Is Dog Breeding Just Canine Race Science?
Yes, kind of, is the short answer.
I came to this realisation while talking with a Rhodesian Ridgeback breeder (appropriately).
She was discussing the purity of a dog’s bloodline when I thought, hang on a minute, that sounds a lot like eugenics.
You know, the nonsense science touted by Nazis and other assorted white supremacists as their ideal model to safeguard the purity of the white race.
Most recently it has metasticised into the Great Replacement Theory.
It’s the idea that no, people aren’t coming to the west for a better life, or because we destroyed their country, or because of climate change.
No, no — it’s reverse colonisation — laughable drivel for imbeciles.
But these things all stem from the same pre-modern concepts.
The misguided desire for racial purity, be it canine or human, is just inbreeding on a species level.
One need only observe the changes pedigree dogs have undergone in the past century to see that something very, very wrong is happening to them.
Health problems have increased dramatically in popular breeds, the Alsatians’ and Labradors’ hind quarters are.. compromised, and the Bull Terrier’s skull has deformed hideously in that period.
Vets recently urged people not to buy flat faced dogs such as English Bulldogs, French Bulldogs and Pugs after a study showed English Bulldogs have twice as many health issues.
The prevalence of health problems in these breeds often condemns them to a “lifetime of suffering”, according to it’s author Dr Dan O’Neill from the Royal Veterinary College.
Look, I’m just going to spell it out; we’ve created a bunch of abominations, folks. They’re abominations.
The Olso District Court in Norway ordered a complete and total shutdown in breeding English Bulldogs and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels until they can figure out what’s going on.
English Bulldogs have a laundry list of possible deformaties and illnesses. They struggle to breathe, are prone to arthritis and can get infections in the folds of their skin. Revolting.
Worse still, they can’t mate without human assistance. Yeah, that’s right, they can’t fuck or give birth without our intervention.
Incidentally, the breeder from the intro went on to tell a “funny” story about her daughter’s friend walking into the wrong room during a party to find her jerking off a dog.
As for the King Charles Spaniel, according to Veterinarian Dr Scott Millar they, “…have such an abnormally shaped head. This can actually pressurise the brain stem and lead to a neurological condition called Syringomyelia.”
That’s when an unusual buildup of fluid where the dog’s head joins its spine leads to neck and back pain.
The former Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals chief Mark Evans even called dog shows a “parade of mutants.”
But this idea really burst containment and into the public consciousness with a 2008 BBC documentary called Pedigree Dogs Exposed.
The documentary featured harrowing footage of a King Charles Spaniel writhing in agony as its brain was too big for its skull.
Despite a change in the discourse around breeding toward population diversity, the old discourse hasn’t gone away. And these ideas have a way of coming back from the wilderness [citation: see politics in 2022].
The standards breeders must conform to, which led to the current situation, are set by The Kennel Club, who greeted the 2008 exposé with haw-hawing and hysterics.
It’s a venerable institution set up in 1873 by an Irish (read: English) landlord called S.E. Shirley who was also a Tory MP.
It is, of course, also a stuffy members club complete with a ban on jeans, leggings and trainers in the dining room.
Much of the criticism of the documentary claims the eugenics movement hadn’t fully congealed until the turn of the 20th century.
But its pre-scientific ass-backwards lineage, if you will, goes back much further. Do you think those 17th-century Habsburg jaws formed themselves?
Of course, they didn’t! They were moulded by years of selective breeding within a tiny pool of good royal bloodlines.
And the most inbred Habsburgs therefore had the most pronounced jaws.
Reducing genetic diversity impacts the ability to resist disease, and the maladies caused compound over time.
But all this is not to say dog breeds are equivalent to human races. It’s not a good comparison as environmental factors rather than artificial selection primarily condition differences between races.
Scientific studies have found a 3.3–4.7% range of genetic difference between humans, but between dog breeds, it jumps to around 30%.
And race, as we understand it, is a concept cooked up in late 16th century England to differentiate themselves from foreigners and classify those they dispossessed, such as the Irish, as alien “savages”.
Once attempts to “civilise” the Irish failed, the concept was turned on the New World and ultimately used to justify the economic system of chattel slavery.
Rather it is to say, artificial selection within humans, as we have done with dogs, could recreate the ghoulish distinctions between dog breeds within humanity.
Imagine a person shaped like my dog who looks like a quivering alien when he shits. It’s the stuff of nightmares.
So the next time some fool starts bandying about the Great Replacement Theory, you can rightfully mock them for promoting societal inbreeding.
If you enjoyed this article you can subscribe so you never miss a rant. And if you really enjoyed it and want help in my quest to make creating awesome content my job please consider leaving me a tip. You know you want to.
