Last night, Wednesday March 11, ABC's Nightline aired a terrific piece they headed, "Best in Show: Quest for Perfection." Reporter Nick Watt focused on the inbreeding and illness of pure bred dogs, encouraged by the big dog shows such as Westminster.
We learn about bulldogs, for example, whose snouts, "smashed like a coke can," make breathing difficult. We are told that most bulldogs cannot mate or give birth naturally and need to be artificially inseminated and birthed via c-sections. We find out that many Dalmatians cannot urinate properly, and that flat coated retrievers have a high incidence of cancer.
Nightline tells us that documentary on the issue in Britain had such an impact that the BBC stopped televising Crufts, the world's largest dog show, about which a veterinarian commented:
"When I watch Crufts, what I see in front of me is a parade of mutants."
Watts tells us that American Kennel Club representatives refused to be interviewed for his Nightline report. Let's hope it too has some impact. You can watch it on line at: http://tinyurl.com/clpz24
Please send Nightline a huge thank you. Positive feedback for coverage of animal welfare issues encourages more coverage. Nightline takes comments at:
http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3428117
I thank Bonnie West for making sure we knew about this report.
Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com to read reviews and see a fun celeb-studded video and an NBC news piece on Karen Dawn's new book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals," which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the "Best Books of 2008."
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Date: Thu Mar 12 19:46:19 2009
