The author of this drivel is Karen Salter of

TOWSUSHET KENNELS

POT - KETTLE - BLACK springs to mind.

AN EXCELLENT RESPONSE BELOW!

THE AUTHOR OF THIS EXCELLENT RESPONSE IS:
MS ELAINE CANNON OF MIKETILLA KENNELS

I am writing in reply to letter headed “Wake Up Kennel Club”
(Our Dogs 13th June (2007))
I read the contents with some surprise and incredulity. It is of course disconcerting that one breeder has produced a large number of puppies in a very short space of time and by no means do I condone her actions. It appears, however, that the writer is suggesting that the Kennel Club should adopt a double standard in dealing with breeders who produce multiple litters.

The writer assumes that a breeder who’s dogs have no affix, “has no working knowledge of the breed or it’s health issues”. How does she know this if she is not personally acquainted with the breeder (and furthermore how could the Kennel Club be expected to judge this?).

What is worse is that by her running down the breeder whose stock has no health checks we are, by implication, led to believe that the writers own stock is subject to stringent health screening.

She wants the Kennel Club to recognise when “someone appears to be breeding for profit, and not doing anything for the breed other than populating.” It is easy to “talk the talk” and say you have the good of the breed at heart but owning fine dogs with Stud Book numbers is hardly the yardstick by which this should be measured.

I do not know the breeder or if she is denigrating or her stock. However, as far as I know, no complaints have been received by the Kennel Club or the Breed Council regarding the health of the puppies she has bred or her conduct.

Often the only option open to people to get any sort of restitution would involve expensive legal action. Perhaps breeds would be better served if the Kennel Club concentrated on enabling people with genuine grievances to have some system of arbitration available that is easier to access than the present system. This would encompass ALL breeders from the newest to the established.

If a binding arbitration service is not viable then perhaps a system could be devised where serious grievances could be kept on file. If one breeder was referred to them on several occasions then detailed enquiries could be made and suitable sanctions could be applied.

A data base that the public could view on-line could contain details of any serious (and properly foundered) concerns which could encompass such things as the health of the puppies sold, the conditions in which the breeders dogs are kept and the after sales service provided. This would give potential buyers a much more detailed overview of the reputation of the breeder concerned. Nowadays it is easy to just look at a flashy web site and be taken in by it’s contents.

A Kennel Club data base may result in less of the “needless messes” the writer says she is so keen to avoid.

Yours etc

Elaine Cannon

(Note: Whilst Ms Cannon and I have never seen eye to eye on many things
I applauded her response. 

(Credit where credit is due!)

Is the Kennel Club instrumental in propagating puppy farming?

Letter published in Dog World on 27th July 2006

The following letter was published in Dog World on 27th July. The letter was written by Moreen Davie from A Dogs Life, a voluntary organisation based in Wales. We have been given permission to publish.

Interesting reading and KC have not responded to it!

'We applaud April Fearns’s criticism of the Kennel Club’s Accredited Breeder Scheme as we, too, have grave concerns on the KC registration of pedigree puppies which are all too often reared in unsuitable conditions by greedy back yard breeders and sold to an unsuspecting public at unreasonably high prices.

Of the 260 calls received following our advert on “sale of sick puppies”, nearly all of which were K.C. Registered, 30 complaints were made to the Kennel Club by the new owners, 15 of whom had spent £29,755 on veterinary fees. The Kennel Club provides a service to non-commercial breeders (namely puppy farmers) at a charge of £15 whereby K.C. Reg. puppies are placed on a list of breeders which is distributed to a prospective purchaser of a puppy. The K.C. strongly deny that they “recommend” but how else is this advice to be viewed? In some of the cases received the owners had contacted the K.C. and had indeed been recommended to a breeder, two of the pups purchased died within 24 hrs.

Under the K.C. Code of Ethics Item 9, by which the K.C. expect breeders to abide “Owners will not sell any dog to commercial dog wholesalers etc” yet a Labrador was sold from a Pet Shop carrying K.C. 6 weeks free insurance , the pup suffered from a skin allergy, diarrhoea and sickness, vet’s fees incurred were £1,000.

Three separate complaints were against the same breeder, one case of a Lab with an inflamed bowel and hereditary allergies, another of a Staffordshire Bull Terrier that had its back legs reconstructed, another Golden Lab with joint problems resulting in more operations. In each case the K.C. stated there was nothing they could do even though all the pups were given 6 wks free insurance by the K.C. Four Yorkshire Terries were sold by another breeder, one had no hip bone, one had systemic liver shunt, one was pts after two months, in all cases the testicles had not dropped resulting in further surgery. One furious owner was told by the K.C. that inbreeding is not illegal. In one letter from the K.C. they offer their condolences but state that private sales of dogs do not come under their jurisdiction and advised the owner to contact Trading Standards.

In all the cases whereby owners had contacted the Kennel Club they were either not interested or refused to make an investigation.

In our view the Kennel Club is instrumental in propagating puppy farming and whilst they believe that it is necessary to keep the lines open in many of the cases inbreeding is merely causing suffering and death because of congenital diseases being carried forward.'

Moreen Davie. A Dog’s Life, Cardiff