Good News! Moonpig to Pull Greetings Cards Featuring Pugs and French Bulldogs
After learning from PETA and other animal advocates that promoting breathing-impaired dog breeds (BIBs) normalises their suffering from numerous respiratory ailments, popular greetings card provider Moonpig has pledged to stop selling cards featuring images of pugs and French bulldogs.
PETA will keep working with Moonpig to extend this new policy to all breathing-impaired breeds, including Boston terriers, boxers, and shih tzus.
What’s Wrong With Promoting Pugs and French Bulldogs?
By banning images of pugs and French bulldogs, Moonpig is acting responsibly and helping to put an end to the promotion of dog breeds with painful, life-threatening deformities.
A recent study revealed that some flat-faced breeds, including pugs, can no longer be classified as “normal dogs” due to the health problems caused by their abnormally flat faces.
BIBs are bred for a particular look, resulting in drastically shortened airways that cause an array of painful and distressing symptoms – including laboured breathing, snorting, gagging, and collapsing – and makes dogs more susceptible to vomiting, exercise intolerance, heatstroke, and even death.
They’re often shown in photos with a wide-open mouth and drooping tongue, as they have to breathe through their mouth since they can’t draw enough air in through their narrow nostrils. It’s like “trying to breathe through a really narrow straw”, according to Dr Myfanwy Hill, a veterinary surgeon who works at the University of Cambridge.
Is It Time to Ban the Breeding of All Flat-Faced Dogs?
Restrictions have been imposed on breeding BIBs in Austria, Germany, Norway, and the Netherlands, which banned breeding flat-faced dogs in 2014 and is now preparing to ban owning these animals or featuring them in advertising to address the cruelty of producing dogs with unnatural features that cause severe health problems.
What’s Next?
While Moonpig took a step in the right direction, the ridiculous dog “beauty” pageant Crufts keeps celebrating the abusive dog-breeding industry. Please urge Channel 4 to stop broadcasting this grotesque charade.
