The Dog Illuminati

– Posted on April 2, 2009Posted in: Pedigree Abuses

Who are the 9 people behind “PDEconfidential,” a google group which describes itself as:

9 members, members can post, people can request an invitation to join, only members can read

Description: The fallout from the Pedigree Dogs Exposed has been unprecedented. This private group, open to only a select few who are in a position to effect real change in the dog world, is designed as a forum where information can be exchanged in complete confidence.

Group email: PDEconfidential@googlegroups.com

I found this group back in January when I noticed some traffic from a google alert for “Pedigree Dogs Exposed” coming from a message posted to the googlegroup. The first two visitors were from Arlington, Virgina and Bournemouth, England.

Who are the 9 people who are “in a position to effect real change in the dog world” and why do they want to be anonymous?

I applied to the group and my application has been pending ever since. I sent them an e-mail asking if they were the Dog Illuminati, no response. I even e-mailed Gina over at PetConnection and IM’d that crumudeon Patrick at Terrierman to see if they had any ideas. Nope.

So, three months later and there are still 9 members, and they still aren’t talking. In the mean time, the blogosphere has gotten all over Pedigree Dogs Exposed and now the American media is also running stories about the exact same issues in our country.

I wonder who has been more successful in effecting real change, the cloisterd and confidential dog illuminati or us humble bloggers? Hide your identities and motives, they call it a conspiracy. Shout your names and your goals to the world, they call it a movement.

We’ve allowed the big decisions about the welfare of purebred dogs to happen behind closed doors for too long, and the outing of the diseased and crippled product of that neglect by Pedigree Dogs Exposed and hopefully many exposés to come, will be our best bet to save our breeds. Not confidential, self involved wannabe powerbrokers.

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About Christopher

Christopher Landauer is a fifth generation Colorado native and second generation Border Collie enthusiast. Border Collies have been the Landauer family dogs since the 1960s and Christopher got his first one as a toddler. He began his own modest breeding program with the purchase of Dublin and Celeste in 2006 and currently shares his home with their children Mercury and Gemma as well. His interest in genetics began in AP Chemistry and AP Biology and was honed at Stanford University.

Edward Diggs

Posted March 14, 2010 at 10:13 PM

I watched Pedigree Dogs Exposed. I thought it was interesting and in some ways I found it informative.

After I watched the documentory I read some critisisms. Specifically the documentory exagorated the frequency of a certain breed of dog having too small of a skull. I also suspect that the documentory was edited to be as impactful as possible instead of being focused on demonstating the truth as accurately as possible.

But personally if I had been in chage of the documentory I would have focused more on him displacia in German Shepards and I don’t think I would have bothered pointing out how ugly furnishing is on a dog. The portions of the video that focused on dog health seemed more relavent to me than the parts that argued that dog shows are really “mutant freak shows.”


Christopher

Posted March 14, 2010 at 10:57 PM

I’ve written this before, but there are two basic types of distortion that the show community carries out on dogs: the intentional (furnishings) and the unintentional (brain squishing skulls).

I think it’s worth talking about both, because the later often happens as the result of the former. The GSDs didn’t get crippled rear ends accidentally, it started because the look of a roached back was popular, then later it got to the point where there was no recourse… don’t think anyone really thinks that tucked in hocks and wobbly walking is aesthetic… but it’s all there is.

This is not the first time in history that we have fetishized inbred disease. The lisping of Castilian Spanish is a good example. While this is a touchy issue among some native speakers, their rebuttal doesn’t really disprove the story that the “lisp” is caused by the inbred Hapsburg lipped King Ferdinand.