Future of Breeding: Impact of Xtreme Conformation on Welfare

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The world is waking up to the scale of suffering that dogs have endured for over a century due to our shared human fascination with extreme body features (conformation); body features that are not propagated in nature but that humans have introduced through intentional selective breeding, despite severe health & welfare consequences for these animals. 

Over the past few hundred years, humans have manipulated the canine body shape to invent over 800 distinct dog breeds, with the modern domestic dog now having the dubious accolade as the most phenotypically diverse mammalian species on the planet. 

While many of these dog breeds offer body shapes with good innate health compatible with a good life, sadly over a quarter of the 12 million dogs in the UK have extreme conformation with consequent suffering. The sheer scale of canine suffering that is happening right now in the UK is called the Extreme Conformation Crisis & should concern anyone who cares about dogs. 

We need, should & must all come together to ensure a better future for dogs that is free of the suffering from extreme conformation.

This APDAWG & RVC event aims to bring humanity together as one to end the Extreme Conformation Crisis. Expert speakers will share their perspectives on the scale of extreme conformation issues as well as the resultant physical & emotional suffering in the wider dog population & charity sector. Current legal constraints on breeding from or for innately unhealthy extreme features & whether these are being followed will be explored. Emerging solutions to end this crisis will be proposed, incl.: 

• The power of collaborative policy change for welfare impact
• Info on the APGAW ‘Innate Health Assessment’ & RKC ‘ ‘Nose-to-tail Visual Assessment' as educational & legal enforcement tools to assist both the public &  breeders to avoid acquiring or breeding non-pedigree (~75% of UK dogs) or pedigree (~25% of UK dogs) dogs with extreme conformation.
• The welfare opportunities from returning to routine outcrossing to re-empower caring breeders to reshape dogs back towards good innate health with functional bodies & genetic diversity.

The Extreme Conformation Crisis is not a biological problem (nature does not tolerate poor innate health from extreme conformation across generations) but is instead a human cognitive & emotional problem (humans do tolerate & even celebrate/commoditise poor innate health from extreme conformation). 

Given that the problem lies with humans, so too do the solutions. Our collective human & organisational actions have the capacity to draw a line under this period of humanity’s poor decisions for dogs & truly prioritise their welfare over our aesthetic preferences. 

During this APDAWG & RVC event, we will hear your collective voices in addition to the expert speakers. During an open discussion for all attendees after the formal presentations, ideas will be shared & commitments to positive welfare actions can be agreed.

This promises to be a lively, engaging event that will mark a key moment in our shared welfare goals of protecting the future of dog welfare from the past century of suffering resulting from breeding for extreme conformation.

Details of speaker line-up soon.

This meeting will be followed by drinks, food & networking at a nearby hotel bar. Thanks to Agria Pet Insurance for all their generous support.