It's Westminster time again! But still, there's an elephant in the room.

By Carol Beuchat PhD

Once again, it's time for the yearly pilgrimage to New York for the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club dog show. The airports have an unusually high number of dogs relaxing in the waiting areas, tended to by owners and handlers that look after their every need. It's a big event attended by the elite in the US dog world, and it  attracts a large public attendance as well as national television coverage.

Every year, this show predictably renews the debate about the health consequences of inbreeding in dogs. This year's contribution is an article in the New York Times by Alexandra Horowitz. It contains a useful summary of the inbreeding levels of various breeds in terms the average person can understand, like cousins or full siblings. There is also a quick quiz that asks you to identify the relative level of inbreeding in pairs of breeds. (There are probably some surprises here!)

But the meat of the article highlights again this year the consequences of inbreeding on dog anatomy, physiology, behavior, and - of course - health. The point is that, deliberately or not, we are sacrificing health and welfare for certain traits that we deem desirable, like head shape, fur type, and body size.

​Horowitz correctly notes that the link between inbreeding and health is not a recent insight. Breeders have been aware of the tradeoffs between inbreeding and health for a century. Yet, many breeders stress a focus on health in their breeding program while inbreeding continues unabated, despite the clear and convincing evidence that inbreeding takes a toll on the health of dogs.

There is no shortage of information about genetic disorders in dogs (Google, of course), and quite a bit about what needs to be done to improve things. Yet here we are again this year, off to an event that celebrates the beauty and function of the purebred dog, and where we will avert our gaze from the genetic issues that slowly erode away the DNA coding that produces every individual of every breed. 

I will be watching the WKC Kennel Club dog show this year, to enjoy the beauty and incredible diversity of this remarkable animal, the dog. But once again, I will worry about whether we will heed the warnings of the biologists and breeders of other domestic animals that, with every new generation, we are gambling with the future of a breed by putting short term gain before the obligation to breed in a way that protects the unique genetic package that defines the essence of each breed.

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