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Designer pets that suffer ‘miserable’ health problems could soon be banned in the Netherlands

Owning unhealthy designer animals, such as flat-faced dogs or cats with folded ears, could soon be banned in the Netherlands.

“We make life miserable for innocent animals, purely because we think they are ‘beautiful’ and ‘cute’,” the country’s Minister of Culture, Nature and Food Quality, Piet Adema, said in a statement.

“That is why today we are taking the big step towards a Netherlands where no pet has to suffer from his or her appearance.”

Adema said he is looking to ban the ownership of designer breeds as well as photos of them in advertising and on social media.

The breeding of designer pets was banned in the Netherlands in 2014. Now the government is looking to close a loophole to stop the import and trade of these breeds.

Why are designer pets a problem?

Pets like flat-faced dog breeds and cats with folded ears have soared in popularity - in part due to social media influences and celebrities.

While they may look cute, they often suffer from health problems as a result of their appearance.

Dogs bred to have a short snout - like King Charles spaniels and French bulldogs - frequently suffer from breathing problems. Known as brachycephalic breeds, they were generally found to be less healthy than other breeds in a 2020 study from the Royal Veterinary Society in the UK.

The study showed they were more likely to suffer from a range of health disorders including a painful eye disease called Corneal ulceration.

Dogs with short snouts often suffer from breathing problems. Pexels© Provided by Euronews

The ban on breeding these animals in the Netherlands was updated in 2019 so that it specifically applied to dogs whose snouts were less than half the length of their skulls.

Adema said that new laws would use a list of banned characteristics that were proven to cause permanent suffering. It could be expanded as research reveals further harmful features.

“Dogs that have a deviant skull shape may suffer from a permanent headache,” he said in a letter to the Dutch Parliament.

“Cats with folding ears have deviated cartilage that can cause them a lot of pain.”

If the ban is introduced, there will be a transition period where people who currently own designer pets will be allowed to keep them until they die.

Where else are designer pets banned?

Last year in Norway, a court ruled that the breeding of English bulldogs and Cavalier King Charles spaniels breached the country’s Animal Welfare Act. It said that the practice was cruel and resulted in “man-made health problems” for these animals.

This resulted in a ban on breeding these flat-faced dogs due to the negative effect their appearance has on their health.

But the ban in Norway doesn’t include the ownership, sale or import of these breeds.

Ancient bird with T. rex-like skull discovered in China

About 120 million years ago, a fearsome bird with a skull that looked eerily similar to that of a Tyrannosaurus rex flew the early Cretaceous skies, hunting for a meaty meal to gobble down, a new study finds. A newly described specimen of this previously unknown species provides clues about how birds began to finalize their evolutionary divergence from the rest of the dinosaurs.

null© ZHAO Chuang

Modern birds are descended from dinosaurs, making them the only dinosaur lineage that survived the planet-shaking asteroid impact that wiped out the rest of their kind around 66 million years ago. But exactly how birds evolved from the rest of the theropods — a bipedal group with hollow bones and three toes or claws on each foot, which includes avian dinosaurs as well non-avian dinosaurs, such as raptors like Velociraptor — is still unclear.

Researchers unearthed the new species, which they named Cratonavis zhui, at a fossil site in China. The fossil's age suggets C. zhui likely appeared somewhere between the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx, which lived about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period, and the Ornithothoraces, a dinosaur-era group which had already evolved many traits of modern birds.

In a new study, published Jan. 2 in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, researchers analyzed the new fossil to see what traits it shared with both groups. After studying the fossils with a high-resolution computed tomography (CT) scan, which allowed them to virtually reassemble the bones in 3D, the team found that, despite a majority of the skeleton being very similar to Ornithothoraces, certain bones shared a surprisingly strong likeness to non-avian dinosaurs. The most striking similarity was in the skull, which has a shape that is "nearly identical to that of dinosaurs such as T. rex," researchers wrote in a statement.

The specimen's raptor-like skull is notable because it would have prevented C. zhui from moving its upper bill in relation to its lower jaw. Modern birds are capable of moving both parts independently, which is believed to have greatly contributed to their enormous ecological diversity today, study lead author Zhiheng Li, a paleontogolost at the Chinese Academy of Science's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), said in the statement. It is therefore surprising to know that this trait developed so late in birds' evolutionary history, he added.

C. zhui also has an unusually elongated scapula, a shoulder bone used during flight, and first metatarsal, a bone found in the foot, compared with modern birds.

The scapula plays an important role in flight because it helps rotate birds' shoulders and beat their wings. The elongated scapula in C. zhui likely "compensated for the overall underdeveloped flight apparatus in this early bird," study co-author Min Wang, a paleoornathologist at IVPP, said in the statement. 

However, the extended metatarsals are likely leftover from land-dwelling raptors who required longer versions of the bone to help them run. Over time, these bones evolved to be much shorter in birds to allow them to use their hallux, or big clawed toe, to land on branches and grab prey from the air instead of running, study co-author Thomas Stidham, a paleoornathologist at IVPP, said in the statement.

The unexpected lengths of both the scapula and first metatarsal "highlight the breadth of skeletal plasticity in early birds," study co-author Zhonghe Zhou, a paleoornathologist at IVPP, said in the statement. This plasticity suggests that certain skeletal traits could have evolved independently from one another across the birds' evolutionary tree, a phenomenon known as convergent evolution, but more fossils are needed to tell for sure. 

Stranded dolphins may be getting lost because they have animal Alzheimer's disease

Dolphins may be getting stranded in Scottish waters because they are suffering from animal Alzheimer's disease, a study had suggested.

A study found four animals from different dolphin species had some of the brain changes associated with human Alzheimer's disease - Getty Images/iStockphoto© Getty Images/iStockphoto

Scientists examined the brains of three different species of stranded dolphins, and they found them to show classic markers of human Alzheimer's disease.

The brains of 22 odontocetes, which had all been stranded in Scottish coastal waters, were analysed in research by the Universities of Glasgow, St Andrews and Edinburgh and the Moredun Research Institute in the Scottish capital.

The study, which is published in the European Journal of Neuroscience, included five different species - Risso's dolphins, long-finned pilot whales, white-beaked dolphins, harbour porpoises and bottlenose dolphins.

It found four animals from different dolphin species had some of the brain changes associated with human Alzheimer's disease.

The findings may provide a possible answer to unexplained live-stranding events in some odontocete species.

Group leader may have become confused

Study authors believe it could support the "sick-leader" theory, whereby an otherwise healthy pod of animals find themselves in dangerously shallow waters after following a group leader who may have become confused or lost.

Whales, dolphins and porpoises are regularly stranded around the coasts of the UK. They are often found stranded in groups, or pods, in shallow waters and sometimes on beaches.

While some animals can be moved to safer, deeper waters by teams of experts, other animals are less lucky and perish as a result. The underlying causes of live stranding events are not always clear, and research is ongoing to gain better insights.

For this study researchers examined stranded animals for the presence of the brain pathology that are part of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, including the formation of amyloid-beta plaques, the accumulation of phospho-tau and gliosis (a change in cell numbers in response to central nervous system damage).

The results reveal that the brains of all of the aged animals studied had amyloid-beta plaques.

Three animals in particular - each from a different odontocete species - had amyloid-beta plaques as well as a number of other dementia-related pathologies in their brains, showing some species develop Alzheimer's-like neuropathology.

However, the study cannot confirm whether any of the animals would have suffered with the same cognitive deficits associated with clinical Alzheimer's disease in humans.

Lead researcher, Dr Mark Dagleish from the University of Glasgow, said: "These are significant findings that show, for the first time, that the brain pathology in stranded odontocetes is similar to the brains of humans affected by clinical Alzheimer's disease.

Further research required

"While it is tempting at this stage to speculate that the presence of these brain lesions in odontocetes indicates that they may also suffer with the cognitive deficits associated with human Alzheimer's disease, more research must be done to better understand what is happening to these animals."

Co-author, Professor Frank Gunn-Moore from the University of St Andrews, said: "I have always been interested in answering the question: do only humans get dementia?

"Our findings answer this question as it shows potential dementia associated pathology is indeed not just seen in human patients.

"This study is also a great example of both different research institutes, but also different branches of the Life Sciences working together."

Professor Tara Spires-Jones, of the University of Edinburgh, said: "We were fascinated to see brain changes in aged dolphins similar to those in human ageing and Alzheimer's disease.

"Whether these pathological changes contribute to these animals stranding is an interesting and important question for future work."

All animals in this research were studied after a stranding event. Marine Scotland and Defra fund post-mortem examinations, via the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme, of cetaceans (including odontocetes), pinnipeds and marine turtles that strand and die in Scottish coastal waters.

The paper, 'Alzheimer's disease-like neuropathology in three species of oceanic dolphin' is published in the European Journal of Neuroscience.