The Kennel Club's Dalmatian Test

A while back, Ron Zimmerman wrote a very nice post for this blog entitled "The Dalmatian Club Embraces Purity and Pain."

Then in the August issue of Dogs Today, Claire Horton-Bussey had a very nice piece entitled "Pointing the Way to Better Health for Dalmatians."

That piece, it seems, has led two of the U.K.s largest newspapers to focus on the issue of Dalamatian health and the failure of The Kennel Club to allow healthier animals into the gene pool.

In a piece in today's The Daily Mail entitled "Spot the difference: One of these Dalmatians Will Be Healthy for Life So Why are Dog-lovers So Furious?, the reporter writes:

Around a quarter of the beloved animals - or 25.25 in every 101 - will suffer serious health problems during their lives, leaving them in agonising pain and facing an early death.

Now, with a little bit of cross-breeding, a healthy 'new' dalmatian, free from the defective gene that causes high levels of uric acid in their blood, has been created.

In another piece in today's Telegraph, entitled "Can Kennel Club Change Its Spots Over New Dalmatian?" the reporter notes

The Kennel Club is coming under growing pressure to accept the new dalmatian as an official pedigree, in its first major test since a row over allegations that inbreeding was creating 'deformed and disabled' dogs led the BBC to boycott this year's Crufts show.

Kennel Club spokesperson Caroline Kisko says a decision on whether to admit the new healthier Dalmatians will be made at The Kennel Club's September board meeting.

With Patrick Bateson's report due in December or January, this will be an early test of whether The Kennel Club can do the obviously right thing. Stay tuned!
.