Thousands of dogs from around the globe will travel to New York for the 150th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show—a spectacle that rewards deformities and fuels an overpopulation crisis that costs millions of dogs the chance to ever know a family.

For a century and a half, Westminster has glorified exaggerated features that leave dogs struggling to breathe, walk and live without pain. Judges don’t ask if a bulldog can breathe comfortably or if a dachshund can climb stairs without risking paralysis. They care about an appearance that matches the American Kennel Club’s (AKC) “standard,” signifying that a dog’s bloodline is “pure” enough to satisfy humans’ arbitrary preferences.

That selfish desire prioritizes physical deformities over dogs’ health and happiness. Bulldogs and pugs’ flat faces and distorted airways often cause brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome, leaving them struggling just to breathe. Dachshunds’ elongated spines put them at risk of intervertebral disc disease, leading to pain, nerve damage and paralysis. German shepherds’ sloped backs can cause hip and elbow dysplasia. Cavalier King Charles spaniels’ abnormally small skulls crowd the brain, leading to syringomyelia—a painful condition in which fluid-filled cavities form within the spinal cord near the brain. Shar-Peis’ deep wrinkles trap bacteria, leading to oozing infections. Even seemingly robust breeds like Labradors and golden retrievers often die young from cancer. The list goes on, highlighting how such “standards” promote suffering instead of sound health.

Breeders take the obsession with appearances even further by cropping dogs’ ears and docking their tails, intense mutilations that involve cutting away part of the ear flap to force the ears to stand upright and amputating part of the tail.

The American Veterinary Medical Association opposes these procedures when done solely for cosmetic reasons and urges their removal from breed standards, yet they remain entrenched in the dog-show world. Literature suggests that the AKC recognizes 20 breeds with cropped ears and 62 with docked tails—additional proof that aesthetics, not animal welfare, dominate the show ring.

Meanwhile, the country is in crisis, with millions of homeless animals in shelters or struggling to survive on the streets.

When a dog is crowned “Best in Show,” people rush to purchase puppies who look like the winner, even though every intentionally bred litter guarantees that healthy, loving, adoptable dogs will lose their chance at a home.

Puppy mills are all too happy to meet the demand. These commercial breeding warehouses churn out dogs by the thousands, with little concern for their welfare, cramming mother dogs into filthy cages, denying them veterinary care and companionship and breeding them repeatedly until their exhausted bodies wear out—at which point they auction them off or kill them.

Puppies at such places endure severe neglect, leading to rampant diseases, painful injuries and lasting psychological trauma from early separation and lack of socialization. And when these vulnerable animals are just weeks old, breeders ship them to pet stores or sell them online through polished ads that conceal the cruelty.

Shelters face the aftermath months later, when owners surrender those same dogs because they require more time, training and medical care than expected. One in four dogs in shelters is a purebred—proof that a pedigree doesn’t mean much for most dogs.

Westminster has had countless opportunities to evolve, yet it clings to an outdated obsession with aesthetics, ignoring brachycephalic breeds that can barely breathe and dogs who are dying from a lack of homes.

The solution is clear: We must stop buying dogs. As long as profit drives the sale, showing and breeding of animals, suffering will persist. If you have the time, money, patience and stability to care for an animal for life, adopt one (or two) from a shelter. Let’s celebrate dogs for who they are, not how they look—no pedigree required.

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Melissa Rae Sanger is a licensed veterinary technician and a senior writer for the PETA Foundation, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510; www.PETA.org.

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