Asa Rejects Kennel Club’S Claim That PETA’S ‘Master Race’ Ad Is Offensive

For Immediate Release:
24 March 2010

Contact:
Sam Glover 020 7357 9229, ext 229; [email protected]

London – Britons can expect to see a new PETA ad that targets dog breeders popping up across the UK now that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has rejected a claim by the Kennel Club that the ad is “offensive”. The ad features a white Maltese dog who has the end of a black comb strategically placed across his upper lip to mimic Adolf Hitler’s moustache. The caption reads, “Master Race? Wrong for People. Wrong for Dogs. Boycott Breeders. Adopt!” The ASA ruled that it does not consider the ad likely to cause serious or widespread offence or to mislead. The ad originally went up in Birmingham to coincide with the Crufts dog show.

The quest to breed and sell the “perfect dog” causes many pedigree dogs to suffer painful and life-threatening genetic defects and diseases and contributes to the homeless dog crisis in the UK – and the euthanasia that results. Pedigree dogs are far more likely to suffer from serious congenital defects – including heart disease, diabetes, epilepsy, cataracts, allergies, chronic ear infections and hip and elbow dysplasia – than mixed-breed dogs are. These and other conditions have been handed down through generations of inbreeding and selective breeding for distorted physical features.

The BBC stopped airing Crufts after the TV documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed revealed how pedigree dogs suffer from an abnormally high rate of lifelong health problems. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals also withdrew its support of Crufts because, as it currently states on its website, the approach to such shows “actively encourages both the breeding of deformed and disabled dogs and the inbreeding of closely related animals. This is morally and ethically unjustifiable”.

“It is not our ad that is offensive but the false and dangerous belief that some breeds or races are superior to others”, says PETA’s Poorva Joshipura. “We are asking people to take a bite out of cruelty by boycotting breeders and saving the life of a dog or a cat from a rescue shelter instead.”

A copy of the ad is attached. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.