What does a truly healthy dog look like? Breeding, ethics, and the IHA tool with Marisa Heath | IHA

Why have we accepted dogs who struggle to breathe, run and sleep as "normal"? Marisa Heath has spent more than 15 years working inside the UK parliament to improve dog welfare. She runs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare (APGAW), leads the Canine and Feline Sector Group (which brings together Battersea, Dogs Trust, RSPCA, the Kennel Club and others to advise government), and is the co-founder of the newly launched Innate Health Assessment (IHA) tool. She joins Nadine to talk about a welfare problem hiding in plain sight. Marisa walks through what extreme conformation is and why so many of us have stopped seeing it (flat faces, bulging eyes, skin folds, bodies that cannot do what a dog's body should be able to do), the story behind the IHA tool and how Professor Dan O'Neill's "innate health" concept reframed the conversation away from breed and back onto the individual dog, what a healthy pug could look like within 1 to 2 generations if we chose that, and what regular people can do to influence policy when 16 years of expert lobbying has not been enough. She also opens up the questions sitting underneath the conversation: who decides what a dog should look like, what does it say about us that we have changed an animal to suit our own aesthetic, and what would dogs actually ask for if they could speak. The IHA tool is free to use. There is a version for puppy buyers and a separate version for breeders. Guest: Marisa Heath, director of APGAW, chair of the Canine and Feline Sector Group, author of A Healthier Future for Pedigree Dogs, co-founder of the Innate Health Assessment tool with Professor Dan O'Neill at the Royal Veterinary College and tech partner PetProov. Listen to Just a Dog Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. Instagram:   / justadogpodcast   Substack: https://goofles.substack.com/subscribe Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?... TikTok:   / justadogpodcast   Hosted by Nadine. APGAW: https://apgaw.org/ Innate Health Assessment (IHA): https://www.innatehealthassessment.org/