THE DOG Advisory Council is to wind down at the end of the year or the beginning of 2015.

The gradual demise of the (to give it its formal title) Advisory Council on the Welfare Issues of Dog Breeding will cause few to shed any tears. The announcement was made at the council’s most recent meeting to which all stakeholders and patrons were invited.

It is understood that the stakeholders – charities, veterinary bodies and welfare groups – will take over the council’s projects.

The concept of such a body was an excellent one, particularly in the light of the concern about these issues which came to the fore in 2008 after the infamous BBC programme Pedigree Dogs Exposed. It was right that dog breeders, if they were not already doing so, should make welfare questions a priority in their breeding decisions, and it was right that the advice they needed to help them do so should be available and so the advisory group was formed just over three years ago its creation having been recommended by all three major reports into dog breeding that followed the broadcast of the programme, and it was always intended to last for a period of about three years.

When the body was actually set up it gained zero credibility among the dog-breeding community. That is not to denigrate in any way its members, generally eminent in their own field, not least its distinguished and highly respected chairman Professor Sheila Crispin. Yet how could dog people be expected to warm to a body, just one of whose members had any experience of actual dog breeding! It was a ludicrous situation.

Why wasn’t the governing body of the dog world, the Kennel Club, officially represented? Why was there just one ‘dog person’? Why were there none of our leading breeders with years of experience of producing sound, healthy dogs who have also had tremendous success in show or performance fields?

KC circles include a number of vets and geneticists who also have practical experience of breeding dogs. Wouldn’t it make sense for an advisory council to include these people? Surely at least half the council members should have experience of what they are supposed to be advising about?

Now the council’s projects are to be taken over by the relevant ‘stakeholders’. And of course the KC is moving ahead with many excellent projects of its own.

In an ideal world there would be a forum in which all concerned with breeding of dogs and their welfare could get together to further the issues that really matter. Sadly that forum was not the advisory council.

Pedigree Dog Exposed’s writer and producer Jemima Harrison said: “The Advisory Council never quite delivered the punch I hoped it would, but its loss is a huge blow because dogs no longer have a truly independent body to watch over them.”