What are extreme breeds?

Let’s be very clear. There is no justification for knowingly breeding animals that suffer health or welfare problems.

Genetically exaggerated traits can lead to serious health and welfare problems. Thankfully, the reptile community is leading the way in addressing these issues, but we all have a part to play.

Responsible Reptile Keeping (RRK) has collaborated with ZZF in Germany on a media campaign to address 'extreme breeding'.

RRK has also worked with REPTA in the UK to establish new guidelines advising members not to breed or sell certain reptile morphs associated with health and welfare problems.

Some of the species include:

• brachycephalic dogs

• spider ball pythons

• silk back bearded dragons

• Scottish fold cats

To protect our animals and prevent overreaching government regulation, it's crucial that we, as pet keepers, adopt and promote responsible practices. These initiatives aim to ensure all pets can live, breathe, and behave normally.

How you can help:

• Support breeders and shops that follow the ZZF and REPTA guidelines.

• Don’t breed lines with known welfare issues.

• Share this video and help spread the word.

Let’s unite to protect our pets and ensure a healthy future for all animals.
For more information, visit the Responsible Reptile Keeping, REPTA, and ZZF websites.

To learn more, watch the full interview with Dr Stefan Hetz here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEQMHYoMnNI

SCRIPT

Attention to all pet owners, have you ever heard of extreme breeds?

Imagine an animal with an attractive characteristic. It might be a cute dog with large puppy dog eyes, a particularly friendly bird or even a lizard with beautiful colours or jewel-like patterns.

Now imagine you want to breed this animal to produce offspring with the same attractive characteristics. You will definitely select the parents which look most interesting in order to produce an offspring with desirable characteristics.

So far so good, right?

This type of selective breeding favours the genes and characteristics that humans find appealing or useful. This process is also called domestication and it's worked well for humans and animals for thousands of years.

However, selective breeding can occasionally also produce negative side effects. The desirable characteristics we want to reproduce can sometimes be paired with a gene that affects the animal's health.

For example, the lemon frost version of the leopard gecko has an eye-catching colour, but the lemon frost gene can also cause the animal to develop cancer. In the worst cases, the so-called attractive characteristic is actually bad for the animal's health.

Scottish fold cats, such as those owned by some celebrities, are considered attractive because of their cute folded ears. However, this ear folding gene also causes abnormal cartilage growth and painful osteoarthritis, a severe bone condition.

This is when ethical breeding crosses the line into extreme breeding. As responsible pet owners and breeders, we need to do everything we can do to avoid these unwanted issues. After all, no ethical pet owner would want their animals to be in pain.

So what can we do as pet owners and breeders?

First, it's important to avoid overreacting. Not all selective bred animals have poor health. Just because they are a specific breed, pedigree or morph doesn't necessarily mean they are unhealthy.

Instead, we should only breed from healthy animals which do not suffer from genetic illness.

But, when a breed or morph is proven to have poor genetic health, then we should ask ourselves the question. Is it really a good idea to breed from these animals?

If an animal has changed so much that it cannot display normal natural behaviour, then it is likely to have health problems and reduced quality of life. That's an extreme breed.

And finally, don't rely on celebrities as pet-keeping role models because you'll sometimes find them unknowingly promoting harmful trends. Instead, do plenty of research about animals you want to breed and ask advice from independent specialists or experts. That way you're far more likely to get good advice and a happy and healthy pet.

Thank you for listening.