi breeder and exhibitor of some repute. And she wasn't the only one to offer an opinion on the AKC's Facebook page on the state of the modern […]

Ever since Pedigree Dogs Exposed, show breeders in the US have looked on in astonishment at the way the Kennel Club "pandered" (as they see it) to the critics. They just don't get why the KC, after a relatively short period of defensive denial, began to implement changes. There are quite complicated reasons why reform has come. They include: • strong backing for reform by the veterinary profession • three major reports highlighting the problems, including one co-commssioned by the […]