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/