After all these years, it turns out that your beloved pooch may be “unhealthy,” so much so that his breed has to be banned. This dire news comes from the far-left government of the United Kingdom, where beagles, dachshunds, mastiffs, great danes, boxers, and saint bernards may soon be a thing of the past. All in all, the government is considering banning no fewer than sixty-seven dog breeds, with the stated reason being animal health. This is so implausible, however, that it cries out for another explanation, and there is an obvious one that doesn’t bode well for Britain’s future as a free society.
The UK’s Daily Mail reported Thursday that this initiative comes from the top: “Sixty-seven dog breeds could be banned in Britain if new breeding guidelines set by parliament become mandatory, campaigners have warned.” This is because “the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) for animal welfare has launched a new tool to determine if a dog is healthy.”
Why was a new tool to determine if a dog is healthy needed now, to the extent that the British parliament has a group devoted to studying this question? Is Britain suffering a plague of unhealthy dogs? Are these legions of unhealthy dogs infecting their owners with diseases of some kind?
None of that seems to be the case; on the contrary, this sudden parliamentary fascination with canine health seems to be entirely a bolt from the blue, and the parliamentary group’s criteria for what constitutes sufficient dog health look just as arbitrary: “The cross-party committee has developed a 10-point checklist of extreme physical characteristics which can make for a poorly pooch. They include mottled colouration, excessive skin folds, bulging outward-turning eyes, drooping eyelids, under or overbite and a muzzle that interrupts breathing.”
The upshot of this is that numerous breeds of dog that are perfectly healthy but which have a coloration or skin folds or eyes to which parliament objects may end up being banned. And parliament means business: “The assessment – which is currently voluntary but expected to become law within five years – aims to drive out breeds with these sorts of exaggerated attributes.”
The claim is that this is all about caring for the poor dears, just as Canada’s euthanasia program is supposed to be all about alleviating pain and suffering. Britain’s anti-dog push “comes after studies have shown animals of these varieties can sometimes suffer pain, discomfort and frustration from birth.” However, “critics have cautioned the new criteria will see some 67 of the most popular types of dog in the UK automatically dubbed unhealthy.” These include “widely adored breeds like dachshunds, shih tzus and Scottish terriers – and even the late Queen’s beloved Welsh corgis.”
Given that these claims about the health of well-known and beloved dog breeds are so implausible, what else could be going on here? Well, Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) recently landed himself in hot water when he posted this on X: “If they force us to choose, the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.” Could it be that Muslims in Britain are forcing exactly this choice, or that Britain’s far-left Labour government is trying to ensure that the country’s growing and restive Muslim population continues to vote for Labour en masse?
Hellbound and Down 