A Michael Broad Blog
Dog and cat breeders (and pet sellers on, for instance, social media) operate in the black economy in that most often they do not pay tax. They are cash dealers. As a consequence, they are not registered with HMRC in the UK. Things are going to change as the Treasury is all out of …
It is dawning on the UK government and I suspect other legislators that banning dog breeds because they are dangerous is impractical and unsuccessful. Any dog breed can be dangerous and any dog breed can be a wonderful pet. It is all down to selective breeding and training. The sad thing is that any …
Left alone, nature operates natural selection, a process which leads to cleverer animals surviving more successfully. This led to the evolution of larger brained animals and ultimately to the dominance of humans over all animals. But for dogs selective breeding has interrupted this process with a research study deciding that dogs with smaller brains …
You might know that in Germany they have a concept called “torture breeding“. In that country they believe that if breeders create animals which are inherently unhealthy they should be banned. It applies to certain cat breeds such as flat-faced Persians and the hairless Sphynx. This story from The Times does not refer to …
Flabby labradors suffer from a genetic mutation that affects 25% of the breed making them obsessed with eating and burning less energy in their metabolism. Why do the dog associations and clubs allow this to happen? It can be fixed by culling (removing from breeding/blood lines) those breeding dogs that carry this genetic mutation …
Today, The Sunday Times reports on a worrying story about designer dogs being abandoned by breeders to shelters when they are done with them. In this instance I’m talking about the ever-popular dachshund, a breed that was particularly popular during the Covid-19 pandemic as was the French bulldog. Louise Eccles in her Sunday Times …
NEWS AND COMMENT: I’m told that Los Angeles City Council is considering a moratorium on the issuing of breeding licences. That means a pause to the issuing of permits to breed which I presume mainly means dog and cat breeders in the city of Los Angeles. The reason why the council wants to stop …
STUDY RESULT PLUS COMMENT: Dorottya Ujfalussy from the Eotvos Lorand University in Hungary, has decided in her study that flat-faced dogs (and I’m going to include flat-faced cats) are more attractive to their owners because they are more helpless. And in being more helpless they are more like human toddlers who are themselves helpless …
