28/01/2026
Last night I attended the APDAWG parliamentary meeting on extreme conformation, welfare, and the Innate Health Assessment (IHA).
I want to share a few reflections from inside the room, in a way that holds both care and complexity.
I agree that the IHA is best understood as a starting point, not a finished solution.
A simple, accessible framework that helps the public recognise when a dog’s physical structure may compromise basic function has value. It opens a door. It raises awareness. It creates a shared language for bodies that need to work. The IHA is a voluntary 10-point checklist intended to raise awareness of extreme conformation traits that can limit breathing, movement, communication, sleep, eating, and other normal functions. It is not a substitute for breed-specific health tests, such as the Royal Kennel Club Nose-to-Tail schemes.
Where I hold some caution is around how any such framework might be implemented in the real world.
From lived experience, local authority enforcement is already inconsistent, under-resourced, and in some areas deeply unreliable. Expecting councils alone to become the primary gatekeepers of nuanced welfare assessment is, in my view, neither realistic nor sufficiently safeguarded.
Bodies, welfare, and function are complex.
They cannot be robustly assessed through visuals alone.
They cannot be meaningfully separated from movement, behaviour, and context.
They cannot be safely reduced to tick-box enforcement.
There was also a repeated statement that the IHA has been misunderstood or “cherry-picked” by some commentators. While clarification is helpful, the very need to clarify highlights that if a tool is widely open to misinterpretation even among engaged professionals, then it is not yet robust enough to carry sole responsibility for welfare decisions.
Clarity, consistency, and resistance to subjective interpretation are not optional extras. They are fundamental if any framework is to build trust.
Last night this lack of clarity visibly resulted in many passionate, responsible breeders feeling frightened about what the IHA might mean for their breeds, their lines, and their life’s work. That matters. Responsible breeders are not the enemy. Any welfare tool that unintentionally alienates the very people already investing in health testing, careful selection, and lifetime responsibility needs further refinement.
If IHA-informed approaches are to move forward, I believe they must sit within a wider, multi-disciplinary system that includes veterinary involvement, independently assessed behaviour and training professionals, breeding and genetics expertise, stronger regulation of commercial breeding, and public education at point of purchase.
One area I am still sitting with, and would genuinely welcome further clarity on, is how a voluntary, non-legislative IHA framework meaningfully reaches the roughly 80% of puppies bred and sold outside licensing schemes, kennel club registration, or recognised breeder networks, the ones who need education and oversight most.
During the discussion I suggested that veterinarians could be well placed to carry out IHA-style assessments, as every legally sold puppy must be microchipped and a large proportion will also be vaccinated and presented to a vet at some point in early life. In reality, almost all dogs will see a vet at some stage of their lives. This creates a repeated, natural point of contact that already exists. If we are serious about education rather than enforcement alone, that contact should be used purposefully.
This was met with understandable hesitation from many vets around being positioned as enforcers of any legal mechanism. Shortly afterwards, it was clarified that the IHA is not intended to become law.
But the practical question remains. If the IHA is voluntary and vets do not wish to act as gatekeepers, and local authorities are not a reliable enforcement body, what is the realistic delivery pathway into the unregulated majority?
Public-facing tools alone may influence some buyers. They are unlikely to influence high-volume, profit-driven sellers. For me, this points toward education being most powerful where people already seek help: in veterinary practices, with trainers, behaviourists, and welfare organisations. These professions already have trusted relationships with owners and spend time explaining health, behaviour, and quality of life.
I also left with a specific concern about how cross-breeding was discussed. There appeared to be a gap in acknowledging that crossing a pug with a Jack Russell, Beagle, or other high-drive breed does not simply create a “healthier pug.” It creates a dog with very different behavioural needs and motivational systems. Focusing solely on physical appearance risks overlooking this entirely. Temperament, arousal profiles, sociability, and drive do not disappear because a muzzle becomes longer. They combine. Any meaningful framework must hold both physical and behavioural welfare.
From my perspective as a Clinical Animal Behaviourist, I see the downstream effects of physical compromise every week. Dogs who struggle to breathe struggle to cope. Dogs in chronic discomfort show lower thresholds to stress. Dogs whose bodies restrict movement, communication, or rest often present with behaviours that are then labelled as “training issues.” By the time many of these dogs reach me, the shape of their body has already shaped the shape of their life.
That is why I care about any initiative that moves us toward bodies that function. And that is also why I care deeply about how those initiatives are delivered. Because the dogs most affected are rarely coming from the systems that already engage with best practice. They are coming from the spaces where oversight is weakest.
I am supportive of the IHA as a conversation starter and as a supplement to existing breed health schemes. But I am less clear on how a voluntary scheme, on its own, disrupts the part of the system doing the most harm.
For me, this reinforces that stronger regulation of breeding itself, better resourcing of enforcement, clearer national standards, and cross-sector involvement are not optional extras. They are central.
I share this not as opposition, but as a genuine request for joined-up thinking.
If we want to reduce suffering at scale, the mechanisms matter as much as the message. And I think it is okay, and necessary, to keep asking how those mechanisms will actually function in the real world, together, not in conflict.
For dogs.
I also want to say thank you to Beverly, Sharon, Lauren, and Laura, three breeders of very different breeds (Chihuahua, German Shepherd Dog, and Shiba Inu) whom I had not met before, for their thoughtful conversation, openness, and company on the night.
