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The embattled Kennel Club has come under fire from the ECMA (Electric Collar Manufacturers Association) who have accused the UK’s primary breed registration club of depriving “hundreds of thousand of pet owners and their pets of the safety”.

In retort, the Kennel Club have accused the ECMA of vested interests and trying to ‘muddying the waters’ in the wake of the Kennel Club’s recent PR disaster, the documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed.

To the editor:

Kennel Club – Deformed skeletons in the closet?

I felt compelled to write following BBC One’s shocking documentary, Pedigree Dogs Exposed, which will no doubt have been seen by many of your readers.

The disturbing programme, which highlighted the suffering of many dogs bred purely for breeding and showing, showed the Kennel Club in a unfavourable light to say the least. Furthermore, the dismissal of the scientific evidence backing the thrust of the programme by senior members of the organisation will not have endeared them to animal welfare scientists or policy makers.

The Kennel Club’s inability to look at scientific fact, is an issue that ECMA (Electronic Collars Manufacturers Association), has come up against with the Kennel Club for some time, with their campaign against electronic training products.

For some time, the KC have been campaigning to ban these products, which are successfully used by thousands of responsible dog owners each year, many of who state that the collars have saved their pets lives.

The campaign is based on hearsay and nothing more.

Yet these very same people who critisise the electronic collars, believe that it is perfectly acceptable to allow animals to suffer in the name of breeding – despite the hard scientific facts.

It simply illustrates how their attempt to take the moral high ground about electronic training collars is a complete sham.

They swam against the tide over tail docking, and drowned. They refuse to do anything effective and immediate about the unutterable suffering of thousands dogs on whose behalf they are well able to take a stand.

So, how can they be believed when they talk about electronic training collars with an arrogance that is on a par with their weak defence of the status quo in last week’s programme?

The overwhelming majority of pet owners who have electronic training collars report that they have safe, happy pets with far greater freedom than before and that they, the owners, have peace of mind that their beloved pets are not going to be run over, shot by a farmer for chasing sheep or rehomed because they are unliveable with.

Not content with condoning the traumatisation and debilitated state of thousands of pure bred dogs, the Kennel Club is campaigning to deprive hundreds of thousand of pet owners and their pets of the safety, security and peace of mind provided by these beneficial and life saving products.

Yours

Lord Duncan McNair,

ECMA

The Electronic Collar Manufacturers Association

For their part, the Kennel Club moved quickly to dismiss the criticism through spokesperson Holly Lee: “While the Kennel Club works on all of these issues, ECMA is a company that exists purely for profit and with no regard for the welfare of dogs. Most people with knowledge of dogs should be able to differentiate between these issues, however ECMA is deliberately muddying the waters on the back of a sensationalist and one-sided television programme to advance its own agenda. To claim that this campaign is not based on science is simply untrue.”

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