So how do you think the general public have heard what the IHA is? How do you think it's been taken?

think in general it's been taken in a really positive way I think the overarching messages that we've had have been hugely supportive with the public sort of saying finally you know recognizing that this situation with extreme breeding is is really going far too far has gone far too far and has been allowed to continue to go on a trajectory which, you know, a lot of people are very distinctly uncomfortable with.

But it would certainly be fair to say there's been a good deal of miscommunication and misinformation, particularly in the media, about the IHA, what our motivations are, what the implications of it might be.

Around about the time of Crufts, the media often liked to put a lot of stories out about dog breeding and the IHA was particularly the focus as a result of some misinformation which had been put out by a few breed groups.

that we were trying to ban breeds and we were going to be banning 67 breeds or something ridiculous that would come about as a result of the implications of the innate health assessment, which couldn't be further from the truth.

For a start, the whole ethos of the IHA is to try to preserve breeds.

We're actually trying to look at a lot of these breeds, French Bulldogs, Pugs, English Bulldogs, and say, look, how do we go back a few steps? How do we become a bit more moderate in our breeding practices? Can we get a bit more of a tail on a French Bulldog and on an English Bulldog? Can we...

So who would you say is your predominant audience?

So is it, is it therefore, is it against the law to breed a, a pug if we know that they're gonna experience these, this variety of sort of health problems?

Well, it depends on who is doing the breeding at the moment.

So the, the law that you're talking about is the licensing regulations that apply to licensed breeders, so the Licensing of Activities Involving Animals Regulations 2018.

It's a bit of a mouthful, but we, we call it the, the LAIA Regulations for short.

And these apply just to those breeders who are breeding on a commercial basis.

So that tends to mean that they're breeding more than three litters of puppies per year, or, uh, selling, uh, puppies in, in the course of running a business, so for generating profit.

Um, that test, the business test, the profit test can be difficult to apply.

I know you've been very involved in the, uh, development of the Innate Health Assessment, and I guess part of that really is to try and kind of make clear where the line in the sand is, helping to kind of clear up what is acceptable and what's not in terms of appearance that we're aiming to breed dogs with.