Below, please find a statement from PETA Senior Vice President of Cruelty Investigations Daphna Nachminovitch in response to the “Best in Show” winner at the 2022 National Dog Show, a French bulldog—a breathing-impaired breed (BIB)—owned by a group that includes NFL player Morgan Fox:

Setting aside the fact that this is a trade show designed to help promote the breeding and sale of dogs when the country is experiencing a dog overpopulation crisis that results in euthanasia and severely crowded animal shelters, this year’s “Best in Show” is shameful in another respect. In other countries, including throughout Europe, breeding BIBs—breathing-impaired breeds—is referred to as “torture breeding,” because French bulldogs and other BIBs can suffer from an uncomfortable, debilitating, and sometimes fatal condition called brachycephalic syndrome that makes them struggle to breathe, run, play, or experience the joys that make a dog’s life worthwhile and make hot weather hell for them. PETA urges people not to breed or buy any dog, let alone those who are physically punished by breeders who have robbed them of a real nose and who cause them to struggle for something as basic and vital as taking a breath.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.