Citing animal cruelty, a Norwegian court banned the breeding of bulldogs and Cavalier King Charles spaniels.
The somewhat prevailing argument was that these two breeds in particular are so highly inbred that they are all born with congenital defects that require surgeries and medical intervention and cause shorter lifespans.
The court waffled a bit, however, and said, “ … a conviction does not imply a ban on serious breeding of bulldog or cavalier, as serious and scientifically based cross-breeding could be a good alternative.” Most people will recognize that none of the key terms are defined in law and this is not likely to stand a challenge.
What I know about Norwegian law you could roll up and put in a gnat’s butt and it would look like a BB in a boxcar. It does seem odd however that the judicial body would be essentially making law without the input of the legislative branch of whatever government a “constitutional hereditary monarchy” really is.
Comparisons to U.S. law are inevitable since the animal rights people and others are cheering this ruling. Under U.S. law, animals are a form of chattel property; that is, property that is movable. This is in contrast to real property such as real estate. There is a lot more to it than this but increasingly, animals, especially pets are becoming a form of “special property.”
For example, animals show up in divorce proceedings now and people are convicted of crimes against animals that do not exist with other forms of chattel (e.g., bestiality). While rewards in animal-related civil cases are most often quite modest now, they do seem to be increasing.
Some local jurisdictions (Berkley, Calif.) have gone way overboard and declared animals as sentient beings with rights nearly equivalent to human infants. Most of those local declarations or even municipal laws haven’t been enforced or challenged so there they sit for now.
Back to Norway. The court heard that the two breeds in question often suffer from breathing difficulties, brain structural problems, intervertebral disk disease and behavior issues. At the same time, psychologists tell us people fall in love with the smushy-faced dog breeds (medically known as brachycephalic). The reason, they say, is the breeds’ eyes are on the front of their face with a short nose that closely resembles the faces and expressions of infants.
The Norwegian ban is fraught with potential problems. They said the bad things are caused by inbreeding, which purebred people often call “linebreeding.” Suffice to say, they are the same thing, and they can be very bad. This is one reason we have laws that prevent the marriage and assumed consummation of close human relatives.
In the highly commercialized purebred dog world, breedings between brother to sister or mother to son for example are common. All most buyers care about is the specific traits they are after, the smushy face, the small size, etc. And that decision drives a market that abandons all other traits in genetic selection, minimizing hybrid vigor.
Don’t point fingers at just the toy breeds either. Many traditional hunting breeds, for example, are a mere shadow of their ancestors so people can keep them in apartments now.
Earlier this year, the World Small Animal Veterinary Association published a position paper calling for “health-focused” breeding of dogs and cats to improve animal welfare and help alleviate predisposition to disease.
In general, I am not a fan of position papers as they are, by design, too confining for a full argument. So, what does “health-focused” breeding really mean? See Part 2, next week.
Powell is the public information officer for the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine, which provides this column as a community service. For questions or concerns about animals you’d like to read about, email cpowell@vetmed.wsu.edu.
