Pedigree Pulls Out Of Crufts, Now it’s Over to You BBC
A 44-year relationship came to a very public end yesterday as Pedigree announced it would no longer be sponsoring Crufts dog show, the flagship event in the dog show calendar.
Pedigree released a very brief statement explaining its decision but it has done nothing to dampen speculation in the media today that the decision is linked with the highly negative publicity surrounding Crufts following the explosive Pedigree Dogs Exposed documentary.
Some reports have claimed the sponsorship to be worth in the region of £1.5m although this information is not confirmed.
So where does this leave Crufts and more interestingly, will this move be a precursor to a decision the BBC has yet to reach on whether or not to continue broadcasting the event?
The BBC and the KC’s relationship has shown signs of great strain ever since the broadcast of Pedigree Dogs Exposed. The KC’s secretary Caroline Kiso went as far as to say the BBC’s position was ‘untenable’ with regard to their ongoing coverage of the UK’s largest dog show.
The BBC is currently reviewing its position and has appointed a panel of advisors to assist them in wading through the information and concerns raised on the back of the controversial documentary. However, K9 Magazine has asked the BBC to provide names and credentials for those serving on this panel and has been met with a wall of silence from the corporation.
The Kennel Club recently announced it was putting together a full review of every single breed on its books. This is good news. What is more concerning though is the timescales stated for completion.
This ‘full review’ is scheduled to be complete by February of 2009 (one month before Crufts). K9 Magazine has spoken to a number of canine experts in the field of genetics and veterinary health and there is a great concern that the timeframe to complete this review is highly unrealistic if the aim is to provide a genuinely comprehensive route forward to correcting some of the inherent problems within some of the most disease ridden pedigree breeds.
Further to the review of breeds, the KC has joined forces with the Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest dog charity on what is described as a ‘dog breeding review’.
This week the two leading dog organisations in the UK, the welfare charity Dogs Trust and the Kennel Club announced that they will be calling for Government support for an independent review into the registration, breeding and showing of dogs to ensure their long term health and welfare.
The review will be set up and funded by the Dogs Trust and the Kennel Club since the priority of both organisations is to promote and support the care, welfare and breeding of healthy dogs.
Said Clarissa Baldwin, Chief Executive, Dogs Trust: “We believe an independent review is essential in coordinating the large body of research and evidence and to advise on workable, timely recommendations for ensuring the future good health and welfare of all dogs.”
Said Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club Secretary: “Work is already underway to improve the health of pedigree dogs. An independent review will assist us in meeting our objective, which is to improve the welfare, health and general well being of all dogs, throughout every stage of their lives. We hope the Government can support us”.
This is a welcome move. However it, again, does not come without a wider concern.
The RSPCA has commissioned an independent review of the science involved in the breeding of dogs. This was announced before the Kennel Club and Dogs Trust joined forces with their own venture. Which leaves some questions as to whether or not two seperate reviews that will undoubtedly be overlapping on similar issues, funded on both sides by charity money, are needed?
The RSPCA’s commissioned review has not received the wider media coverage as that of the Kennel Club and Dogs Trust, being as it was announced at a time when the Pedigree Dogs Exposed furore was at its peak.
This means many dog owners are only aware of the review set up and funded by the Kennel Club and Dogs Trust.
Will both reviews reach similar conclusions? They should, shouldn’t they? And if they do, then why the need for two reviews? And if they somehow manage to reach different conclusions then where does that leave the world of dogs? Back in a stalemate, no doubt.It is our understanding that the RSPCA were not consulted before the KC and Dogs Trust announced their review with regard to checking whether or not money was going to be spent on similar studies.
It also absolutely must be queried as to why the Dogs Trust needs to put its money in to this particular scheme alongside the Kennel Club if the RSPCA have already funded an independent report looking in to this issue. Let’s be 100% realistic and honest about what could happen here:
Scenario 1) The RSPCA commissioned report comes back and is scathing about the state of breeding and radical in its calls for urgent reform.
Will this report be accepted and acknowledged if…
Scenario 2) The KC/Dogs Trust joint funded report comes back and is less scathing and less radical in its calls for reform.
?
It goes without saying that we can’t pre-judge the outcome of either report. But we absolutely can and indeed should speculate about why we need two ‘rival’ reports conducted in the same time period when, hypothetically, they could lead to a stalemate and further continuation of disagreements on the right route forward to tackle the serious issues that are affecting dogs right now.
If it so transpires that a report part funded and set up by the Kennel Club ends up being less scathing than the RSPCA’s independent review, it will lead to open accusations of ‘well they would say that wouldn’t they?’. It it so transpires that a report funded by the RSPCA ends up being scathing toward the pedigree dog breeding world, it will lead to accusations of ‘well they would say that wouldn’t they?’ – let’s be honest, we should be able to see it coming.
So that leaves us with the BBC. This is where they stand at the time of writing:
Following the transmission of Pedigree Dogs Exposed on BBC One on 19 August 2008, the BBC is seeking reassurance, on behalf of its viewers, that the objectives, practices and organisation of the breed competitions at Crufts have as a first priority the health and welfare of all dogs taking part in the competition.
The BBC has decided to appoint a small advisory panel to advise the BBC on what measures The Kennel Club should be expected to take now and commit to in the future.
The panel will be asked to consider the issues that have been raised about the health and welfare of dogs taking part in the breed competitions at Crufts. The views of The Kennel Club and any other bodies or experts the panel wish to consult will be taken in to account.
The panel will be asked to give the BBC their advice quickly to enable the BBC to discuss the issues with The Kennel Club before planning begins for coverage of Crufts 2009.
So a decision needs to be reached ‘quickly’. It’s unrealistic in the extreme to expect the problems that are present in the world of competitive dog breeding to have been ‘fixed’ or even addressed by March of next year. It is fantastic, welcome, brilliant news that reviews are now ongoing but we must guard against vested interests leading to a virtual stalemate or general disagreements on the way forward. So the BBC is extremely important in this entire debate.
If the BBC decides to continue with its plans to broadcast Crufts 2009 it will be pointing a lens at an event which is surrounded by controversy and which has only just begun to see the sort of in-depth, hard hitting reforms that have been needed for many, many years prior to the BBC’s own Pedigree Dogs Exposed documentary bringing them to wider public attention. It will take time to work through these problems, no doubt about it. So the question must be asked, if the BBC decides to go ahead and continue to spend licence fee payer’s money on broadcasting Crufts, will it be one of the most hypocritical brodcasting decisions ever made?
How, on the one hand, can the publicly funded organisation spend our licence fee on a documentary as insightful and informative as Pedigree Dogs Exposed, highlighting some truly horrendous problems affecting pedigree dogs – reducing many viewers to tears – and which also included the forthright opinions of the RSCPA’s chief vet, Mark Evans, which absolutely, unequivocably laid much of the blame for said problems at the door of competitive dog showing, and then proceed to spend more licence fee on beaming back pictures from the NEC in March as if nothing has happened? Sure, they may feel like they can pay lip service to the problems. Sure, they may feel like they can trot out experts to explain some of the problems in the dog world and to ‘reassure’ the viewing public that the problems are being addressed. But how can they do that? As it stands today all we’ve done is (finally) put our arms up and said ‘OK, we DO have a BIG problem and we have got to start to find a solution’. Let’s not miss sight of the fact that we still haven’t HEARD this solution much less seen it put into place.
So really, it’s very simple. Accepting that your ‘accounts are in a mess’ is only the first step. Being able to say ‘our accounts are now sorted and our accounting practices are now much more robust, here – have a look for yourself and bring your auditors in if you would like’ is when we can really start to pat backs and clink glasses in celebration. And we are a way away from that point as we stand today – this is why the RSPCA, the Dogs Trust and the NDWA have withdrawn from Crufts. And the speculation about why the event has suddently lost its principle sponsor has lead to even more negative coverage for the Kennel Club.
So the BBC has an easy decision to make. Crufts can come back to publicly funded TV as and when licence fee payers have seen evidence that the problems have been fully addressed and progress is fully on track.
The BBC can NOT, in good faith, use our licence fee to broadcast a ‘work in progress’ when the problems it highlighted on its own channel are so severe and still very much present. It’s not on. The same is true of those companies who attend Crufts and sponsors who want to exploit the opening created by Pedigree’s withdrawal in an effort to sell more product. These companies and brands will have to accept that they are going to have their animal welfare interests questioned by the public until such a time that the competitive dog world is given a clean bill of health.
The reward for Crufts and the Kennel Club and the show world in general should be when the BBC and its advisors feel that Crufts is fit to be promoted to the public, using public money once again. That will be the time when we can all happily celebrate that the problems are in hand and reform has HAPPENED and is not merely being discussed. Make no mistake, accepting that change needs to happen and it needs to be BIG is great. But accepting it and doing it are not one and the same. We don’t reward people for simply admitting their errors, we reward them when they prove to us that they have put in to practice the measures to show us that they won’t be repeating the same mistakes again.
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I am surprised to see Ronnie Irving, Jeff Sampson and Caroline Kisko still in post after this. Perhaps they could be forgiven their naivity in the way they dealt with the documentary. Perhaps they genuinely believed that the KC was doing all it could in terms of pedigree dog health and welfare and therefore such a painstakingly researched film would not pose any threat to them and the KC breed system. Perhaps it is also forgiveable that in the aftermath of the broadcast they resorted to a clumsy scattergun approach of “damage limitation” (failing in that too). But in most commercial enterprises to be exposed as an organisation that in actual fact has not been delivering on what it has set out to deliver i.e. the general improvement of all dogs, to allow such a PR disaster to befall you, and to compound that by the loss of serious commercial sponsorship that probably imparts irrevocable damage to your flagship brand, in most enterprises this would result in resignations at the most senior level.
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Where are all the posters now who previously rubished the RSPCA, Dogs Trust and NDWA for pulling out, stating that it was those organisations which would suffer?
There’s a bit of a silence now isn’t there? I don’t think Pedigree will suffer either financially or credibly!
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DavetheDog
Nice post, true about the deafening silence, I note that elsewhere on this site, the dog wardens got a lot of flak in comparison to the RSPCA who led the exodus!
Interesting to read of the latest positioning of the old guard (KC & DT), the nearest comparison I can think of was when East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) gained independence from Pakistan.
the senior officers from both sides were chatting and reminiscing about their joint training at a military academy whilst people were still being killed.
What I am getting at is that the big cheeses at both the KC and the DT can continue attending the same drinks parties without worrying about what their troops on the ground think or feel.
RSPCA can on occasion be well out of order, but respect to them for maintaining their stand on this one.
Wonder how long it is going to be before we read of the DT reconsidering and attending Crufts 2009.
Maybe that decision has already been made?
Also, well done to NDWA for maintaining it’s stance.
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Dave / Ryan If you had done your homework you would know that Pedigree (Mars) also own Royal Canin, James Welbeloved and Nutro dog foods so the company are hardly withdrawing from Crufts. Could it have something to do with the fact that in August Pedigree pulled out of Championship Dog Shows as part of its ‘business review’ and sacked all its Breeder Reps therefore they would have no one to man the stand without hiring people without the appropriate knowledge to man it. This was done before the Pedigree Dogs Exposed programme incidentally.
Dave wrote
“Where are all the posters now who previously rubished the RSPCA, Dogs Trust and NDWA for pulling out, stating that it was those organisations which would suffer?”
more importantly where are all the posters who were rubishing the KC?
Gnasher the NDWA didn’t withdraw from Crufts due to the Pedigree Programme they withdrew due to costs (£8,000), lack of and an overstretched Committee and most importantly because their main man Cuthbert Jackson who was a Life Member of the NDWA has resigned. He was the guy every year with the wonderful puppet theatre that drew in the crowds, no Cuthbert = no stand. The Programme was the excuse they needed not to attend.
I think the BBC are probably awaiting the result of the fromal complaint that the KC has made to the BBC about the programme before commenting further as are probably the KC who have both ITV and Sky waiting in the wings to cover Crufts.
It would appear Ryan that whatever the KC do you are not satisfied. They are damned if the do and damned if they don’t, even Beverley Cuddy has chosen to call a ceasefire at the moment, and that was something I never thought I would live to see.
It is the vast majority of dog owners at Crufts who are the responsible people who do do the health tests on their animals and breed responsibly. The puppy farmers and pet breeders are the ones who don’t and yes they do register their puppies with the KC but certainly in the main would never go to Crufts.
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Thanks for your reply moppetswood, how come you appear to know so much about the NDWA, are you involved in the dog control profession or do you know somebody who is?
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Yes I am a Dog Warden and have been for 17 years, I am also a member of the NDWA and attended the recent AGM.
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Moppetswood
Thanks for your reply, it clears things up a bit now that I am aware that your a dog warden and therfore know what is going on with the NDWA.
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