Leeds Animal Rights Activist Disrupts “Best In Show” At Crufts

For Immediate Release:

9 March 2015

Contact:

Hannah Levitt +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 235; [email protected]

LEEDS ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST DISRUPTS ‘BEST IN SHOW’ AT CRUFTS

 Animal Suffering Linked to Breeding for Unnatural Physical Traits

Leeds – Last night at the Crufts dog show, 25-year-old law undergraduate Luke Steele from Leeds rushed the main floor at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham as judges announced the “Best in Show” winner. Steele carried a sign reading, “Mutts Against Crufts”, in reference to the dogs who are bred to have characteristics that nature never intended, often with devastating results. Many bulldogs, pugs, Pekingese and other brachycephalic (flat-faced) dogs can’t breathe well – let alone go for a walk or chase a ball without gasping for air – because of their unnaturally shortened airways. Steele was tackled by half a dozen security men and detained at the arena.

Photos of Steele can be seen here, here and here. Video footage can be seen here.

“Dogs deserve better than to suffer and die for a ‘beauty’ pageant”, Steele says. “Crufts’ shameless promotion of ‘breedism’ is the dog or cat equivalent of racism, and pedigrees suffer from abnormally high rates of disease as a result of being bred for unnatural physical traits.”

Breeding pedigree dogs results in genetic predispositions to epilepsy, heart disease, deafness, hip dysplasia and many other health issues. Breeders and breed lovers who purport to care about dogs need to consider the effects of their actions and recognise that it’s the animals who pay, often the ultimate price, for their frivolous pursuit.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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