Germany may ban sausage dogs over long-term suffering

SAUSAGE DOGS could be banned in Germany, its national kennel club has claimed, citing a draft law that would prohibit breeding practices that inflict long-term suffering on animals.

There is “shock in Germany” among dog lovers over the proposals, according to the regional Hochrhein-zeitung newspaper, which said the rules could cover dachshunds, beagles, boxers and schnauzers.

Germany’s Kennel Club [VDH] has warned that the law “prohibits our favourite dogs” and has launched a petition to scrap the reform which, as of yesterday, had some 12,000 signatures.

However, Germany’s agriculture ministry denied the reform would amount to a ban on certain breeds, such as dachshunds.

A spokesman told The Telegraph the reform was specifically about a ban on “torture breeding”, which it defined as breeding traits which inflict “pain, suffering and damage”.

The law is being introduced as part of a new draft of the Animal Protection Act, which seeks to strengthen existing laws on “torture breeding”, according to the German government. Sausage dogs are especially popular in Germany.

The dogs were first bred in the Middle Ages to have stubby legs to make them invaluable to hunters for flushing badgers and foxes out of burrows. However, their breeding also brought an increased risk of the dogs developing spinal issues.

The city of Passau in Bavaria can perhaps claim to be the breed’s capital, having set up its own museum dedicated to them in 2018.

The VDH’S petition states: “Many of the proposed changes, such as regulating the trade in animals online or taking action against the illegal puppy trade, make sense ... but the new animal protection law contains requirements that could mean the end of many healthy dog breeds in Germany.”

It explained that the criteria for banning certain breeding practices were “vague”, in particular the use of the phrase “anomalies of the skeletal system”, which ran the risk of the law being used to ban sausage dogs.

Peter Friedrich, the VDH president, said the draft law needed to be adjusted to remove ambiguity about what it meant by “anomalies” in certain breeds.