Breaking: PETA ‘Boycott Breeders’ Protest Met with Violence at Crufts

Birmingham – This evening, during the “Best in Show” presentation at Crufts, the world’s largest “pedigree” dog show, a PETA supporter holding a sign reading, “Boycott Breeders” attempted to storm the arena floor before the winner was announced. Activists also unfurled a banner in the stands among the audience with the same message. The peaceful protest was met with physical aggression from security staff, who hit and punched activists before dragging them out of the arena. Video footage of the disruption is available here and here.  

“Crufts glorifies the breeding of deformed and disabled animals,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “PETA urges everyone to avoid this archaic canine beauty pageantry and asks those looking to give dogs a loving home to never buy from a breeder and adopt a lovable, loyal companion from their local shelter.”

The grotesque standards of The Kennel Club, which organises the event, encourage the breeding of dogs with extreme features that cause long-term physical disabilities and health problems, including epilepsy, brachycephalic syndrome, heart disease, deafness, hip dysplasia, and numerous other afflictions.

Crufts also exacerbates the homeless dog and companion animal overpopulation crises by encouraging people to dash out and buy the latest “must-have” breed that they saw on television while rescue centres burst at the seams with lovable dogs waiting to be adopted. An estimated 20,000 dogs are euthanised in UK shelters every year because there aren’t enough good homes for them.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – notes that the tide is turning against Crufts. The BBC dropped Crufts in 2008 after revelations about the prevalence of hereditary defects among pedigree dogs, including some Crufts prizewinners, emerged, and the RSPCA refuses to attend the show. A group of veterinary professionals have also previously spoken out against Crufts, noting that the “arbitrary breed standards that the competition’s judges use to rate the dogs call for them to be bred for extremely exaggerated physical features, regardless of the damage to their health. As a result, dogs are suffering.”

PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.

Contact:

Lucy Watson +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

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