Veterinary Professionals Urge Channel 4 to Ditch Crufts Dog Show

For Immediate Release:
4 March 2020

Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

VETERINARY PROFESSIONALS URGE CHANNEL 4 TO DITCH CRUFTS DOG SHOW

TV Vet Emma Milne and Over a Dozen Others Join PETA in Highlighting the Cruel Consequences of Breeding for Exaggerated Physical Features

London/Birmingham – In advance of Crufts, the world’s largest dog show, a group of 16 veterinarians and veterinary nurses – including TV vet Emma Milne – has sent a letter on behalf of PETA urging Channel 4 to follow the BBC’s lead and stop airing the event.

In the letter, available here, the group of veterinary professionals notes that the “arbitrary breed standards that the competition’s judges use to rate the dogs call for them to be bred for extremely exaggerated physical features, regardless of the damage to their health. As a result, dogs are suffering”.

Calling on Channel 4 to stop promoting the dog show, the letter concludes, “[A]ny event that rewards the deliberate breeding of deformed and disabled dogs is not worthy of your airtime.”

The group of professionals joins the nearly 50,000 other PETA supporters who have signed an online action in calling on Channel 4 stop promoting the unethical canine beauty pageant.

Crufts has long been mired in controversy. In recent years, “winning” dog Knopa was picked up by the tail by her handler, a German shepherd was crowned “best in breed” despite apparently suffering from a painful and debilitating limp, and it was reported that an Irish setter named Jagger was poisoned at the competition.

The BBC dropped Crufts in 2008 after revelations about the prevalence of hereditary defects among pedigree dogs, including some Crufts prizewinners, and the RSPCA refuses to attend the show.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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