Sophia Belle.
This story has been making the rounds on the internet for several weeks now. If you’ve not heard it, here is the story from CBS 2:
Her owners called her spunky, funny, and tough. A Long Island couple is mourning their 6-month-old dog, Sophia Belle, a pet that the couple treated like a child.
“She was perfect. She was my baby. I’m going to cry,” Michelle Moccia recently told CBS 2 investigative reporter Tamara Leitner.
Michelle and her fiance, Michael DiMaggio, brought Sophia Belle to a Levittown Petco in February for obedience training. But during their second visit, the couple claims, something went very wrong.
“The trainer pulled back hard on her leash, lifting her little paws off the floor and choking her,” DiMaggio said.
The couple was shocked.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Moccia said.
DiMaggio said he tried to revive the bulldog on the spot.
“She wasn’t breathing and she was looking at me and I was telling her it’s okay, you’re a good girl,” he said.
The couple rushed Sophia Belle to the vet, but it was too late. She died of pulmonary edema. It’s unclear if her death was triggered by a pre-existing condition or by choking.
“In a dog with a small trachea, the trachea can collapse. A collapsing trachea can cause respiratory distress which can lead to something called pulmonary edema,” explained Long Island veterinarian Deborah Nearenberg.
Petco released a statement expressing its sadness over the dog’s death, but has not taken responsibility for the dog’s passing.
Most commentaries I’ve seen about this particular story focus on training methods. Supposedly, there is a video. I have not seen the video.
I am not commenting on that issue.
Too many people are already, and while that certainly does need to be discussed, there is an issue that no one seems to understand.
Bulldogs are a horribly deformed breed.
It’s a breed that revels in deformity in ways that are almost pathological.
I’ve never known fanciers of any other breed who seem so oblivious to the real health and welfare issues associated with breeding for this particular conformation.
I know this because every time I’ve written about this breed, I get attacked by the “bulldog mafia.” (See part 1 here, and Part 2 here).
Their comments are as often hysterical as they are histrionic.
They really are deluded about how dog anatomy actually works. They are okay with breeding dogs that have real problems fully oxygenating themselves, not just through their often small tracheas but through their elongated soft palates. The entire upper respiratory system of this breed is utterly scrunched in, and if you understand that dogs also use their respiratory system to cool themselves, you realize that breeding for such deformity is animal cruelty. It’s as much an animal welfare issue as breeding dogs for fighting pits.
But because the cruelty results from the conformation of the dog and not the actions and training of a fighting animal, we don’t think of it the same way.
The owner of this poor bulldog is obviously a layperson. She likely was not told anything about these problems.
Anyone who would think a bulldog is a tough breed doesn’t understand exactly how fragile they actually are.
I don’t get the appeal for this sort of bulldog.
You can get a very similar and much more healthily conformed dog if you get a boxer. Boxers have also been bred for trainability. which these show bulldogs haven’t been at all.
And that’s just one alternative. How many different bulldog breeds are there in the United States right now?
Dozens. Not all of them are AKC, but many are very nice, very biddable dogs that would make good family pets.
And they aren’t horribly deformed in the name of vanity.
Everyone wants to blame Petco’s training methods for the death. I don’t know enough about what actually happened to provide an informed commentary about what went on.
However, we do know we’re dealing with a bulldog, and bulldogs and poorly formed respiratory systems go hand-in-hand.
Breeding this sort of bulldog is a tragedy.
But not as much of a tragedy as the tragedy that has resulted from this breed’s sudden popularity in the United States.
Are people this divorced from reality that they would buy a dog simply because they see it on a “reality” TV show?
I am really saddened for the loss of this dog, but I’m more saddened that all we want to talk about is training methods, while not even mentioning that breeding bulldogs for this particular conformation is an even bigger welfare issue.
It’s easier to blame a person or a company than it is to blame an institution.
And the bulldog fancy at large is an institution that deserves very strong criticism here.
But they won’t listen.
They already know it all.
And that’s the worst part of this story.
And yet there’s been no mention of it.
Hear! Hear!
Well spoken, Scottie!
Too bad no one’s going to listen.
I’m going to share it on my facebook page. I’ll probably get flamed by the bulldog people, too,
This gets at why I don’t bother talking about training or feeding very much. I don’t care how you mess up your own dog, but your breeding and conformation and behavior choices echo down generations. Training and feeding can have legacy effects but it’s a subtle argument.
The wholesale destruction of a breed, like we’ve seen in bulldogs is tragic and it’s amazing that any other concern could be paramount. ALL bulldog owners and breeders are participating in a farce where they contribute to the death and dysfunction of every one of these dogs.
Yes,I was very suspect that a normal dog would have to be strangled for an extended period to have to die,likely with back feet off the ground. Something that seems impossible to get away with in public.
I also never heard of dog trainers even like Ceaser Millan actually killing or seriously harming any of the dogs.
So this puppy seemed unsound to begin with,such as with most English Bulldogs.
Everyone should know that you cannot pull hard on the throat of a dog like this. Certainly they should have known at Petco. I would never go to a pet store for anything, let alone training. I hope the ower does a necropsy.
I see they kill Rhodesian Ridgeback puppies who are born normal. The horrible flaw is considered part of the breed. Amazing what horrible things we do to dogs.
A lot more RR breeders are now catching on about how killing ridgeless pups is an unnecessary evil, but I don’t think it’s because they all realize the stupidity of such culling themselves, so much as they are reacting to public outcry.
Breeders always want to at least APPEAR ethical.
But if you were really ethical, you’d own up to the fact that it’s the ridged pups who are “flawed”, biologically speaking. It’s the concept behind the breed standard that makes the normal, healthy ridgeless pups “flawed.”
And no one ever seems to get t hat breed standards are an abstract, that people do have the power to change if they want to.
Had the name “African Lion Hound” been popularized instead of “Rhodesian Ridgeback”, would anybody care about the ridges? Most laypeople who are just learning about them don’t notice that first at all. Their attention has to be DRAWN to it. Most of them just see a large, gorgeous dog that they are told is protective and active yet good in the house. Those seem to be more then enough admirable attributes to keep the breed going.
Going back to the PETCO screwup, I’ll always cheer anyone who points out how malformed these show bulldogs are. If they fell off the face of the earth, it wouldn’t be a sad day for me, that’s for sure. It IS cruel to create a body like this that some poor being has to live in day in and day out.
But PETCO, I have discovered, IS known for adversive training, and not the brightest trainers. I know people who went there with mongrels and purebreds, and had lousy experiences.
If nothing else, I would not think much of a place with trainers that don’t know enough about dogs to know choking out ANY brachycephalic breed in particular, and doubly so a bulldog, is a special risk; one not worth taking.
For that matter, my dog has a nice normal, long, gorgeous nose. But if anybody ever did that to my dog in front of me, you can bet the next choking out would be applied to the trainer, by yours truly.
‘Cause my boy is the sensitive type,and different dogs need different approaches. You won’t get that at PETCO.
The funniest thing is that the dog pictured has a normal flat collar on.
I guess this means that the aversive free trainers are going to go on the rampage now that “flat collars are evil” along with prong collars, slip collars, ecollars . . .
I live in the UK and often encounter/train English bulldogs, I don’t use only reward based methods and I do use slip leads ect. My experience is even if a normal dog goes totally ballistic and you need to put some serious pressure on with a slip lead to stop it attacking/injuring someone/something, its fine. A good example of this is a Cesar Milan episode with a malamute called Shadow. The Malamute starts coming up the lead at Cesar who uses the ”hanging” technique to keep the dog off him and regain control of the situation. The dog gets a bit puffed then quits the aggression and recovers quickly.
The English bulldogs are so poorly built you cannot do this with them. Plus even with normal training they have very little stamina or heat tolerance. Typically when working with an English bulldog I will schedule 1/2 sessions as that’s all the dog can tolerate.
Incidentally because of their breathing issues I will only use prong or e collars on English bulldogs. A prong collar acts on the skin and does not effect the breathing, an e collar doesn’t tighten at all.
Here’s part of the problem with Bulldogs. They are attractive to pet owners because they require very little exercise (because they cannot breath). They are not dogs that need 2 hours free running a day ect.
Behaviorally I find they suffer a lot of frustration as they do still have drive and instincts but are physically incapable of satisfying them. I tend to feel sorry for them.
Adam
The modern English Bulldog represents everything wrong the the dog fancy.
The represented everything wrong with the dog fancy 100 years ago, even.
A veterinarian I know tells me there is a saying among vets, that all you need for a successful practice is a dozen clients with Shar-Peis and/or Bulldogs. Perhaps a bit overstated, but a kernel of truth there.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention this your post: A 4 mo. old bulldog puppy died with similar pathology at a Petsmart in California last year (it was big news; a web search will pull up plenty), and it was there for grooming rather than obedience training. These probably aren’t the only two incidents.
No healthy (and English Bulldogs are by definition not healthy) dog should be dying from this sort of behavior, but the incident does provide a nice reminder that having to apply a lot of force using a flat collar should be avoided whenever possible. The very idea of constricting collars (choke, prong, slip etc) horrifies many, but when used properly they greatly reduce the risk of tracheal damage compared to a flat collar.
You got to do what you got to do. Write what is right and let the wrong people fret.
I can only tell from practical observations. When my dog tries to play with English Bulldogs in my neighbourhood, they get exhausted within 2 minutes and their owners begin cutting sorry figures.
I want to tell them about the shortcoming of the design, but I don’t find enough courage.
Extremely valid
Point. I have heard of other puppies trachea’s being crushed by this training method, which is not only reprehensible, but extremely dangerous in puppies, but poor conformation could also be a legitimate reason.
I suspect it could be a bit of both.
Well spoken, retrieverman, keep commenting on the subject. I’m sure you will.
Regarding dogs being choked, here in Britain about three decades ago a woman named Barbara Woodhouse gained undeserved popularity for her strict and aggressive style of dog training – until the day she almost pulled the head off a chihuahua during a tv show whereafter we didn’t hear much from her again. Unfortunately she left a temporary legacy of popularity for choke chains and you could not go to a training class without one of these bizarre and cruel devices attached to your unfortrunate dog.
On the matter of brachycephalic design of course I’m against it even though Mary my wife owns shih tzus. However, many of this particular breed seem to be bred with enough nose on them to live comfortably and of course it is a fact that shih tzus and their related breeds are among the longest lived of all our dogs. Some ‘natural looking’ gundog breeds, by comparison, live much shorter lives. However, although I don’t offer this as an excuse it serves to ease the conscience just slightly.
Her training book was one of the first I ever owned.
“Walkies!”
LOL.
I love her books too. Fond memories !
Tbh I find choke chains fairly useless, a strong driven dog will ignore it in most cases. They are also tricky to fit and tend to slid down constantly (were they become useless). A well fitted slip lead is much easier/better.
Adam
The better snap-around slip collars work very well. They are round nylon braid, one end has a snap that clips onto sliding ring. Other end has ring for attaching lead. Can be fitted quite precisely as it does not have to slide over the dog’s head. The nylon is soft, flexible, very strong, does not mark the coat.