Hi everyone, it's Romi here and today's tutorial we're going to go into some welfare and ethics and welfare assessment framework and if you can tell by our picture on today's cover page we'll be talking about our little squishy face friends. So today's learning outcomes we're really going to go into brachycephalic. So what's a brachycephalic dog?
What's their history, their companionship, their known health concerns, the Animal Care and Protection Act, and how it can be kind of interpreted with brachycephalics and brachycephalics against our known welfare assessment frameworks. So what is a brachycephalic dog? So these are our friends who have been bred for their short muzzle.
So they are identified by their shortened muzzles. They have been, I guess, bred, a lot of them have been interbred. over a long period of time to really accentuate that muzzle.
And we see that in a lot of our little cuties that we see in practice. Probably the most well-known because they have the most issues are the French Bulldogs and the English Bulldogs. But because of their short muzzle, they all are prone to certain health issues associated with that.
Hi Sam, thanks for joining me. So they're adorable however having that really selective breeding for that confirmation is troubling. So we're going to get into a video that really explains why brachycephalics are having so many health issues, but also the ethical dilemma associated with their welfare and how that ties into breeding and owners, you know, owners care, vet care.
So we'll watch that now. It's the thrill of winning. It's a thrill of showing the world really good, quality, healthy bulldogs. Love is blind.
People see these dogs, they love them, they want them, and they buy them. And then you're faced with those problems afterwards. And it's heartbreaking. Interesting.
Wow. They've got like the tongue and the soft palate of a dog sort of three or four times their size crammed into their throat and they just can't breathe. The modern British Bulldog which struggles to walk, which struggles to mate, is not in any way able to fulfil its original function.
I had 30 minutes to make a decision, to let my dog live or to put my dog to sleep. Instagram loves these dogs and everyone in this story does too, but they're facing a health crisis and no one can agree how to save them. I love French Bulldogs because they're the most amazing dogs I've ever seen.
ever had the pleasure of meeting. Come on baby girl. You speak to any French bulldog owner and most of them have some kind of issue.
Karen is my name, Karen Anderson. I have two French bulldogs. Stella is three years of age and Boas is 16 months.
Stella has had breathing issues from the day that I picked her up from the breeder. Good girl. You stay there.
And right from that moment I was told even by the breeder that's just. French Bulldogs, that's what they do. So it's pretty stressful when you see your dog who wants to play, wants to run, but every time she does, she needs to stop and vomit. Stella ended up needing a tracheostomy.
She now breathes through a hole in her throat, can't bark and can't smell. Stella cost me four and a half thousand dollars. First round of airway surgery was two thousand dollars and then the tracheostomy, that was a further five thousand dollars. So very expensive dog.
So we find just about every dog that's flat-faced has some degree of compromise and nearly all of them benefit from some level of corrective surgery. These little guys, like it's so overcrowded that the teeth become infected and they often don't erupt properly. If you don't get them out and they form a cyst, then the jaw literally breaks, but it doesn't even... crack as it breaks because there's not enough bone to even crack it just falls apart. It's devastating something as simple as a trip up to the coffee shop or going to the beach can be enough to overheat these dogs.
People didn't know what they were doing is dangerous they come in collapse and they're cooking from the inside and their organs are overheating and there's some that you can save in the ICU but there are lots that you can't that they've gone too far. We don't want that to happen to any more families. The Australian Veterinary Association joined up with the RSPCA to launch a campaign.
Love is Blind seeks to raise awareness of some of the health issues associated with breeds with exaggerated features. Breeders need to accept that they exist and breed away from extreme features. What Bronwyn wants changed is a document known as a breed standard.
It's what they use to judge purebreds at dog shows. Most of them have been updated over the years, but the one for British Bulldogs is pretty much the same as the day the UK Kennel Club published it back in 1873. Up until about the Victorian era, when it started becoming fashionable to have certain dog breeds, those original grandfather stock of these breeds, they had nice long legs, they were quite lean and they were fit for function. There's no exercise test, rather they're purely judged on a very superficial aesthetic. 30 years ago. The UK Kennel Club changed the Bulldog standard, but Aussie clubs voted not to, and the peak body for purebred affairs, the ANKC, has launched a counter-campaign to Love is Blind.
When buying your puppy, some say love is blind, but it doesn't have to be. I'm Sharon Edmonds. I'm an all-breeds judge with the ANKC.
I have bred British Bulldogs for 30 plus years. I love them. There's not a show in Australia I don't think my kennel hasn't won. The first bulldog I bought lasted three months.
I was heartbroken. I did not ever want another dog to die on me, so I had been adamant in my breeding that I choose sound, healthy dogs. A good breeder will always breed away from genetic trouble.
They know the background of most dogs in pedigree, so they'll breed away from that. But vets argue even if neither parents have genetic trouble, if they both have exaggerated features like the breed standard calls for, then their puppies will likely have especially exaggerated features and develop health problems. So what I've got here in front of me is the ANKC standard for the British Bulldog. The face should be extremely short, the muzzle is very broad and the skull should be very large.
The larger the better. For a breed that already struggles with giving birth naturally, we think this is just encouraging the problem. C-sections, look, sometimes they're just a necessity, but it's not just a short-faced dog that have C-sections.
It's across the board. It's the bitches, they just don't push. Come on, mate, hurry up. Ideally, I would like to not hear the dog breathe at all, but it's easily rectified.
Not all dogs have their soft palate done. I have not had a palate done in my yard for probably six years. If that dog presented to me in the emergency room, I would be recommending that he went and saw one of the surgeons and had his nose trimmed and had his soft palate shortened. The dogs that are crossbred. have more anatomically normal features.
So pugs that are crossed with Jack Russells, they tend to have longer noses and less problems. If the dog has a bit of corgi in it, might that help offset some of the problems that purebreds carry? Possibly. I'm not God, I don't know.
So is there anything in the breed standard you would want changed? Are you happy with it how it is? I'm very happy with the standard the way that it is. The problem I feel with the RSPCA is they're all textbook. They're no common sense.
I recently went to a pound and I did not see one purebred dog in the pound. Most of the dogs I've seen were crossbred dogs. The RSPCA has got a vested interest in the pounds.
They have to make money. They have to be able to support everything. We certainly don't make money from selling dogs or cats from our shelters, although we do charge an adoption price on most animals, a meagre amount in comparison to the amount of work that we put into these animals.
Bulldogs, Frenchies, Pugs, Boston Terriers, they're the ideal dog for a small backyard, for a family that's busy, that really want a little pet. that want to love it to pieces. I haven't met a breeder who doesn't absolutely love their dogs and I think it's about understanding some of the physical features that we see have gotten to the point where they are doing their dogs harm.
Something needs to be done to protect these dogs because there's so many health issues. It's crazy. Can you hear me okay, Sam?
All right, I'm going to assume that you can hear me okay. So that's a really good video that really kind of goes into the predominant health issues that we see with this. brachycephalic breeding for extreme features essentially um so the trend kind of started in the 19th century and dog shows became you know a hobby and people were getting involved and they started um breeding these dogs to accentuate the features that were you know argued if we have a look at the breed standard on the left you can see in the uh in the the early earlier um not the 1990s i put the wrong date on there but you can see in the 1800s that these guys were much more functional they had um good proportions they had adequate length of legs for carriage um they had a longer muzzle it wasn't so um so squished in and flat so it was much more functional airways And these dogs with this kind of breed standard could probably fulfill normal behaviors, normal mating, normal birth without, you know, a lot of interventions. However, if you look at the breed standard today on the right, you can see how spectacularly it has changed to accentuate these exaggerated features. Very squashed in face.
Short legs compared to the body, so there's difficulty of carriage. They're really kind of barrel-chested and their legs almost bow out a bit because they're not really adequately proportioned. They've got quite narrow hips, which is a real issue for these guys with birth. Overwhelmingly, these dogs cannot mate and reproduce normally. They need assistance with either mating or an...
artificial insemination and overwhelmingly they require cesareans for basically every birth because they their their hips are essentially way too small for the head and the size of the thorax that needs to come out and if you have a look down the bottom you can kind of see these are different breeds obviously but you can see the progression from left to right of what it once looked like more like i guess like a boxer kind of muzzle then you're starting to get squishier um uh in there's a english bulldog and then if you look at the pug on the far right it's just completely flat um so you can see how this breeding for exaggerated features has changed the anatomy over the years to the point where it's not particularly functional um you So where do people get these dogs? They're adorable, right? Everybody loves them. I love them.
They're lovely, lovely dogs and they're so cute. They've usually got really great personalities. They form really strong bonds with their owners. They're usually pretty gregarious and outgoing and entertaining and they do suit people with smaller houses or yards. It's been few and far between that I've met any kind of squishy face friends that...
that are aggressive it does happen of course um but overwhelmingly these guys are pretty friendly in nature um and pretty uh i guess compliant and and um and and like human interaction and pretty friendly with other other animals and things as well um and it it it's i've i've put as well they don't require a lot of exercise which may be um beneficial for some people But is it beneficial for them? We are going to delve into that a little bit more. So when we look at the Animal Care and Protection Act, which, you know, underpins, I guess, the welfare objectives and standards that we're looking for, the animal welfare objective of breeding, birthing and rearing to ensure good welfare outcomes.
maintain genetic diversity, reduce heritable disease using available testing methods and minimizing the production of surplus dogs. In section five it states a dog with exhibited heritable condition that has a potential to adversely impact on the welfare of the progeny must not be used for breeding unless with written approval of a veterinarian or geneticist. Now arguably with the way a lot of these extreme brachycephalics have gone, this is never applied, arguably never applied. If you have a look at that picture, a lot of these dogs need assisted mating, a lot of them are artificially inseminated now.
Artificial insemination is a pretty common practice. It does allow the breeder to maintain genetic diversity because you can use samples from, you know, breeders from overseas or interstate. So it does give you that genetic diversity that's required, but arguably it's not the genetic diversity that's the issue, it's the breeding for these accentuated features.
So having worked in... specialty for a very long time. I have seen firsthand the, what I would consider welfare issues associated with these breeds.
There is rarely a day in intensive care or in surgery that there is not a brachycephalic breed in for issues related to being a brachycephalic. So the biggest issue with these guys is breathing issues. And we refer to that commonly as BOAS, but it is known as brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome. And I've got these good visuals here so you can really kind of picture why it's an issue for these dogs.
If you have a look at, say, in the top left image, in healthy nostrils, you can see how the air flows very easily. If you have a look at the narrow nostrils that are... a consequence of breeding for these exaggerated squishy faces essentially it's all really packed in there there's there's it's really difficult to get airflow um their their nostrils are narrow and often um the nares completely cover the nostril hole um and once the air actually gets in it's got to go through this really squished abnormal route to get to the actual trachea and lower airways.
Then if you have a look at the next one and see the healthy throat and nose, and you can see in a dog with adequate confirmation that the air flows easily, carrying on from the narrow nostrils in the first image, we have a really crowded nose and throat. And again, there's really obstructed airflow because it's really got to go through this real squished airway to reach the lower airways. The other issue that we really see with these guys is the soft palate.
So if you have a look at the image of a healthy soft palate and where it approximately stops and the airflow that goes down into the trachea and lower airways, with these really, really accentuated brachycephalics, their soft palate size hasn't changed. Their face might be squished in, but the soft palate. is the same size, which is an issue, right?
Because we're fitting a soft palate for the size of a different dog into this really squished minimised space. So a lot of these dogs have what we call an elongated soft palate and it essentially obstructs the airway between the upper airways and the lower airways. And when you've seen enough brachycephalics with this and you've seen enough brachycephalics with this with Boas, you kind of get to know the sound of it.
And the amount of patients I've had come in, you can really hear them basically sucking their soft palate into their trachea while they're kind of like struggling to breathe. So you can really hear it kind of flapping around in there and obstructing the airway. The other issue with these guys, and they don't always have this, but it is commonly seen in them. If you have a look at the healthy trachea or healthy windpipe on the left, it is of adequate diameter and size to maintain the adequate ventilation for the size of the body, right?
Whereas in these brachycephalics, they tend to have these what we call hyperplastic tracheas, which are tracheas that are just way too small for the size of the animal requiring ventilation. So it would be like us breathing through a straw. The size of the trachea really limits their ability to ventilate adequately, and they really should have a trachea probably two or maybe even three sizes in diameter to what they've actually got. So this is probably the biggest, I guess, welfare issue that the veterinary industry sees with these dogs. And it's probably the most common presentation of why we see these dogs.
The other issue we see with them is digestive issues. So a lot of these dogs are seen with hiatal hernia as well, which can cause regurgitation and vomiting. Often they need a need Boas surgery and a hiatal hernia repair. And sometimes they also are prone to things like irritable bowel and food allergies as well that cause kind of long term soft stools or food intolerances.
They also can be prone to eye disease, especially the ones with little googly eyes. They very commonly can get eye ulcerations. Not so commonly we see entropion.
which is when the hairs on the eyelids kind of turn in and rub against the eye. They also can get dry eye, but probably more so with our little googly eye friends like pugs and cavies do we see ulcerations. They generally tend to have difficulty reproducing naturally, which again...
is kind of overcome by AI these days or human-assisted matings and difficulty giving birth. So not all of them have difficulty giving birth, but the really exaggerated ones, most notably the English bulldogs and French bulldogs, are very, very commonly requiring. caesarean section because they just simply can't adequately birth the head and thorax of the babies that they are carrying. We also see spinal malformations and this probably I've most commonly seen in French Bulldogs but essentially in the kind of lumbar spine. And sacrum, they can often have these spinal malformations that cause chronic pain and issues with their gait.
Thankfully, that's not super, super common, but it is a known issue. in these breeds. Exercise and heat intolerance really goes hand in hand with Boas with their breathing issues.
These dogs cannot adequately ventilate for exercise for long periods of time or strenuous exercise. They can't adequately ventilate and they can't adequately maintain their temperature. They can't They can't pant and lose enough heat themselves to maintain a healthy temperature.
So they tend to overheat. And we really see this in Australian summer. Overwhelmingly in Australian summer, vets have brachycephalics presenting for heat stroke in varying degrees of severity. These guys just cook themselves.
They cannot tolerate. heat and they cannot tolerate rigorous exercise um and in severe cases um i've seen you know some of these guys requiring to go on life support on ventilators um requiring um blood and blood products um once they get severely overheated um hyperthermic um It's incredibly dangerous and can be fatal and often is, unfortunately, with these little guys, especially if, say, they've been left outside on a really hot day and the owner's got home and, you know, hasn't realised they've been in distress while they've been at work and things like that. Devastating for the owners. Sleeping difficulties. So this is really more sort of, I guess, about you notice they're snoring, right?
So anyone with a squishy face. um squishy face friend at home you're probably used to hearing the kind of snoring whenever they're relaxing and that's called sterta and that's really um i guess uh an audible issue um of of ventilation through their upper airways that you can hear when they're sleeping and sometimes some of these dogs um uh their their boas is that severe that it can cause like apneic episodes um and i've in extreme cases i've seen um patients that um stop breathing routinely through the night because they're obstructed they wake up gasp for breath go back to sleep um which you know that would be just horrible to to to go through They're very prone to skin disease and dental disease. Skin disease, like allergies, are pretty common in these guys.
They tend to get itchy skin, prone to yeast, especially between their skin folds and their face. So they often need lots of cleaning in between their skin folds to make sure they don't get little pyoderma skin infections. Dental disease is really because their conformation is just so...
so abnormal that the teeth are just overcrowded and prone to disease. They tend towards obesity because they can't really be exercised adequately. And I guess their body size, their carriage is really prone to carrying more weight than their kind of legs are built for.
So it's very common to see, especially I guess pugs and English bulldogs as our little overweight friends. So this is, explains Boas and what we see in vets kind of in practice and what we do about it, which is then going to lead on to a more graphic video. So if you're squeamish, look away after the next video, before the next video.
But that is essentially that it is footage of the surgery that we provide these animals so that they can breathe. Dogs and cats with short noses like French Bulldogs can suffer from brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome or BOAS for short. Birds with treatments. their quality of life can improve dramatically.
The word brachycephalic is used to describe animals with abnormally short noses. We see this in dogs like French and English bulldogs, pugs and shih tzus, and in cats like the Persian and Himalayan. Abnormally short noses mean flatter, squashed-looking faces. Because of this, brachycephalic animals are more likely to experience problems with their breathing.
Sometimes these problems can become so severe they need urgent veterinary attention. Brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome, often referred to as BOAS, is common in flat-faced animals. It refers to a group of conditions which are caused by their compacted skeleton and excess soft tissue. These conditions include include a long and thick and soft palate. That's the fleshy bit at the back of the mouth.
Narrow nostrils, which are called stenotic nares. Averted laryngeal saccules, which is when the air sacs at the back of the mouth are pulled into the windpipe. And a tongue which is too big for their mouth.
All of these conditions obstruct the airflow, making it harder for the animal to breathe. Animals suffering with BOAS may experience one or a number of these clinical sites. Snorting, snoring and grunting noises.
Reluctance to exercise. Clear nasal discharge. Restlessness during the night. Wretching, vomiting and regurgitation.
And collapsing. These signs are made worse in the hot weather and if an animal is overweight or overexercised. Animals with BOAS can have a poor quality of life as a result of these clinical signs.
Their condition can fluctuate and sadly lead to death in some cases. It is therefore recommended that BOAS is treated as early as reasonably possible. To diagnose BOAS, our specialist soft tissue veterinary surgeons first perform a physical examination. The next step is to inspect the patient's airway under general anesthesia. Assess the severity of the obstruction and decide what treatment is required.
X-rays of the chest are also usually taken as animals with Boas are susceptible to developing other conditions like pneumonia. For most pets, surgery is the recommended treatment. To minimize the risk to the patient, it is preferable to perform the airway inspection and surgery during the same anesthetic.
Surgery involves shortening the soft palate at the back of the mouth to remove the obstruction from the airway, widening the nostrils to enable your pet to take in more air with each breath, and sometimes trimming the laryngeal saccules to further reduce the obstruction. Following surgery, your pet will need to rest at home for 7 to 10 days to allow the swelling to go down. The end Short walks for toileting purposes only are advised during this recovery period. The stitches used in surgery will dissolve by themselves. Nonetheless, it is recommended that you visit your vet for a checkup seven to ten days after the surgery.
Following this checkup and further to any guidance given by your vet, your pet will be able to resume their usual activities. whilst being able to breathe more freely. It's important to use a harness when walking your dog and to always avoid exercise during the hot periods of the day. Whilst some animals who undergo surgery for Boas may still make snoring or grunting noises, their quality of life would have been greatly improved.
If you have any questions about your dog or cat, please talk to your vet. Dogs. And now, if you're squeamish, look away, but this is... A common surgery that we do in veterinary practice, especially in specialty, we get a lot of referral to do this with our specialty surgeons. This is just two of the procedures that we commonly do in BOAS, one being the shortening of the soft palate and the opening of the nares.
But there are, depending on the issues with the animal, there are more or less. procedures that are all done to assist these animals breathing. There's not much we can do about their tongue being way too big for their size but we can help them with their elongated soft palate and we can open up their nostrils.
So here you can see it's this patient sucking their soft palate into the trachea. And now you're watching the vets extrude that flap of soft palate and they're excising it. And here they're using electrocautery to minimize any blood loss. So now you can see breathing much more freely and not sucking that soft palate into the trachea. Now we're getting our nose job done.
So if you have a look at the right nostril, you can see it's basically occluding that nostril. And we open up the stenotic nares. So if we look to the welfare assessment framework, so we all know the five freedoms and five domains, right?
Freedom from hunger and thirst. More often than not, these patients have wonderful owners who absolutely give them adequate nutrition and water. That's very rarely an issue for these guys. However, one issue we do see with...
say um hiatal hernia um is these these dogs that either can't keep food down or have issues um issues getting adequate uh nutrition because of um their anatomical um congenital issues freedom from discomfort arguably no right these some of these dogs um are not free from discomfort they're bred not to be free from discomfort in terms of their airways in terms of their skeletal formation in terms of their gastrointestinal formation which leads on to freedom from pain injury and disease are we breeding these dogs with that freedom arguably no right we are breeding dogs with known disease that affects you their quality of life. And then we're kind of playing catch up once they're born to provide relief for the issues associated with that. Then we've got freedom to express normal behavior.
So also arguably we can't do that with these dogs. A lot of these dogs can't breathe on their own adequately. They require surgical intervention to be able to breathe. A lot of these dogs can't reproduce on their own.
So they need interventions to either be mated or cesareans to birth. And a lot of them are very, very exercise intolerant. They'd probably be a lot more active given the opportunity and a better airway. But they just can't. They are unable to tolerate exercise.
And freedom from fear and distress. So. Um, also arguably no. When these patients present in respiratory crisis, um, they're terrified.
They can't breathe. They don't know why they can't breathe. Um, they need interventions, um, to get a patent airway. Um, if they've given themselves a really good dose of hypothermia, then they often need lots of other invasive treatment to survive.
Um, so day to day, um, respiratory distress um i guess uh you know a lot of a lot of owners see the breed standard as respiratory distress, but it's not normal. So it might be common in that breed, but the respiratory distress that they're essentially suffering from, from being brachycephalic is not normal. It's distressing to them.
They don't understand why, you know, they don't know that they're sucking their soft palate into their trachea, which is occluding their airway. They don't. they don't have understanding of why it's happening to them. All they know is I'm terrified, I can't breathe properly. And it kind of goes onto this feedback loop.
They just get more and more stressed and more and more obstructed. And, you know, they're very distressed when they present like that. So did you want to turn on your microphone, Sam? And did you want to brainstorm with me? What could we do to improve?
this breed welfare so you know we're always going to have them right people love these little squishy face friends i love them they're adorable um but we've kind of let them down with our breed standards so what kind of things could we do to better their welfare um could you just modify the breed standard to move away from those like such like keep the breed appearance but just like move away from such extremes, I guess, like how you were saying it used to be in like the 1800s? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that would be the ideal. And I guess that's what RSPCA and the AVA are really moving towards is away from these extreme accentuated features and still allowing for, you know, a bit of a squishy face, but just a much more functional one, because we want these dogs to be able to breathe without surgery, right? So definitely changing the breed standard would benefit the welfare of these dogs overwhelmingly.
Can you think of anything else? Is the surgery itself like a good improvement or would you consider that to be not something good to do? So they definitely need it. And overwhelmingly, their quality of life is far greater once they have it.
And I guess until the breed standard or the breeding catches up to the point where these dogs don't have such funky anatomy that they're not really that functional, if we're moving towards more healthy breed standards and we're breeding dogs that are anatomically functional, that can breathe on their own, that can reproduce on their own, then we'll be less needed in the veterinary arena for these. invasive procedures to to help them exist right um so arguably the the the i guess the vet association um we see a huge amount of these patients and you would think um or i guess you know the public might think we like making money so of course we would be all for it but that's just not the case at all um these dogs really suffer and uh and They're kind of born into a body of suffering in extreme cases, not all cases, but in extreme cases. And they're lovely dogs.
And none of us get into this industry to see our patients suffer, right? So we would love to see this breed standard changed for the betterment of the breed. The other thing that is becoming more commonplace, I suppose, is DNA testing, which is great. Because it does give breeders the opportunity to breed away from known genetic disease, but it doesn't encourage them to breed away from accentuated features that are causing issues with the anatomy and like normal body functions.
So I think the key would be to change the breed standard. The other thing I guess we could do is. which is probably quite controversial and debatable, especially amongst breeders. But should we really be artificially inseminating animals that can't breed on their own?
Should we reconsider that? You know, it's probably it's probably a contentious issue because to get to a good breed standard, we probably would have to. But, you know, as veterinarians and in the veterinary industry, we're contributing to that. So.
you know maybe there needs to be um stricter guidelines around that um what else could we do What about just handling like how you said, like maybe the owner has to be aware that they can't be like exercise real hard or like the heat thing, like the owner has to make sure they're like in a comfortable temperature and all that. Absolutely. So completely agree with you.
And what I think would be really beneficial to these dogs, because the reality is they're adorable, right? People are always going to want them. People are always going to buy them. But if owners at the point of purchase of these animals are.
given good information about how to manage these dogs with this particular confirmation, we're likely to see a lot less presentations to the vet when they've cooked themselves in summer, you know. But that would also mean that breeders have to accept that these are known issues in these dogs, which, you know, it's a contentious space. A lot of breeders don't want to consider that they're breeding typically unhealthy animals right so um but for the benefit of the the the dogs that they're breeding and for the benefit of the owners that are you know they're forking out a lot of money to buy these dogs in the first in the first place and then um they're forking out a lot of money throughout the dog's rest of the dog's life so that this dog can function normally if these owners are kind of given the heads up at the point of purchase, that they have a dog that has minimal exercise requirements, that are aware of brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome and how that presents and what that might mean for their dog.
You might get people turned off getting these dogs, but the people who go ahead and purchase these dogs are going to be able to manage that animal so much better. And they're not going to be presenting in crisis. you would hope anyway that they're not going to be presenting in crisis so I think that I think that that's they would be all great changes to be made obviously change takes time and as you see from the breed crisis video there's there's it's not looked on necessarily favorably with breed standards changing it it all takes time but it is possible the UK's done it I know that there's certain breed standards of other breeds in America that have actually allowed lineage from another breed to try and change, I guess, the genetic diversity and heritable condition of the breed because there's just not really any other option.
And they obviously want the betterment of the breed, which is really what breeding is all about. And that's a good. visual there of stenotic nares and then post-surgery you can see how much um you can see how obstructed they are before when they've got stenotic nares and how much airflow um airflow is uh obstructed so we've talked about artificial insemination we've talked about known health problems and surgical interventions required for these dogs to do basic normal bodily functions um i guess You know, what are your thoughts on that? What are your thoughts on how we have these breeds and the interventions required so that they're able to do normal things like breathing? Are you asking my personal opinion?
Yeah, yeah. What are your thoughts? Should we be, I guess, you know, it's a debatable subject. What are your thoughts on, I guess, us having these breeds?
working in vet, I guess, we're stewards of their wellness, you know, so it's tricky, but, you know, it's good to hear different opinions and see things from different perspectives. Yes, this isn't something I have a lot of experience with or have seen really, but from your presentation, obviously, it's like, seems like a problem, but I wouldn't, I also have from personal experience a lot of dogs that are like really crossbred yep I find that they have a lot of trouble like finding good homes and they just end up homeless or as strays or going home to home so I don't think you want to go to like obviously we want to change those extremities but I wouldn't think you'd want to go too much cross breeding either. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And, and, um, it might, it might not even necessarily be, um, introducing another breed, but, um, there are certainly I've seen it's a, it's a real spectrum when you look at these brachycephalic breeds on, um, I guess their functionality and I've met plenty of breeders that really do try and breed for function. Um, There's great breeders out there, no disputing that. They really care about their dogs and want to do the best for their dogs and they are breeding dogs towards what I would consider a more functional standard that has better welfare outcomes for the animal.
And then you get, you know, all the way on the other end of the spectrum, really, really poorly conformed dogs. And it's heartbreaking for the owners because they quite often don't know what they're buying before they go to buy these dogs. And it can be devastating and it can cost a lot of money. I've seen a British bulldog puppy that was presented into emergency and respiratory distress basically straight off the plane.
It was flown from interstate and it never left the hospital. These owners spent. tens of thousands of dollars on this beautiful little gorgeous looking but very non-functional bulldog that they never took home so you know it's just that shouldn't happen breeding should never happen like that and it's devastating for us to see patients brought in like that for something as simple as being able to breathe appropriately So until there's some substantial change, I suppose, towards not having these really exaggerated features and issues that are associated with that, as people in the veterinary industry, it's our duty to assist them with surgical interventions, I suppose, so that they can breathe and do normal things and have a decent quality of life.
thankfully a lot of the interventions we can provide do really make a huge difference for these animals um but really what we want is for them to not need us like that um but in the meantime we're you know we're gonna we're gonna take care of our squishy face friends so what questions do you have um i just not really a question but more a discussion so my um more of my experience is around livestock yeah and we use artificial I'd like to talk about artificial insemination with them because it's used a lot and it can actually be very good for the cow because they can get pinched nerves and all those sorts of things from the bull yeah and then obviously you can introduce a lot of different like you might have like an angus bull and a frisian bull and blah blah blah so just wondering if what that um like what's the view on that in like more of the livestock world sort of thing Um, I honestly don't have a huge amount of experience with livestock, but I absolutely see the benefits in AI. I'm not anti-AI. I think it's a great way to maintain genetic diversity of stock, whether it's livestock or breeding dog stock or whatever.
I think that it's a great tool that breeders have access, breeders of any species have access to where possible. um but i do feel it probably should be a bit more regulated in terms of breeding brachycephalics um and we should be working towards those breed standards that are for the benefit of the patient i suppose the other thing too is that we you can monitor exactly when that cow is in heat and do your herd and make sure everyone's you know pregnant at the right time and all those sorts of things yeah i guess that's more of live stuff yeah yeah yeah And it does happen with dog breeding as well. Cats, they're a little bit more, I guess, pliable with their ovulation, but it certainly happens in all the breeding of all species, including dogs and cows and that sort of thing. So there's absolutely benefits to artificial insemination. And the other thing is...
And... More relating it to something that I know too is a bit more about a poultry where you have, you know, your peaking ducks and rowan ducks, which are bred to be like incredibly heavy. Yeah. Which is like you say, where they have a very short life because they grow so quickly and so big.
Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, people don't want to change those standards at all. Because basically, when you look at the ducks, they just want the biggest, you know, heaviest one they can find. Yeah.
Yeah. And, you know, this breed standard, it's, you know, it's not species specific. There's a lot of issues with breed standards throughout all species that we see, but just with varying issues of ethical dilemmas.
Right. So obviously, in an ideal world, we'd all be working towards the betterment of any breed of any species. But we kind of have to work with what we have and work with the people who are kind of breeding these animals. to hopefully have better welfare outcomes long term. But change doesn't happen quickly.
Yeah. Now, okay. Thank you.
No worries. I hope that you enjoyed today's presentation. And I hope to see you at some more lectures and tutorials coming up.
Thank you so much for joining me today, Sam. See ya!