Welfare Issues of "Fashionable" Dogs and Cats Breeding

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a Special Issue of the journal Animals, which will explore the welfare issues of “fashionable” dogs and cats breeding. Humans are still attracted to specific morphological characteristics, selecting for a variety of exaggerated traits including body size, ear type, coat type, and skull, and skeletal dimensions (i.e., brachycephalic or miniature breeds). Moreover, the designer dog breeds can be considered as fashionable breeds. Over the last few years there has been a growing demand for this kind of breeds. The term "designer dog" typically refers to the offspring of two purebred dogs of different breeds. The reason for creating a hybrid dog is to develop a dog that has the positive attributes of two separate dog breeds in order to respond to humans needs (i.e., hypoallergenic pets, friendly, and with an attractive appearance). Common examples include the Labradoodle (a Labrador retriever crossed with a Poodle), the Goldendoodle (a Golden retriever crossed with a Poodle) and Maltipoo (a Maltese crossed with a Poodle). With such selection decisions often heavily based on aesthetics, health can be detrimentally affected due to both reduced selection pressure for this trait, but also due to direct links between conformational and genetic traits and disease. In this scenario the animal welfare can be threatened.

Although the literature in this area, especially on brachycephalic dog breeds, has grown in the last years producing relevant findings on conformation impact on animal welfare, fashionable pet breeds are still widely spread as a response to increasing demand. In addition to this, new breeds have been designed to address new human needs or aesthetic preferences. In light of that, further studies are needed to investigate better this phenomenon, in order to mitigate it and to document possible consequences on fashionable breeds’ welfare.

We encourage the submission of original manuscripts and reviews that identify welfare issues facing fashionable breeds. In this Special Issue, research areas may include the following:

• Welfare-relevant aspects of selection;
• Animal welfare (including acquisition motivations and practices, husbandry and training);
• Welfare assessment within the human-animal relationship;
• Human–animal interactions (including human interpretation of behaviour, portrayal of animals in the media);
• Animal behaviour (including breed-related behaviour, cognitive abilities, conspecific interactions);
• Animal health (including epidemiological and disease-specific studies, and breed-related diseases).

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Greta Veronica Berteselli
Dr. Susana Le Brech
Dr. Simona Cannas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• companion animals
• dogs
• cats
• animal welfare
• animal behavior
• animal health
• designer breeds
• human-animal interaction
• human-animal bond
• breed-related diseases