BBC PULLS THE PLUG ON CRUFTS

Once again the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has capitulated to the animal rights wackadoodles. The BBC, that venerable institution of all things British, has announced that it will not broadcast the Crufts Dog Show, a British institution since 1886, long before the BBC. The BBC had demanded that the British Kennel Club, the equivalent of our AKC, ban twelve “at risk” breeds from competition at Crufts: the Clumber Spaniel, the Basset Hound, the Bloodhound, the Dogue de Bordeaux, the Mastiff, the Neapolitan Mastiff, the Pekingese, the Shar-Pei, the Chow Chow, the German Shepherd Dog, the Bulldog, the Saint Bernard, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and the Rhodesian Ridgeback. The Kennel Club admirably refused to ban the named breeds and the BBC pulled the plug.


For those who don’t know, Crufts is the world’s largest dog show with a remarkable 22,000 dogs competing. That’s seven times the size of our largest show. Last year the British TV audience alone was over 14 million. You would think that alone would let you know on which side the British people are on this debate. Yet, the PETA thugs run about pretending they represent the public. The British are legendarily reserved, but they better get off their butts before there is not a dog left in England. Ban the Bulldog? Churchill must be turning over in his grave.

For all of you isolationists out there that think we here in the US are exempt from such extreme interference in our lives, visit the PETA site and read the lies and slander these anti pure bred dog trolls spread after the 2008 Westminster broadcast, alleging that the winner, the Beagle, Uno, and the other finalists were carriers of multiple life threatening congenital defects. I can remember one Westminster show in the 1970s where they invited several previous BIS and Group winners back including the Miniature Pinscher, Ch Rebel Rod's Casanova Von Kurt, the 1963 Toy Group winner. He was 14 years old at the time and still covered the big ring without missing a step. It is simply a myth that pure bred dogs are less healthy than mixed breeds. Making dogs better is what we breeders do. That includes breeding out health problems.