SKIRMISHER

Cuteness has its price. Rampant, unethical interbreeding of dogs to produce ever-smaller “pocket dogs,” as what happens in places like Japan, UK, and the USA, produce so many defective litter mates that “murder-at-birth has become standard operating procedure for most of the birth-defective puppies in a litter - just in order to get one teeny surviving puppy for that high-demand waiting list.”

Says the New York Times:

Rampant inbreeding has given Japanese dogs some of the highest rates of genetic defects in the world, sometimes four times higher than in the United States and Europe.

These illnesses are the tragic consequences of the national penchant in Japan for turning things cute and cuddly into social status symbols. But they also reflect the fondness for piling onto fads in Japan, a nation that always seems caught in the grip of some trend or other.

”Japanese are maniacs for booms,” said Toshiaki Kageyama, a professor of veterinary medicine specializing in genetic defects at Azabu University in Sagamihara. ”But people forget here that dogs aren’t just status symbols. They are living things.”

via NEW YORK TIMES

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