Has Crufts Lost Sight of the Dogs?

Every March, Crufts brings thousands of dogs to Birmingham. Some are there for the show ring, others for agility, flyball, obedience or demonstrations, and plenty of people go simply because they want to spend a day surrounded by dogs.

Behind the competition are breeders, handlers and owners who may have spent years with their particular breed. For many, Crufts is as much about meeting other people who share that interest and celebrating the dogs themselves as it is about winning.

It is also a show that attracts criticism, particularly when it comes to breeding, inherited health problems and the physical features rewarded in some pedigree dogs.

Much of the argument comes back to the same issue: what should happen when a characteristic associated with a breed starts to compromise its health?

Crufts may be a celebration of dogs. The more difficult question is what, exactly, we should be celebrating.

Where Crufts began

Charles Cruft held his first dog show under the Crufts name in 1891, although dog shows had already been around for decades. The Kennel Club had been established in 1873, at a time when Britain was beginning to formalise many of the breeds we would recognise today.

A lot of those dogs had jobs. Sheepdogs worked livestock, terriers went after vermin, retrievers accompanied people shooting game and hounds were bred to hunt. How a dog was built mattered because it affected what that dog could actually do. Movement, temperament, stamina and physical structure weren’t abstract ideals. They were useful.

As formal showing developed, written breed standards became a way of describing the characteristics considered typical or desirable in each breed. They helped turn populations of dogs with broadly similar purposes and characteristics into many of the recognisable breeds we know today.

Crufts grew alongside that culture and eventually became its most famous stage.

What is a breed standard?

The phrase can make a breed standard sound like a beauty checklist, but that isn’t how the Kennel Club currently defines one.

A modern Kennel Club breed standard describes the ideal characteristics, temperament and appearance of a breed. Its standards also state that dogs should be fit for function, that “absolute soundness is essential” and that judges and breeders should avoid exaggerations that could harm health or welfare.

That distinction matters.

The principle behind preserving a breed isn’t inherently at odds with welfare. Breed characteristics can include temperament, movement, working ability and physical structure, and responsible breeders can use health screening and genetic testing alongside knowledge of their breed when deciding which dogs to breed. The Kennel Club itself recommends health screening for both parents before breeding.

The problem comes when a desirable characteristic becomes an exaggerated one, or when maintaining a closed population increases the prevalence of inherited disease.

And that is where the argument around pedigree dogs becomes much more difficult.

When appearance affects health

The huge differences between modern dog breeds didn’t happen by accident. Generation after generation, people selected dogs for particular qualities and gradually produced animals as different as the Chihuahua and the Great Dane.

That same process can also push physical characteristics further. If a certain head shape, body shape, coat or other feature is repeatedly preferred, it can become more pronounced over successive generations.

Flat-faced breeds are one of the clearest examples. Some have difficulty breathing because of their anatomy, while deep skin folds can become sore or infected.

Certain eye shapes can leave eyes more vulnerable to injury. Body shape can affect movement, spinal health or a dog’s ability to give birth naturally. Separate from visible conformation, inherited diseases can also become concentrated within a breed when the available gene pool is relatively small.

These aren’t criticisms of the dogs themselves. Nor does having a pedigree automatically mean a dog is unhealthy. Health varies enormously between breeds and individuals, and crossbred dogs can develop inherited disease too.

The welfare concern is about what humans choose to reproduce.

The RSPCA has been critical of breeding that favours appearance at the expense of health, particularly where exaggerated features are involved. Its position is that health, welfare and temperament should come before appearance when dogs are bred.

That criticism has obvious implications for the show ring. Dogs that succeed at major shows can influence what breeders and owners regard as desirable, which gives judging decisions significance well beyond the trophy itself.

Crufts has changed

Crufts and the Kennel Club haven’t ignored these concerns. A number of measures have been introduced over the years in an attempt to prevent unhealthy or exaggerated features being rewarded in the show ring.

One of these is Breed Watch, which highlights particular physical features that judges should look out for because they may affect a dog’s health or welfare.

Kennel Club judging guidance also tells judges not to reward detrimental exaggerations and says dogs showing such problems should not be awarded prizes.

Health requirements have also been introduced for some brachycephalic breeds. At Crufts 2025, Bulldogs, French Bulldogs and Pugs that were eligible to compete needed a valid Respiratory Function Grading assessment.

The assessment looks for signs of brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome (BOAS), the breathing disorder associated with shortened skull shape. Dogs given the most severe Grade 3 result could not attend or compete.

The Kennel Club has also changed the Breed Watch classifications of breeds where particular concerns require closer monitoring.

These changes show that dog showing isn’t frozen in the world Charles Cruft knew in 1891.

The debate is whether it is changing quickly enough.

Why Crufts still divides opinion

There are people within the pedigree dog world who see showing as part of the solution. A well-written breed standard can favour sound movement, appropriate proportions, good temperament and a dog capable of performing the role for which its breed was developed. Shows can also give breeders a place to assess dogs against others of the same breed and bring attention to health initiatives.

There are also responsible breeders who spend enormous amounts of time and money on health testing and who are actively trying to improve the future of their breeds. Reducing the whole pedigree world to people breeding dogs for ribbons would be both inaccurate and unfair.

Critics make a different argument. The RSPCA says that show-ring selection based heavily on appearance has contributed to the exaggeration of physical characteristics and that a lack of genetic diversity within some breeds increases the risk of inherited disease. The organisation withdrew from Crufts after 2008 over pedigree-dog welfare concerns and has remained a prominent critic of aspects of pedigree breeding.

Both parts of this story matter if we’re going to have a useful conversation about Crufts.

The people who love a breed and the people asking difficult questions about its health aren’t necessarily on opposite sides. In many cases, they’re worrying about the same thing: whether that breed will have a healthy future.

Perhaps the question isn’t breed standards or welfare

The final question in our original post asked what matters more: preserving breed standards or prioritising dog welfare.

But the more you look at the issue, the less useful that choice becomes.

A breed standard shouldn’t require a dog to be unhealthy. The Kennel Club’s own standards explicitly say the opposite. If preserving a characteristic causes pain, restricts breathing or movement, interferes with normal behaviour or creates another significant welfare problem, the real question is whether that characteristic should continue to define the breed in the same way.

Breed standards aren’t laws of nature. Humans created them, humans interpret them and humans can change them.

That doesn’t mean abandoning breeds or pretending their history and characteristics don’t matter. It means accepting that preserving a breed shouldn’t require preserving every decision humans have made about how that breed ought to look.

Crufts has existed since 1891. In the years since, we’ve learnt far more about canine genetics, inherited disease and the effect that physical structure can have on a dog’s everyday life.

That knowledge inevitably changes the conversation about what we should ask of breeders and dog shows. If we know that a particular feature can cause a dog problems, it becomes much harder to argue that tradition alone is a reason to keep rewarding it.