So, there's a really wide range of problems that arise from the way that we've manipulated dogs to be such different shapes. So, we've got short muzzled dogs, dogs with very long backs, dogs that are very large or very small. And they've gone past extremes, that means that there's problems associated with with her inherited diseases. There's over 300 diseases that are related to, have a component of inheritance in domestic dog. Of which 63 are directly related to their shape. My particular interest was about skull shape, and how reducing the length of the muzzle particularly, has led to severe problems with breathing difficulties in popular breeds like the pug the bulldog and the French bulldog. So in these breeds, the muzzle to the skeleton of the skull has been reduced in size. But unfortunately there's lots of soft tissues within the skull haven't been reduced which means that there's a lot of resistance to air, so when the dogs try to breathe, they can find that quite difficult. And that can manifest as the dogs being unable to participate in normal day-to-day doggy activities. So they can't exercise normally, perhaps playing with other dogs and going for a normal walk. They overheat very easily. Some dogs actually faint because of their inability to get enough oxygen into their bloodstream. It also has issues with them being able to eat properly. Many dogs ha, choke an awful lot when they're trying to eat. They can't sleep very well because they're woken up, the fact that they can't breathe in the night. So it really is a real suite of welfare problems while they're both awake and asleep. My research showed that as muzzle length decreases, so as we go from perhaps a longer muzzle breed like greyhound, to shorter muscle breed like bulldog or a pug, the risk of this welfare-relevant disorder increases. So the shorter muzzle dogs are at a much higher risk of being a, unable to breathe properly in normal everyday situations. There's multiple solutions that involve lots of different groups. So, for example we can start with breeder's specifically. If their breeding for the show ring, and breed standards, we can change those standards so they don't encourage particularly extreme morphologies, so we don't encourage these really short muzzles. We've already got show judges, making sure that they don't reward particularly extreme morphology so we can move to a healthier body shape. We've also got vets. Vets need to educate owners, potentially new owners in the puppy buying public because we need these market forces to actually have a demand for healthy dogs. So not just dogs that are fashionable or that people like because of their looks, but dogs that are actually functional and healthy. If you own a dog that ha, is at high risk, and indeed some of these breeds are incredibly popular and getting more popular, owners need to be really vigilant and they need to know what they are looking for. They need to be listening to the breathing of their dogs, and if it's particularly increased and loud, If their dog snores while it's asleep or indeed makes snoring noises while it's awake, they should to be looking to seek veterinary attention. Same in terms of if they notice that their dog has difficulties while it's walking or, indeed, it gets worse overtime, then they need to intervene. Because the prognosis for treatment becomes worse over time so, owners need to be really vigilant. They can also do things to try and improve their dogs welfare if they are affected. So, for example, they can make sure their dog's always cool, not taking them out on hot days in Scotland. They can make sure that they wear a harness so they don't have too much pressure on their dog's neck, which could cause them more difficulties with breathing. And they can make sure they keep them lean, they need to make sure their dog isn't overweight, which can increase their risk even further, from our research. >> Thank you very much.
