Are U.K. Dog Breeding Welfare Laws Actually Being Enforced?

Selective breeding for extreme physical features has created a quiet crisis for companion dogs in the United Kingdom. Breeds with severely flattened faces, shortened legs, or excessive skin folds are popular, but their distinctive appearances often come at the cost of chronic health problems, including breathing difficulties, eye disorders, and joint disease. Data from 2019 suggests that around 25% of dogs in the U.K. have at least one of three extreme conformational traits — flat faces, excessively shortened legs, or shortened or absent tails — and data from 2024 suggests that more than one in five dogs in the U.K. belong to a flat-faced breed type. The welfare consequences are significant and well documented.

In recognition of these harms, both England and Scotland have introduced breeding regulations intended to prevent the worst outcomes. In England, the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) Regulations (known as LAIAR) includes a provision stating that no dog may be kept for breeding if it can reasonably be expected, based on the dog’s genetic makeup, physical characteristics, or state of health, that breeding from them would harm the dog or their offspring. Scotland’s equivalent provision, introduced in 2021, additionally takes behavior into account. These regulations apply to dog breeders who operate above a set licensing threshold (e.g., breeding a certain number of litters per year) and are inspected and licensed by local authorities. Despite these protections existing on paper, the animal welfare sector has raised concerns that they aren’t being consistently applied in practice. This report set out to investigate this.

The report was produced by Naturewatch Foundation, the Legal Advisory Group on Extreme Conformation in Dogs, and the UK Centre for Animal Law. The authors submitted Freedom of Information requests in August 2025 to 326 local authorities across England and Scotland, asking:

• How councils assess compliance with the relevant license conditions;
• How many instances of non-compliance have been recorded;
• What action was taken in response to non-compliance; and
• What the grounds for non-compliance were.

Response rates were high, ranging from 95% to 97% across questions. The authors coded free-text responses into categories and cross-referenced answers across questions to build a more complete picture.

One important limitation is that the second question (asking councils how they assess compliance) invited descriptive responses, meaning some councils may take a more thorough approach than their written answers suggest. The wide variation in phrasing also made coding challenging and led to some differences in results between the two authors, which are noted transparently throughout the report. Additionally, some local authorities didn’t respond by the December 2025 cut-off date, and a number refused parts of the request on cost grounds.

The findings reveal significant variation in how councils approach compliance. Around 64% of English councils indicated they rely on the advice of a veterinarian present during inspections, though this is legally required for all initial inspections of new applicants, making it notable that not all councils mentioned it. Around 34% of English councils said they look for evidence of health testing; 20% review veterinary records held by the breeder; and 16% reference the statutory guidance issued by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. Some councils described thorough, multi-pronged assessments. Others provided only vague responses, and around 9% had no clear or identifiable approach at all.

In Scotland, the numbers were consistently lower across nearly every category. About 22% of Scottish councils said they involve a veterinarian, despite no statutory requirement to do so — something the report’s authors argue should be made mandatory. Only one Scottish council mentioned health testing, despite health tests being explicitly referenced in Scotland’s statutory guidance as something inspectors should consider for all breeders. Similarly, only one Scottish council referenced behavior, despite behavior being written directly into Scotland’s license condition. No clear or obvious approach could be identified for around 34% of Scottish councils.

Recorded findings of non-compliance were rare. In England, 31 instances were recorded between October 2018 and August 2025, a low number relative to the 2,217 licensed breeders in England at the time of data collection. These resulted in 17 license refusals, six changes to license conditions, two suspensions, two prosecutions, and two convictions. No licenses were revoked. In Scotland, zero instances of non-compliance were recorded between September 2021 and August 2025 (with 173 licensed breeders), a figure the authors describe as remarkable, particularly given that Scotland’s minimum standards are higher than England’s baseline.

Grounds for non-compliance in England included:

• Conformation issues, such as dogs with inward-rolling eyelids or dislocating kneecaps
• Female dogs with a history of Caesarean sections
• Dogs with poor general health, such as severe dental disease causing pain
• Dogs with poor socialization or nervous temperaments
• Failure to carry out appropriate health testing, including cases where only the male dogs had been tested

Cross-referencing responses across questions suggests the true number of non-compliance cases may be higher than recorded figures indicate: some councils described dogs who were deemed unsuitable for breeding in their answers to other questions, but recorded zero instances of non-compliance. Conversely, some cases recorded as non-compliance appeared on closer inspection to relate to other license conditions. Thus, the authors recommend caution in interpreting these numbers.

A particularly concerning pattern emerged around the practice of simply removing a dog from a license when concerns arise rather than recording and responding to a breach. Some councils indicated this was their standard approach, treating it as a practical solution instead of recognizing that it may leave the welfare issue unaddressed, unmonitored, and unreported. The report also flags that male dogs used for breeding are in a gray area under the current framework, with councils varying in whether they assessed stud dogs at all.

The authors recommend clearer statutory guidance for officers in both countries, with practical examples of what “all reasonable steps” to protect dogs from harmful breeding means in practice. They also call for:

• More consistent veterinary involvement, including making veterinary attendance mandatory for initial inspections in Scotland;
• Improved inspector training and qualification requirements, especially in Scotland where no formal requirements exist; and
• Further research into how local authorities respond to non-compliance, how health testing results are used, and how veterinarians are appointed and used.

In England specifically, the authors recommend that the license condition be amended to include behavior alongside genetics, physical characteristics, and health, and that language referring to dogs as “stock” be replaced with terminology that reflects their status as sentient beings.

For animal advocates, this report is an important window into how animal welfare law works — or fails to work — when translated from statute into local enforcement. The existence of a regulation does not guarantee its use. Protections for dogs bred with extreme physical features are on the books in both England and Scotland, but the data suggests they’re inconsistently applied and rarely result in formal enforcement action. Advocates can use these findings to push for clearer guidance, better-resourced inspectors, and stronger accountability mechanisms. The report also supports broader arguments that breeding dogs for fashionable physical traits that cause suffering should face more robust scrutiny at every level of the regulatory system — not just on paper, but in practice.

This summary was drafted by a large language model (LLM) and closely edited by our Research Library Manager for clarity and accuracy. As per our AI policy, Faunalytics only uses LLMs to summarize very long reports (~50+ pages) that are not appropriate to assign to volunteers, studies that contain graphic descriptions of animal cruelty or animal industries, and research on niche topics. We remain committed to bringing you reliable data, which is why any AI-generated work will always be reviewed by a human.