This bombshell has only just been dropped. To get accurate figures is not that easy. The dogs are being put down by vets all over the state, how do you imagine it is possible to put numbers on it ? Pups are registered and tattooed, and those figures should be possible to gather relatively easy, but what happens after requires considerable work. What he was saying was that they are working on it. As dogs are shipped all over the country, it might be hard for one state to know exactly what has happened to a particular dog if they are not racing; they might be living happily on someones large property, or they might be dead. What is needed is countrywide system that registers each dog, and any change in ownership has to be notified; anybody who cannot account for each of their dogs needs to be penalised.
Unfortunately groups like the one that made the doco often go too far trying to make the case more sensational. As if the truth was not enough. The same thing was the doco from UK Pedigree Dogs Exposed, consequent court case against the film maker found number of false claims. It was pity, because there is lot wrong with some breeds of pure bred dogs; english bulldog in its present form simply should not exist; they cannot breath properly cannot be born naturally. German Shepherd would be very easily bred back to where they were 50 years ago; in Europe there is number of very similar breeds, some supposedly GSD ancestors that could be used to fix the deformed hind quarters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Shepherd
https://pethelpful.com/dogs/11-Dogs-Like-German-Shepherd
Unfortunately the KC has a fit at even mentioning introducing different breed to anything "purebred". The fact is, anything "pure" is inbred. In the past when dogs were bred for performance, people were not so strict about long pedigree. Anyway, even if people did keep records, many breeders in 19th century and before were all but illiterate, wonder how reliable were these records. In any case the British KC was only founded in 1873 and unregistered dogs with unknown parentage were allowed to be registered and used for breeding . I have been allowed to research archives of registrations for my breed here in Australia, and I found several dogs registered with both parents unknown back in 1930s, and one as late as the 1950s.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to breed out problems, unless you inbreed very closely (like parent to offspring) for 10 generations, breed thousands of dogs, cull anything with problem and in the end, if your breeding program does not collapse, you will be left with very "pure" strain, which will most likely be sterile and have no functioning immune system. That is how lab rats are bred. But normal living creatures all carry number of genetic problems; in population with good genetic diversity they may not pop up all that often, but they are there. And they are also in Xbred dogs.
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Voltaire: “Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities” .
