Free Diary of a Dog-walker by Edward Stourton Page B

evidence about the impact of pedigree breeding. The distressing images of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels in fitting spasms, because their skulls were too small for their brains, will remain with me for ever.
    Sir Patrick has written up his findings with luminous clarity, and I would recommend the report to any dog-owner: you will discover, for example, that humans have been taking pleasure in the company of dogs for at least sixteen thousand years. But Sir Patrick is a scientist, and not a philosopher: he left some uncomfortable ethical questions unanswered.
    Kudu has taken to producing a growl when the wonderful dog-walker who looks after him during busy days clips on his lead. It is a duty growl, really, as if he feels obliged to protest about leaving his house with someone other than his owners. When I witnessed it on Tuesday, I apologized to the dog-walker. ‘He is,’ she demurred, ‘the least aggressive dog I haveever known. You should breed from him. He is very handsome.’
    Breeding from Kudu so that his kindness is passed down to future generations seems a good thing to do. Breeding from him for the sake of perpetuating that good-looking profile seems frivolous and wrong. But is there, in ethical terms, any difference between the two? And what separates either of these things from the breeder who wants his Cavalier King Charles to have a small head to win prizes?
    The simple answer is to distinguish between dogs bred for a practical purpose, and those bred for show.
    Kudu is designed for rough shooting. Springers are so-named not because of their Zebedee-like enthusiasm for life, but because they ‘spring’ birds, putting them up for the guns by snouting around in the bushes. If you want a dog to herd sheep (Collies, for example) or retrieve game (Labradors, and Kudu if he does not get distracted by intriguing smells
en passant
), or to hunt beasts that lurk in burrows (Dachshunds), you need it to be healthy, so genetic engineering in these breeds is likely to promote traits that are in the interests of dog welfare.
    If, on the other hand, you want a dog simply as a fashion accessory, you will encourage breeding practices that are almost certainly damaging to yourdog’s welfare. ‘It seems scarcely credible,’ Sir Patrick writes, ‘that one of the tiny toy breeds, weighing two kilos or less and fitting inside a woman’s handbag, could be derived from a wolf.’
    Sir Patrick is very tactful, and his affection for dogs is transparent. But the logic of what he says is that toy dogs are as much of an abomination as fighting-dogs and (gulp) should be controlled like Pit Bulls. Oh dear. Such complexities are a world away from the simple moral universe of that Afghan soldier who killed Sandy just because he wanted to.
    Why dogs are streets ahead of their owners
    6 February 2010
    There is nothing more humiliating than a public display of doggy disobedience.
    When Kudu is launched from a car directly into a green space he is as biddable as can be: no matter how far he roams, he always returns if called. But when he is walked along a street he is an incorrigible puller on the lead. I can just about hold him, but younger, lighter family members almost hit take-off speed as they are dragged in his wake.
    I first put down this panting eagerness to the attractions of the scruffy square of grass where hetakes his afternoon turn – it is a gritty, urban dog haven, and the daily offering of olfactory messages is no doubt varied and enticing. But I am now convinced there is a more complicated dynamic at work: these outings are a test of which of us is in charge.
    I am training him into road-sense (essential for a city dog), so on the return journey I leave him off the lead and try to walk him to heel. Fat chance. Not once have I persuaded him to walk behind me. He will, if I repeat, ‘Stay with me,’ in increasingly growly tones, keep to the pavement, and he has got the point