1 Jul 2022
Since 2020 the number of clinics has increased ten-fold as the demand for breeds such as pugs and French bulldogs has soared – despite the wealth of evidence highlighting the many health problems suffered by these breeds.
James Westgate
Job TitleThe veterinary profession must “take responsibility” for the part it has played in the huge rise in the number of canine fertility clinics across the UK.
According to former BVA president Daniella Dos Santos, years of negative messaging about brachycephalic dogs, coupled with a degree of “snobbery”, has forced many breeders to turn their backs on vet practices and seek the services of fertility clinics.
Since 2020 the number of clinics has increased ten-fold as the demand for breeds such as pugs and French bulldogs has soared, despite the wealth of evidence highlighting the many health problems suffered by these breeds.
Speaking as part of the “Canine culture wars: who’s to blame for the rise in canine fertility clinics?” debate at BVA Live (23 to 24 June), Dr Dos Santos urged the profession to help tackle the problem by coming off its “soapbox” and changing the way it engages with brachycephalic owners and breeders.
She said: “I feel that as a profession we all need to take some responsibility for this, and we need to change our approach and the way we express ourselves when it comes to brachycephalic breeds.
“Over the years the profession has generated a wealth of evidence that there are health issues with these breeds and that they do suffer.
“For us, as an evidence-based profession, this is what we wanted to see; something that we could go out there with and point to the owners and breeders, and say ‘this is the problem and this is how we can show you there is an issue’.”
She added: “We did that over the years; there has been a huge focus on education about these breeds, welfare groups, veterinary groups and charities – I have also spoken about these issues on national TV.
“There has been policy after policy; warning after warning – everyone knows these brachycephalic dogs have the potential to suffer, and yet this keeps happening; the numbers just keep going up.
“So, what are we missing when we are standing on our education soapbox, shouting about how bad these dogs are?
“The problem is we are ignoring other bits of evidence because this is not an animal problem – this is absolutely a people problem.”
By focusing solely on the many health problems suffered by brachycephalic breeds and failing to recognise why they are so popular, Dr Dos Santos said the veterinary profession has left many owners and breeders feeling “attacked” and “alienated”.
She added: “The fertility clinics have opened to fill the gap in the market that we do not serve; that we fail to engage with. Our approach has clearly not worked – the demand for these dogs will remain high for the foreseeable future, however much we shout about it.
“In my opinion, there has also been a degree of breeder snobbery in the profession – many of us just see breeders as wanting to make a quick buck, and of course people are going to make money from breeding. But why don’t we have the same thoughts about breeders of spaniels or Labradors as we do about brachycephalic breeders?”
Dr Dos Santos continued: “Generalising as a profession has meant that we have failed to adequately engage in small animal fertility work; we actively advise the neutering of dogs and this is the right decision for many, many dogs. But as a routine, conversations with new dog owners often follow the same pattern of ‘When are you going to neuter your dog?’, and not whether or not they intend to breed.
“We need to re-evaluate our collective and individual messaging around brachycephalics. We need to acknowledge why people love these dogs and use that as a hook as to why they should choose good breeders who avoid extremes of conformation. We need to stop our automatic judgement of these people – both owners and breeders.”
Concerns around the rise of canine fertility clinics centre on the lack of regulation, which allows some to skirt around existing legislation, while there are also serious concerns regarding criminal involvement in certain parts of the sector.
Even when criminal involvement is suspected, however, authorities often face big challenges bringing prosecutions under the current legislation, as a Scottish SPCA inspector explained during the debate.
He said: “In some cases, we have found people running these services from the back of a van, garden sheds and living rooms, and some of these clinics are carrying out illegal practices and processes, such as the injecting of progesterone.
“We also have good intelligence that caesarean sections are also being carried out by people who are not qualified veterinary surgeons. The most likely piece of legislation we would use to prosecute these cases would be the Veterinary Surgeons Act, but it is not always suitable for us to use to prosecute in this day and age.
“We would also use section 19 of the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act relating to causing unnecessary suffering, but to prove unnecessary suffering can be very difficult – especially as the clients of some of these clinics may be concerned about the threat of violence and they will often not give us a statement.”
BVA junior vice-president Malcolm Morley added: “This is a human problem where we are dealing with criminality, illegal procedures, things that skirt around legislation, social media, money and people’s love for animals – this is a really complex problem.”
