Hier sind ein paar Spoiler über die ersten 20 Minuten des neuen Podcasts enthalten - continue with caution!

Erst einmal vorweg: Ich schätze Vlad/i sehr und respektiere ihn als Künstler und Mensch ungemein. 🥰 Ich mochte den Podcast und finde Vladi auf eine Weise reflektiert und nahbar, die ich sehr angenehm finde. Und trotzdem (Achtung, im folgenden geht es um Qualzucht und Kritik über Hundekauf. Wer das nicht lesen möchte, sei hier gewarnt) :

Please and thank you in advance

It's technically possible, but very difficult. And who has the time?

The cause of CPL is primarily genetic, so the best thing to do is outcross feathered breeds to non-feathered breeds. We have two irish cobs and two irish cob partbreds at the barn. The cobs have every issue under the sun, the partbreds have none, despite having feathers. They're only lightly feathered, though. I don't have a photo of the partbreds on hand, but one of the full cobs is on the left, and the partbred on the right is very similar to my barn's:

The secondary factors are exercise and diet. If your horse is on 24/7 turn-out, gets daily exercise, and has a diet with <10% (ideally <7%) sugar and starch, half the battle with CPL is already won, feathering or not.

But keeping the feathers long, and keeping your horse on 24/7 turn-out means you have a hell of a job keeping your horse's legs clean and dry. Do you want to wash and blow-dry their feet once or twice a week? Even more if it's rainy outside?

Feathering also means dead skin doesn't have anywhere to go, and dead skin is what mites feed on. If your horse has CPL it's already predisposed to mites, so you'll have to look out for, and potentially manage that for the rest of its life. I'm personally wary of using systemic mite treatments (like Ivermectin) on such a long-term basis, since mites can develop resistance to poison. However, they don't develop resistance to sulfur. Sulfur has to be applied topically, either as a dip or a shampoo, and it needs to reach the skin. It has to be applied twice a week for the first few weeks, then once a week until the horse has no symptoms (if it's a dip) or for the rest of its life (if it's a shampoo). Can you guarantee that the treatment reaches the horse's skin if the legs are feathered?

10/06/2024

It is prohibited to breed animals with external characteristics that are harmful to the animal itself. The NVWA treats the deliberate breeding of snouts that are too short as a serious violation. Breeding dogs with extreme skin folds, resulting in diseases such as entropion, is now also a serious offense. The Brabant breeder will receive a fine of 5,000 euros per breeding animal used for each subsequent violation.

Ja dazu gehört auch die alseits beliebte Scottish Fold.

Wenn die Leute Tiere wirklich so lieben würden, würden sie sich dafür einsetzten, dass solche Rassen gebannt werden. So werden immer neue Generationen geboren von denen der überwiegende Anteil leidet.

I will always keep promoting other small breeds of dog, for those who want small companion dogs.

It’s great that enthusiasts are trying to breed healthier and more soundly built French bulldogs and Pugs, and those who truly love breeds like that the most will always exist, but I can’t understand why breeds like the Frenchie exploded in popularity in the late 2000s, and it never really ended.

People say they love them because they’re “funny”, but you can have just as much fun (or more) with a breed that is more healthy and sound, and actually built like a dog, and not like a cartoon.

Sadly, most companion dogs are either flat-faced, have ridiculous coats that are impractical both for the dog and average pet owner, or both. But there are some breeds in the <12 kg range that are neither, and this is just a small selection. (Then there are the really tiny dogs, not included here.)

Here is the Schipperke, Lancashire heeler, Basenji, Shiba, Japanese spitz (very similar to the American Eskimo Dog in North America), Papillon, Portuguese Podengo, Miniature Pinscher, Mittel/Kleinspitz, and Norwegian lundehund.

All fun, small/ish companion dogs that are full of life and character, and without the physical restrictions of Frenchies and Pugs.

oh hoh ho, I have some thoughts! there are a few issues, which I’ll detail below.

here’s a link to the telegraph article, titled “Floppy-eared rabbits left deaf and in pain by intensive breeding”

to summarize, 15 lop-eared rabbits (of various breeds) were compared to 15 erect-eared rabbits (also of various breeds) in a rescue centre, with the result being that lop-eared rabbits were 43% times more likely to have narrowed ear canals, and 15% times more likely to be in ear pain. the article attributes the problem to selectively breeding for “altered skull shapes”, which it claims also results in tooth and jaw misalignments

here are my problems:

 the sample size is 30

the samples are rescue animals, without location given (i.e. if it’s an urban area, the rabbits are likely to have been churned out for the pet market)

breed wasn’t taken into account

to expand on that last point, there are 15 breeds of lop-eared rabbits with very diverse skull shapes. this article didn’t specify what “altered skull shapes” refers to – it could specifically mean the lop-eared mutation also narrows the ear canal of the skull, inevitably causing pain and making it a form of Qualzucht, torture breeding. that would be……very, very bad, and would make me un-stan at lightspeed.

however since the “altered skull” quote comes from Charles Darwin (who died 13 years before the invention of radiographs) I think it’s referring to the tendency to breed flat/square/baby-like faces into lop-eared rabbits. as an example, Holland Lops are a popular pet breed with the anatomy of a funko pop. this is DEFINITELY an “altered skull”:

compare the Holland Lop to an English Lop, though – the latter is practically horse-faced:

there have been recent debates online about whether flat-faced rabbits can be consider brachycephalic in the same way pugs are, and whether the dental problems observed in dwarf/flat-faced breeds are due to their altered skull shape, or because their “cuteness” makes them far more likely to be mass-bred for the pet market (causation, or correlation? the jury’s still out). it seems like the article is addressing this EXACT issue with the tooth/jaw stuff, this time pinning it on lop ears rather than a flat face.

tl;dr – the tooth/jaw issues are……. probably not caused by lop ears (imo), and instead are something you’re more likely to find in flat-faced dwarfs like Holland Lops (which likely composed much of the sample group, though details weren’t given).

however, the narrowed ear canals could be legit, and I’m pissed they don’t expand on how that conclusion was drawn. do narrowed ear canals correlate with lop ears in general, or Holland Lop-esque box heads specifically?

tl;dr part 2 – there are MANY conclusions being drawn from not enough information! I need more studies! a sample size in the hundreds or thousands! rabbit academics, hear my pleas!

I haven't seen a post about this yet but I am so excited and wanted to share some great news;

The netherlands officially banned the breeding of extremely brachycephalic dogs!

Just to make this clear though, not the breeds themselves are banned but the individuals that fall into a specific and clearly defined scheme:

It is illegal to breed with any dog whose nose is shorter than a third of the headsize. (which includes almost all pugs and french/english bulldogs)

Dogs, whose noses are a third to half the length of the head are allowed to be bred, as long as they meet every other breed standard. (This part of the law is announced as an interim solution, sadly I can't find any details on what this means exactly...)

The scheme is following a traffic light system, shown here:

In an official notice the ministry for agriculture, nature and food quality (Ministerium LNV) announced that they'll start to control the practical implementation of the new law. And Commedia, the association of dutch pug breeders already stated that they're following the legal requirements starting now, setting a good example for all breeders in the country. Here's to hoping that others won't wait until they're getting punished until they start to follow the new law.

Qualzucht, the breeding of severly deformed animals, whose life quality is deeply impacted - to the point of being non-existant - is still a huge issue and the law isn't perfect at all but I think it's a huuuge step in the right direction. I'd love to see similar developments in other countries, once they see that the breed won't be "destroyed" by enabling them to breathe a bit better.

This law limits the breeding of a whole bunch of breeds, including pugs, english & french bulldogs, boxers, pekineses, yorkshire terriers, chihuahuas, mastiffs and staffordshire bullterriers.

Almost all information and the graphic are taken from Bollerkopp.net