You may be reading this as “just” a pet owner and think this, besides being interesting to read, is nothing to do with you. WRONG. There is now a new agenda fast becoming clear and unless apathy is cast aside you will find yourself part and parcel of it all. Some of the more ranting posts on the internet are saying that animals with short legs and long backs are deformed and “when everything is sorted” that type of animal will no longer be allowed!
The actual breed they are meaning are Dachsunds and Bassetts but just take a look at your Glen of Imaal Terrier. Yes, you are viewing an achondraplasic just like the two breeds above. Back in the 80s there WAS a problem with Glens being dwarfs…which is what achrondraplasia as…and there were animals that were very short of the front legs and had front legs so turned the feet were at quarter to three. There was trouble with joints and elbow dysplasia. Breeders, who according to the RSPCA ruin a breed, realised who poor these fronts were and worked hard to improve them. Legs apparently became longer but it wasn’t due to taller dogs, it was due to the improvement and strengthening of the pastern which bought the feet to a better position and all this together made the dog look taller. The short upper arm which was very common at the time was gradually moved away from and the freedom of movement, that most Glens now exhibit, became the norm.
All this could be done because care was taken in breeding. It was realised which dogs threw particular faults so they were used very carefully or not at all. Glen of Imaals that didn’t have the faults were used more often and anybody who was around in the late 70s/80s will tell you how much the breed had improved by the turn of the century. If the do-gooders have their way that breeding which allowed for such an improvement in the construction of Glens would not have been allowed as it would have been termed in-breeding. Without that line breeding those horrendous conformation faults would have still been rife throughout the breed and Glens would be being condenmed as “deformed mutants”.
Enthusiasts & Fanciers of Glens 