The War On Selective Dog Breeding

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84 – April, 2023

By Amy Fernandez

I bet that caught your eye. I’m referring to Norway’s ongoing courtroom confrontation to decide the legitimacy of selective breeding. The legal history of this nightmare, available in English at NKK.no/lawsuit, reveals a basis of eye-popping, misleading, and unsupported assertions that will now enjoy immortality in cyberspace thanks to relentless AR lobbying.

Let’s start with some background because this case has dragged through the courts and the media since 2018. Norway’s legal system doesn’t bear direct comparison to ours. However, there are sufficient similarities to offer a relatively accurate portrayal of who, what, and when (although ‘why’ remains the big judicial conundrum).

Purebred dogs have been in the AR crosshairs for decades. Every dog show offers a sweeping contradiction to their lucrative fundraising strategy. Those canine participants are not only beautiful; they clearly love what they’re doing. And that image is definitely inconvenient if your money machine is fueled by an endless litany about animal exploitation. To remedy this, AR groups have gradually shifted their resources away from the purported cruelty inflicted at dog shows and redirected it to the suffering caused by selective dog breeding. This claim is equally questionable, but facts are rarely compatible with good propaganda.

The latest round of this mess played out in Norway’s Federal District Court in Oslo during a week-long civil trial centered on whether breeding Bulldogs or Cavalier King Charles Spaniels violated § 25 of Norway’s Animal Welfare Act. Originally implemented in 2009 and revised a decade later, that particular section of the Act addresses animal breeding. The revision stated in part that “All animals are bred with good function and health and prohibits breeding that alters or perpetuates hereditary traits that adversely affect the animals’ physical and mental functions, reduces their ability to engage in natural behavior, or provoke general ethical reactions.”

Click here to read the complete article
84 – April, 2023

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