The sadness of purebred dogs!

Nowadays, many people share their "dog routine" on social media platforms, and the daily lives of some of these dogs are even enviable because their "food and clothing" are top-quality.

"Eat and sleep, sleep and eat" dog life

The dogs that are treated optimally are often purebred and are born with a high price tag.

But in reality, the bright and shiny purebred dogs are not "dog life winners", and even bear more pain. This is the sadness of purebred dogs, but also the product of human aesthetic deformity. And what makes people lament is that it is the result of human "preferences", but to let these innocent pets bear the pain.

Dogs are not always happy!

The sadness of purebred dogs

First of all, let's understand what is a purebred dog, which generally refers to the dogs registered by the World Kennel Club, with proof of pedigree. According to the standards of the AKC (American Kennel Club), there are more than 170 kinds of purebred dogs in the world, and these dogs have their exclusive names and extremely pure bloodlines.

For example, the Pomeranian, Poodle, Beagle, Husky, Samoyed, Shiba Inu, etc., are all of these familiar dogs that are purebred. It is easy to see that the more expensive and popular dogs in the market today are basically on the list of purebred dogs.

There are so many different kinds of dogs

And different individuals will also be distinguished according to the purity of the pedigree, and there is a large price difference. In this case, the breeding of purebred dogs is also very careful, not only to carefully compare the pedigree of "both parents", but also to observe the condition of the puppies after birth.

However, the relatively complicated breeding is nothing in the face of the huge market demand, so more and more people are involved in the breeding and breeding of purebred dogs, hoping to make a "fortune".

But do purebred dogs benefit from their pure bloodlines? What does purebred mean to them?

Purebred dogs are just a product created by human aberrant aesthetics, and it does not matter to the dog whether it is purebred or not. In addition, the purity of the bloodline sometimes brings more pain to the dog, because the businessman will use any method in the breeding process to get more profit.

Animals are not "commodities" for humans

For example, in 2008, the BBC aired a documentary on purebred dogs called "The Sadness of Purebred Dogs", in which the shame of purebred dog breeding was ripped off. It turns out that most of these dogs labeled as purebred come from "inbreeding".

After all, only inbreeding breeding methods to ensure that these dogs as far as possible the pedigree of "pure", if not up to the standard of purity, naturally can not sell at a good price.

Inbreeding can increase the probability of genetic diseases

But the "benefits" of inbreeding can be extremely painful for dogs, as it can lead to a variety of genetic diseases and often even congenital deformities.

Lucy Ashe's team at the Royal Veterinary College selected the 50 most well-known breeds in the British Kennel Club's Purebred Dog List standard and found that "every breed had at least one aspect of the class standard that linked it to a disease, and a total of 84 diseases were directly or indirectly associated with the class standard."

A Golden Retriever being identified at a purebred competition

It is easy to see that the aberrant aesthetic of the strict human requirement for purebred bloodlines can cause many dogs to live in deep water. As in the history of the European royal family to maintain the "noble royal blood", most of the royal offspring do not live to adulthood. Even if they are lucky enough to survive, they will be afflicted by various diseases.

The German Shepherd, for example, is a medium-sized dog with a long trunk and a strong body, weighing about 25 kg. But the German Shepherd under the human aberration aesthetic must become even taller and more powerful because racing dogs have extremely high weight and size limits.

These perfect racing dogs look even stronger, but most have pinched hind legs and suffer from an ataxic gait condition that makes normal walking and running difficult for them.

German Shepherds have very pronounced pinched hind legs

In addition, the existence of purebred dogs is not conducive to the development of "genetic diversity". Because people use inbreeding to get dogs that appear to be different individuals, most of them share similar genes. In the BBC documentary, it was pointed out that although there were 100,000 pugs in the UK at the time, if genetic diversity was the criterion, then 100,000 would be equivalent to 50 different dogs.

Jeff Sampson, the chief geneticist at the British Kennel Club, admitted in a paper that "over 90% of unique genetic variants are lost within six generations, meaning that breeding patterns have a huge impact on genetic diversity."

The pug came from selective artificial breeding by humans

As you can see, the constant breeding of purebred dogs not only causes great suffering for these pets but is also detrimental to the development of diversity in their populations. In this case, the future of purebred dogs will become "uniform" and will be more vulnerable to changes in the external environment, even if they are not careful, they will be "destroyed".

There must be people who disagree with this point of view because, in the human view, we do our best to give these dogs the best things, not only good food, even toys and shelter are the best quality. Is that not enough to give? Does this not prove that we are thinking of our dogs from the bottom of our hearts?

Raising a dog is more than just providing a material foundation

The Roots of Anthropocentrism

People never consider that what we do is not what the dog needs. Because we subconsciously consider the problem from an "anthropocentric" perspective, we don't think about the fact that the reason there is so much breeding chaos in purebred dogs is because of the "perverse aesthetics" of humans.

After all, when we seek purebred dogs with pure bloodlines, they will have a market, in other words, "no sale, no sick breeding".

"Ordinary" puppies are just as lovable

Anthropocentrism is something we all understand, in short, it's all about humans. In our opinion, purebred dogs are more aesthetically pleasing, and sometimes people even use the purity of their pedigree to show their wealth and status. After all, a purebred dog can represent the owner's financial power when it is not expensive.

When we look back at the history of the birth of purebred dogs, we find that it officially began in 1859, when the United Kingdom held a "dog show" specifically for dogs, using purebred dogs as a label for Victorian high society. So it was not so much the dogs that people liked as it was the "invisible label" that people liked.

Aristocrats who owned dogs in the 19th century

The dog, as a living being and a companion for so many years, should not be a victim of people's "attachment".

In addition, anthropocentrism can lead us to do many things that we think are good for our pets. For example, in the process of breeding, the dog wears clothes and shoes, which in our opinion is to keep warm, but in fact, is quite uncomfortable for them.

Dogs are not used to wearing shoes by nature

But because they are "pets", so they have to put up with it. Not to mention, many people are particularly good to their pets when they like them and abandon them when they are sick.

You know, these purebred dogs are already very "fragile" because of genetic problems, and in this case, abandoned in the wild, they are very difficult to survive. So how do we correct this problem, or remedy it?

Dogs with nowhere to go but the streets

How to remedy the situation?

The first thing to do is to start with yourself and reject "purebred dogs" because as long as there is no demand for purebred dogs, the breeding of purebred dogs will naturally fade away.

We must understand that pets as a small life, live not only to amuse us, but more importantly, they must be able to live normally. Purebred dogs have a series of defects that can cause them to spend their days trapped in misery and unable to extricate themselves.

According to Peter Singer, a representative of Western animal rights, "Animals can continue to be used for human purposes, but more consideration must be given to their interests."

Animal liberationist Peter Singer

The next step is for people to change their perspective and try to break out of their "anthropocentric" cage and understand that pets are not only humans but also independent individuals.

In raising pets, we need to balance the intrinsic and instrumental value of animals, take into account their own needs, and not let them make fearless sacrifices for the sake of human preferences.

They are our good friends, not "toys."

Therefore, the trend of everyone disliking field dogs and field cats is not good, it is not only bad for the development of animal genetic diversity but also a "persecution" of the animals themselves. In this, I am afraid that the only one who enjoys it is human beings themselves.