Marisa Heath has spent over 15 years working inside UK Parliament to improve the lives of dogs. She runs the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare (APGAW), leads the Canine and Feline Sector Group, and co-founded the Innate Health Assessment, a tool that helps people recognise extreme conformation before buying a puppy or choosing which dogs to breed from.

Extreme conformation refers to physical features that have been bred so far from a dog's natural form that they cause pain, discomfort or difficulty doing basic things like breathing, walking or playing.

In 2009, Marisa published A Healthier Future for Pedigree Dogs. Sixteen years later, she is still asking the same questions.

This is not a conversation about bad breeders or irresponsible owners. It is a conversation about all of us. Somewhere along the way, we stopped noticing. Noses got shorter. Skin folds got deeper. Legs bowed. Spines curved. Breathing became laboured. And we called it normal. We called it cute.

We shared videos of dogs snoring and struggling and we laughed. This happened to the animals we say we love most, and it happened right in front of us. If you have ever looked at a dog and thought nothing of how they were built, this conversation might change what you see.

🔗 Try the Innate Health Assessment: https://www.innatehealthassessment.org/

Morocco agreed in 2019 to manage free roaming dogs through catch, neuter, vaccinate and return. That agreement was never made law, and many regions continued killing instead.

Since Morocco secured co hosting rights for the FIFA World Cup 2030, the pace and scale of killings have increased.

The IAWPC has documented shootings, poisonings and mass removals near proposed stadium cities including Tangier, Marrakesh, Rabat, Agadir, Fez and Casablanca.

Les Ward MBE and Debbie Wilson explain the evidence, the political pressures, the impact on rabies control, and why systemic violence toward dogs harms children and whole communities.

This episode explores what happens when image wins over science and what can still be done to change the direction of an entire nation.

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This episode looks at what happens when a dog’s inner world does not match the life we imagine for them.

Sam Walker-Arends is a force free trainer who works with dogs carrying fear, uncertainty or history in their bodies, and our conversation keeps returning to one truth.

Every dog is an individual. Their needs, thresholds and ways of feeling safe are never the same.

We talk about Ivy the ex racer and Reyna the timid Galgo, and how raising two children alongside two very different dogs forced Sam to confront stress, expectation and the limits of tolerance.

She shares openly about recognising when a dog is no longer coping and why safety matters more than any ideal of the perfect family dog.

At its core, this episode asks a quiet but important question.

What does safety look like for an individual dog, and what does our response to that individuality reveal about us.

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