Major dog breed organisations are implementing health testing requirements and breed standard reforms designed to reduce inherited disease and extreme conformation that causes suffering.
Dog breed reform is one of the most structurally important welfare interventions available because it addresses the genetic determinism that produces suffering in every individual of an affected breed regardless of owner care. The breeds that require surgical procedures to reproduce, to breathe, or to give birth have been created by human selection pressure that prioritised appearance over health. Breed standards that required extreme conformation traits have been the mechanism; revising those standards is the lever. Norway's legal intervention — prohibiting breeding where the animal cannot live without chronic suffering — demonstrates what regulatory reform can achieve in a defined timeframe.