Video: PETA Crashes Crufts Over Flat-Faced Breeds
Video: PETA Crashes Crufts Over Flat-Faced Breeds
Birmingham – Earlier today, during the “toy breed” competition at Crufts, the world’s largest “pedigree” dog show, PETA supporters unfurled a massive banner at the top of the arena with the message, “Breeding Flat-faced Dogs Is Flat-Out Cruel”. footage of the disruption – which started when the first pug was paraded around the arena – is available here, and here.
More images are available here.
PETA takes issue with the Kennel Club’s grotesque breed standards that encourage the breeding of dogs with extreme features, including unnaturally flat faces. Breathing-impaired breeds (BIBs), such as pugs, Pekingese, King Charles spaniels, and French bulldogs, suffer from an uncomfortable, debilitating, and sometimes fatal condition called brachycephalic syndrome that leaves them struggling to run, walk, catch a ball, and even breathe. A recent study by the Royal Veterinary College found that some of these breeds can no longer be classified as “normal dogs” due to their health irregularities.
“The Kennel Club needs to get with the programme and stop promoting the breeding of dogs, especially those who can’t breathe, in its twisted canine beauty pageant,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “PETA is calling on the organisation to keep flat-faced breeds out of Crufts and urges everyone to avoid this cringe-worthy breeding fiasco by adopting lovable, loyal dogs from shelters.”
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – notes that Crufts actively promotes not only extreme breeding practices but also the “winners” to viewers and attendees, encouraging the public to purchase particular breeds and driving the already catastrophic homeless-animal crisis.
PETA previously sent a letter to Kennel Club Chairman Tony Allcock OBE calling on the organisation to remove brachycephalic breeds from the competition – but Crufts’ damaging glorification of these miserable, deprived animals continues.
PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 207-837-6327; [email protected]
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