On Wednesday, June 22, the final day of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show—a pack of PETA supporters will cause a ruckus at a busy intersection in downtown Tarrytown to demand that the American Kennel Club (AKC) disqualify pugs, Pekinese, French bulldogs, and otherfrom the competition. They’ll point out that the AKC’s grotesque standards encourage breeding for physical deformities, which cause immense suffering for vulnerable flat-faced dogs.
The group also sent a letter today to Westminster Kennel Club Show Chair David Helming, citing a veterinary study that found that some of these breeds can no longer be classified as “normal dogs”—due to their health irregularities—and a recent court ruling in Norway that established a precedent for the recognition that they suffer severely and should no longer be bred.
“The AKC needs to answer for its role in creating scores of dogs who can’t chase a ball without wheezing for air,” says PETA Senior Vice President . “PETA is calling on this organization to keep flat-faced breeds out of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and encourages everyone to avoid this superficial breeding fiasco and adopt animals from shelters.”
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
When: Wednesday, June 22, 12 noon
Where: At the intersection of Broadway and Main Street, Tarrytown
