A Matter of Breeding Read online

  For Samantha and Josie

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Dr. Marc Bekoff

  Introduction

  CHAPTER ONE The English Vice

  CHAPTER TWO Perfectionists Gone Wild

  CHAPTER THREE Royal Precedents and Ruff Drafts

  CHAPTER FOUR Eugenics, You, and Fido Too

  CHAPTER FIVE A Frickin’ Menagerie

  CHAPTER SIX The Midas Touch

  CHAPTER SEVEN Aristocracy for Sale

  CHAPTER EIGHT Some Hunting Dogs

  CHAPTER NINE Coming Home

  CONCLUSION Frankenstein’s Lab

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Index

  FOREWORD

  For many years I’ve researched human-animal interactions, writing several books, including The Emotional Lives of Animals and, with Jane Goodall, The Ten Trusts, and cofounding the organization Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I am profoundly committed to the notion that we are our companions’ trusted guardians, not their owners. Additionally, I feel strongly that dogs (and other animals) are not commodities and that causing intentional pain to them is unethical, inhumane, and unnecessary.

  From this standpoint, I believe it’s time—indeed, it’s long overdue—to have reasoned discussions and debates about dog breeding. Many major studies document a rising number of breed-specific health problems and suggest we’re in the midst of an alarming health crisis. A two-month-old bulldog should not need routine eye surgery nor should a four-year-old Labrador show signs of hip dysplasia. Clearly there’s something wrong in the world of pedigree dogs. I’ve argued that we don’t need any more “purebred” dogs, and as Michael Brandow asks in this most important book, “Why do we go on hurting the ones we love?”

  With a background in journalism, dog care, and community activism, Michael Brandow is a close observer of canine culture. His eye-opening book, A Matter of Breeding, is what I regard as an ethically urgent and essential read. Brandow addresses head on the issues of snobbery and consumerism inherent to “purebreds,” with remarks on “designer dogs,” the second-largest but fastest-growing segment of the dog industry. Rich in history, the book traces the commercial origins of the Boston terrier, English bulldog, and other types that were marketed as highfalutin’ status symbols beginning in the nineteenth century.

  Upper classes, the author reminds us, have long set the benchmark for valuing dogs according to the social status they confer. From ancient court dogs and royalty’s highly formalized hunting rites to the creation of kennel clubs by Gilded Age elites and the strict but often arbitrary standards used in competitions to judge on style, not substance, Brandow demonstrates that a major motivation for owning identifiable types has been their aristocratic appeal. And, while we satisfy our self-centered desires, millions upon millions of dogs unnecessarily suffer and die way before their time.

  While the modern cult of pedigree and the very concept of officially recognized breeds are inventions of Victorian England, these ideas have taken root in our culture with profound consequences for dogs and people alike. Then, as now, much of the impetus for having fancy pets has revolved around what they’re supposed to say about the owner’s position, spending power, connoisseurship, and taste—in other words, how they reflect upon their owner’s breeding. In showing how far we humans have gone in refashioning dogs to freakish extremes that go against common sense, even exaggerating their behaviors in ways to denote rarity and lavish expenditure, the author urges us to think critically about our breed prejudices and ask ourselves whether preserving them is worth all the damage done to dogs in the process. By examining a person’s preference for a purebred to a nonbreed, we can see how these consumer choices are anything but neutral. We must also ask ourselves how we—as dog lovers—can justify bringing more animals into this world when millions are already dumped in shelters, often because they’ve failed to live up to expectations that are unrealistic and, according to Brandow, somewhat hypocritical.

  Brandow’s provocative analysis makes it clear that our everyday assumptions about dogs have implications for the social biases we have against each other, sources of much injustice. As he points out, if we’re going to impose human beliefs on other animals, we could at least use those we claim to have. This contradiction, he suggests, could explain why so little effort has been made to purge dog breeding of misplaced priorities and pseudoscience of the past. In fact, those entrusted with the welfare and improvement of man’s best friend—kennel clubs and the scientists they fund, breed clubs, puppy mills, and “reputable” breeders alike, and local veterinarians who clean up the mess without comment—constitute a colossal dog industry that all too often privileges a recognized brand with class connotations (papillon, golden, Portuguese) over an individual animal’s health. As I’ve said before, we shouldn’t breed for qualities that appeal to humans but do little for the dogs. There’s nothing noble about encouraging anatomical, physiological, or genetic maladies that guarantee compromised lives, pain, suffering, and early deaths. When I hear a dog with a squashed face pant as if he or she is going to pass out it sickens me. The best way to stop the breeding of purebreds is to stop buying them.

  Brandow’s unflinching social history, viewed with humor and sarcasm, remains a very serious, significant, and timely message and is a very important first step toward reforming our cultural prejudices against mongrels due to their uncertain origins and substandard appearance. He unmasks the sordid past of dog shows, the impromptu creation of the oddities we’ve come to accept as normal, and the alarming conservatism of some experts who still insist, against all evidence to the contrary, that purebred dogs are likely to be healthier, smarter, or more loyal and trainable than common mutts. My hope is that after reading A Matter of Breeding, people eager to adopt a canine companion will first look to their local shelters and not a breed directory. Adopting a dog in need is the compassionate and, it turns out, often the more rational consumer choice. It’s a win-win situation for the dogs and the people. What could be better? Breeding—meaning both the disturbing legacy of bias and inequality celebrated each year at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, and the ongoing production of surplus pets while millions await rescue or death—needs to be reconsidered in a major way. This landmark book will surely motivate people to begin to ask the hard questions and to answer them, so that dogs benefit from these discussions. I’m sure the dogs who are chosen will be forever thankful for people who make this decision. It’s a malicious double-cross to betray their deep feelings of trust in our having their best interests in mind.

  Once again, to quote the author, “Breeding for blood ‘purity’ and formal perfection is pure madness and always has been.” Amen.

  —Dr. Marc Bekoff

  INTRODUCTION

  I found my inspiration for this impolite volume while trying to dodge something else. Wandering the sidewalks of Manhattan in the midst of an unsavory study on poop-scoop laws with my newfound mutt from a local shelter, I started wondering: what was so appealing about “purebred” dogs? I know many of us grew up with them. These were, after all, what good middle-class families had in those days, and preferably the latest model. But what gave birth to the widespread belief that being seen with a fancy breed makes you fancier than someone with a good old-fashioned mutt?

  Pounding the pavement as a dog walker for ten years, I had as wide a catalog selection as my powers of observation could handle, a continual pooch panorama with all the standard shapes, sizes, and colors competing for attention. In a sense, I didn’t need this rainbow coalition to tell me anything new. Having spent my life with breeds and nonbreeds alike, sat for hundreds in the homes of New York’s elite, apprenticed with a dog trainer, performed with
my own on national television, and passed thousands of hours volunteering at a dog park chatting with every imaginable breed of owner, I’d learned to love all dogs despite their pigmentation and social ties. I knew before starting this study that, unless they had specific skills for tasks like jumping through hoops, working on my grandmother’s farm, hunting with my dad, or helping the blind lady who lived down the block, their dazzling diversity was mostly superficial. Bird dogs were out of their element in the rarified atmosphere of upper-class Manhattan. Portuguese water dogs were fish out of water. Take Weimaraners out of their Wegman coats and they were still half-crazed lapdogs. Dobies and rotties could be better guardians than some, but owners wanted signature stances and ears that stood right. Bassets were once used for tracking, and with a little more brains or less skin, the show versions might find a trail if you rubbed their noses in it. Black Labs and golden retrievers summoned ancient memories of Scottish moors and aristocratic estates, but at the end of the day, they were couch potatoes like the rest.

  The actual subject of my study became not hounds but the humans hooked on their looks—and what fascinating creatures these were. In all those years spent walking privileged pets for one of the most visible and affluent communities in the world, the most challenging part of my job wasn’t picking up the poop but sidestepping people who wanted dogs to be so much more. My sworn duty to my charges was to give them a good leg-stretching, including pit stops on the way, but also to get them to the nearest dog run safe and sound for an hour of off-leash freedom from those attempting to reward their unconditional love with a long list of preconditions. What my crew of pups needed was a chance to be themselves, and the clock was ticking for each and every individual regardless of breed, creed, or color. Cool shade and fresh grass called out universally to noses of all shades, and not even squirrels discriminated based on pedigree when taunting from the nearest branch.

  Wrist burns as my witness, the last thing my dogs wanted or needed was to stop on hot concrete to be admired by total strangers looking for the latest Westminster champ. Normal boundaries, the rules designed to help people coexist in crowded places, came down in one tsunami of unbridled puppy love as I navigated my team through some of the hairiest social situations known to man or beast. Purebreds brought out the child in people, and grown adults from all walks of life brought ours to a screeching halt by pointing from a distance, rushing up to pet without permission, then blocking our path to ask questions.

  If a new breed was in the White House and I was walking an inbred cousin, the puparazzi demanded in no uncertain terms to know: “Is that a Portuguese water dog?” or “Is it perchance a Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen?” When Charlotte got a Cavalier King Charles on Sex and the City, I had no choice but to answer, countless times, the query of the season: “Is that a Cavalier?” Nine weeks after Best in Show hit the theaters, a wave of Norwich terriers hit the sidewalks, followed by “Is that a Norwich or a Norfolk?” Border collies became burdensome when shown at Westminster. I stopped accepting Saint Bernards after Beethoven’s 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th. When Disney released another sequel-to-a-remake, pavements were blighted with black spots and all of New York resounded with: “Isn’t that a Dalmatian?”

  Meanwhile, any mutts in my care were invisible to the purists, completely off their social radar. Like bird watchers in Central Park, the hobbyists were looking for particular types, specimens they could call out and label, then store upstairs for obscure and arcane purposes. Canine cataloging seems to bring some strange sense of pride and accomplishment, and the more esoteric the question, the better it reflects upon the inquirer who, in the vast majority of cases, already knows the answer. The real goal in the breed guessing game is to make known, to the dog’s owner, walker, and anyone within earshot, that the contestant is up on all the four-legged facts as revealed on Animal Planet or Hollywood’s latest Chihuahua extravaganza.

  How many dog lovers are aware that, despite the praise and admiration we shower upon our best friends, not everything we do for them is in their own best interests? Sure, the coats are pretty, but Labs and shepherds need hydrotherapy for hip dysplasia if they’re to continue sidewalk entertaining. Shar-peis and boxers look distinctive with those folds on the face, but owners book return visits to animal hospitals for interminable allergies and epilepsy, while goldens and Scottish deerhounds take pet taxis to oncology wards and ICUs. We’re so busy dragging Boomer and Bailey around town that we don’t stop to think that much of their special care is only necessary because of problems their biggest fans have helped inflict upon them.

  There can no longer be any doubt. As was long suspected, ample studies confirm that requiring breeds to be distinctive has led to dramatically higher levels of cancer, structural deformities, skin conditions, eye and ear infections, and a host of afflictions that are multiplying. Many purebreds are officially in peril and dog lovers must confront this sad reality. Forcing Labs to go on looking Labby and pugs pugnacious—expecting them to “conform,” as they say in the show ring, to arbitrary beauty-pageant ideals—has resulted in creatures esthetically pleasing to behold, depending on your personal tastes, but physically and often mentally inferior to the average mutt. Compromising health and temperament with a concern for surface appearance has given dogs a host of defects including “extreme anatomies,” say concerned vets, cartoon features that consumers find cute but are in fact deformities causing discomfort, pain, and shorter lives—and the agony owners feel when having to make that final decision sooner than they thought.

  Why do we go on hurting the ones we love? Why must German shepherds limp through life and French bulldogs barely breathe? Enthusiasts attached to the breeds they had growing up surely don’t wish to see their beloved favorites suffer, but they might want to be more aware that congenital illness and certain signature looks, even in the so-called hypoallergenic models, have become serious problems in recent years. I argue that the root of the problem lies in the past. Rigid tastes, latent class consciousness, a belief in blood “purity,” naive notions on authenticity—and a tendency to sometimes love dogs for the wrong reasons—override a wealth of information available on the dangers of inbreeding, the downsides to extreme anatomies, and the evils of the pet industry today. Well-intentioned animal lovers with minds open to this broader historical perspective might wake up one morning to a revelation: dogs don’t need to be neatly standardized, packaged, and sealed to be our friends. How much easier it would make people’s lives to learn that for every prepaid, photogenic purebred ordered months in advance of birth with promises of “predictability” from “reputable” breeders, perfectly wonderful specimens of dog are available minutes away at the local shelter, with at least as much happiness to offer and often with no breeding at all.

  Maybe dogs never lie about love, but some people still see what they want to see. No self-styled dog expert of the old school, in all my time pooch perambulating, has ever stopped me on a Manhattan sidewalk to ask, “Is it true that over 60 percent of all golden retrievers in this country are dying of cancer?” If by chance they did, I’d point them to an article in the Wall Street Journal (published over a decade after the study was released) or an eye-opening BBC documentary called “Pedigree Dogs Exposed” showing many breeds to be in serious trouble.1 I might mention, if they had a moment to chat, that the BBC dropped its coverage of Crufts, the world’s premier dog show and role model for our own Westminster, until cyno-social clubs reexamined their values and reset their priorities. Not a single hound hide enthusiast, respectful of tradition and awed by “good” breeding and “good” families, deigned to grab my arm and confirm that Queen Elizabeth herself withdrew royal patronage from England’s famed Kennel Club, the forerunner of our American Kennel Club (AKC), to force its hand at reform.

  The cult of pedigree and formal perfection comes to us via the British, and the many downsides are being seen on both sides of the pond. Little is it known that progress toward simply acknowledging a canine health crisis actually
began in the United States, if only at an English bulldog’s pace. Eighteen years before highly publicized calls to action were heard in the UK, Mark Derr’s bold landmark essay, “The Politics of Dogs,” appeared in the Atlantic Monthly2 at a time when most national media feared lawsuits from the great and powerful AKC. Since then, books, magazines, and major studies have sounded alarms about problems with pedigree dogs,3 and Americans have gradually withdrawn support from old authorities whose judgment appears unsound.4 “Pedigree Dogs Exposed” surpassed an English tradition of whipping pretentious pet owners with social commentary and wit, taking the Kennel Club to court with charges more serious than snobbery. The Economist described many modern breeds not as the epitome of British know-how but as “a grotesque distortion of the underlying wolf.”5

  Reconsidering the dog, this isn’t to say that the fancy—those who own, breed, show, and judge “purebreds”—consists entirely of dastardly villains bent on profiting from animal cruelty. Whether they’re affiliated with the AKC or the more health- and performance-oriented United Kennel Club, breed buffs certainly don’t wish to see their customized types discontinued. Breed clubs and kennel clubs, it’s true, raise large sums to combat the diseases that have come to characterize individual breeds as unmistakably as their coat colors or ear shapes. That said, it has been argued that many of these efforts will have a limited effect within the present system. Adhering to the same strict and narrow practices to create breeds, and then to keep them “pure” in blood and “correct” in appearance, can make DNA-testing schemes to breed out illnesses self-defeating endeavors.6 A rising number of veterinary scientists are calling for some of the most troubled types, ranging from pugs to Cavaliers, to be banned despite their large followings, if only out of mercy for the dogs themselves.7