Two top bulldogs were matched in the hope of silencing critics upset over how freakishly deformed the breed had become. The first champion, Orry, looked like a bulldog of the old school, being lighter boned and athletic. His opponent, Dockleaf, heavier set and smaller, came closer to the ideal for the modern theatrical version. Orry was the more agile of the two and won at walking—hardly a measure of athleticism—while Dockleaf showed fatigue and was withdrawn.25 This didn’t prevent breeders from reproducing a half-crippled Dockleaf for years to come. In the show ring, prizes would be showered upon dogs unfit for walking, much less running, but conforming to their official standard for appearance. Understandably, critics were concerned that “while these exaggerations of form were being produced, it was at the cost of the dog’s stamina and health.”26
In the 1970s, the breed was “improved” yet again, this time by an Anglophile American who created yet another fake replica breed altogether. Historical accuracy and improved health were the goals, though even this latest nostalgia-trip bulldog was remade for form first and had a questionable function as a house pet. According to dog designer David Leavitt, the traditional English bulldog—created a mere century before—no longer looked quite English enough. As is often done in “rescuing” rare dogs of the past, the breeder looked to old paintings, engravings, and statues when attempting to prop up this relic from a bygone era. After nearly two centuries of human fidgeting, the bulldog was repackaged once again, this time to be more convincing to an American audience that still had a taste for England’s bloody past. “Extreme cruelty to animals was inherent in baiting sports,” wrote Leavitt. “This cruelty was abhorrent to me, but I was fascinated by the great tenacity and courage of the over-matched underdog.27 I was also drawn to the Bulldog because of his fierce appearance.”28 This authentic “Olde English Bulldogge” came complete with antique spelling as the name might appear in gold gothic letters above the bar in a quaint English pub—charming to some, pure nonsense to others. As added reminders of the dog’s bellicose, breast-pounding past, a new brand of gin called “Bulldog” now wears a spiked collar around its neck, and “JOCKO,” a line of manly jockstraps designed for gays bears the face of a tough and determined bulldog over the elastic waistband.
The odd-looking creature I was hired to walk that day was the 1890s theatrical version, not the 1970s remake of a remake. In fact, Bob’s trip downstairs to the street was wrought with drama. As his dads had foretold, he threw up his water in the elevator. We moved as fast as the guy could limp across the polished marble floor of his front lobby until a sudden tug came to the leash. I looked down to learn that Bob had lost more of his breakfast even before I could prepare lunch with all of his prescriptions. The doorman knew from experience exactly what to do. He said not to worry because a mop and pail were nearby at all times. A grin came to the face of this keeper of the gates who’d grown attached to the tragicomical little figure, like everyone else who’d witnessed his daily ordeal. He opened the door so Bob could make it to the pavement without further delay.
“Good boy!” I said as the puppy squatted over the curb and released a small river of urine into the gutter. He waddled a few feet, did his other business, threw up some more, then snorted while looking up at me with eyes full of puss. I reminded myself not to be alarmed by this compact medicine ball oozing from every orifice. Bob coughed and rested before trying to walk again, only to stumble and swerve as though he was about to faint. We’d only been out a few minutes and already it was time to go home. I decided to carry Bob back into the building, but this was difficult to do without making breathing more difficult for him. Locking my arms around four deformed legs so as not to put pressure on the chest, I lifted with a grunt and ran through the doors, already opened by the doorman who’d been awaiting our return.
“It’s almost like clockwork,” he said, patting Bob on the head as we passed. “Let’s hope he gets strong enough to take a real walk like other dogs some day.”
Keeping this thought in mind, I turned the key again, Bob’s signal to drag himself into the apartment and grab the nearest toy in sight. His dads had paid for a half-hour walk and he still had some time left. After I’d cleaned the puppy’s cage, then fed and medicated him, we sat on a rug playing with his favorite toy of all, an old sock nearly chewed to bits. Tug-of-war made him growl happily, distracting for a time from his suffering, though he did throw up most of his lunch. I would have given him longer to play, but about a dozen other bulldogs were waiting, in their own respective dark apartments, to be walked. When the time came, Bob compliantly followed me into the kitchen with a snort, then waddled into his cage without a fuss. I don’t know why I talk to dogs. Maybe to make myself feel less guilty for leaving, I said, “Don’t worry, pal. I’ll be back the same time tomorrow. And your dads will be home in a few hours.” Bob seemed to understand and lay down on a powder-blue blanket with a kind of resolve I would’ve expected from a much older dog. He looked up with those bloodshot eyes that told a past he knew nothing about.
On the way out of this grand apartment decorated like an imperial palace and before hitting the switch, I took time to notice two large jade statues that flanked the main entrance leading to the outside hallway. These were animal figures and sort of looked like Bob in a sketchy way. Seated on two pedestals were translucent green dogs—or were they lions?—with tongues hanging out like serpents or maybe dragons. They had a demonic look to them with fiery eyes, catlike teeth, and bird claws. These were mythical creatures, or so I hoped. I darkened the room but turning to close the door behind me caught a glimpse of the coffee table again. In the spotlight of the opened door, next to the volume of well-hung matadors, was another glossy cover of a book called Kennedy Style. I’d never understood this obsession with old families and good breeding among a group of people who had no plans to do any themselves. There was the answer to my question.29
CHAPTER TWO
PERFECTIONISTS GONE WILD
Entering the grand old house on West Twelfth for an interview with a potential client, I was ushered in by a determined doggy who was flanked on both sides by two decorative felines. The cats paused cautiously while their pal, a funny French bulldog whose personality far exceeded her size, came rushing toward the door snorting and barking with a rough, whiskey voice. “This is Winnie,” was my introduction to the being I befriended with a simple scratch behind one of her outlandish satellite-dish ears out of proportion to her head, which was itself supersized for the small, compact frame to which it looked bolted. “She’s seven and loves cats,” Winnie’s mom continued, sensing my delight with the peaceable kingdom I’d just discovered in a narrow foyer. The dog approved, her owner was instantly set on giving me the job, and the rest was mere formality.
My new client gestured me down the hall and my new best friend followed, as though by instinct without being told, in a precise heel position by my side on round, feline feet. The cats scattered to right and left, disappearing into different rooms. “In fact she has two of her own. I like to call them the Three Musketeers. But you have to watch her on the sidewalk because she only loves her cats.” A conversation followed in the front parlor where I sat on a sofa petting a quirky contraption that looked more like a cat than a dog. Attached to Winnie’s dwarfed body was a domed lion’s head with the punched-in face of a Persian. Puss-in-Boots ears were raised alertly, and her back was permanently arched like a frightened kitty’s. Wide leonine eyes, a flat button nose, and a Cheshire grin carved into a globular skull resembling a Halloween pumpkin—a long tail was all that was missing to complete the comparison. Winnie’s was reduced to a stub.
I smiled at the abbreviated cat-dog vying with her owner for attention while I was handed instructions on her idiosyncrasies. Endearing details were revealed, like what sorts of dogs frightened her on the street, which parks she preferred to promenade in, and favorite treats kept on the second shelf to the left. The top priority was a small cylindrical object made of rubber called a Kong toy, an a
lien shape I was told to impregnate with peanut butter and place precisely at the center of Winnie’s red velvet bed in the library—not the pink satin bed in kitchen—after her daily walk. Winnie’s intricate daily routine had to be respected strictly and punctually, I was warned in no uncertain terms, observed like rituals in a monk’s book of hours, or else she might get confused and poop in the bedroom. Such are the intimate facts, some based on trial and error, others spawned of a dog owner’s own private anthropomorphisms, that only a devoted parent would understand and care to impart to someone entering a circle of trust. Over the years, hit-or-miss habits become rules, and eventually these morph into sacred traditions. “I leave the TV on all day because she just loves Animal Planet,” the woman continued with one of those wild claims that seemed at first to be “more about the people than the dogs,” as they say, until I saw Winnie sitting mesmerized by shadows of tigers, zebras, and giraffes passing highly defined across an enormous flat screen. “She’s very good on the leash. But keep an eye open for pizza crusts and chicken wings when you’re walking her, because she’s a real Hoover!”
Just as I was thinking that dogs would be dogs and there was nothing not to love about this one, some unseen presence entered the room and turned our conversation in a new direction. Winnie’s mom and I sat civilized around a coffee table discussing doggy do’s and don’ts, but as though guided by forces beyond her control, my host felt compelled to make an unsolicited confession. “The breeder told us she’s not show quality,” she confessed, apologizing for the perfectly sweet and innocent creature before us. “Her ears are too droopy, they said.”
I’d heard it all before. No matter what the breed or how wonderful and unique the individual dog, there’s always something wrong: a Frenchie’s ears don’t stand quite right, beagle’s muzzle is too long, basenji’s tail doesn’t lean slightly to one side at a precise angle, cocker’s eye rims lack that distinct “almond” shape . . . A person can adore a pet in or out of the show ring, but there’s always that other presence looming, scrutinizing, and handing down judgments. It taxes the understanding of amateur dog lovers to discover that industry professionals, grown adults and many of them educated, devote their entire lives to maintaining the proper distance between a pair of nostrils and preserving the sanctity of a curly tail. Exacting rules for the canine form assume a complexity that pushes the limits of common sense and drags us back into a dark and primitive world of secret incantations and weird geometrical formulas.
Each of three sections on a dachshund, for example—head, torso, and hindquarters—should ideally make up, respectively, no more than one-third of the entire length. Otherwise, the pup might win no prize, and the price of its offspring, like the owner’s esteem, will suffer. Likewise, a borzoi’s height, platonically speaking, is equal to its length—in other words, the dog must form a perfect square.1 This insistence on balance and mathematical precision can sometimes border on madness. If a Pembroke Welsh corgi wants to be fit for a queen or a kennel club, then it must be constructed as follows: “Distance from the occiput [or back of the head] to center of stop [where the muzzle begins] to be greater than the distance from stop to nose tip, the proportion being five parts of total distance for the skull and three parts for the foreface.”2 A line drawn from the nose tip through the eyes and then across the ear tips should form “an approximate equilateral triangle.”3 Professional show judges and average pet owners bow before rigid but arbitrary standards that have changed surprisingly little in years.
Coat color is also strictly governed on dogs wishing to be worthy of places in our hearts and homes. How quickly we’ve forgotten that throughout much of the nineteenth century, early attempts at Labrador retrievers were killed at birth if they were yellow, because no shade other than solid black was “desirable,” as they say in the fancy. “There is no record of what happened to yellow dogs through this period,” writes Richard Wolters in The Labrador Retriever: The History—the People. “The records of the restocking of the Buccleuch kennels from the Malmesbury line mentioned only blacks. It has to be assumed that if off-color puppies arrived they were not appreciated and consequently done away with.”4 To the present day at Westminster or Crufts, perfectionists can be very demanding, and a tiny wisp or “flash” of contrast on the chest or muzzle of an otherwise unblemished yellow, chocolate, or black Lab might handicap that dog in a judge’s eyes. “A small white spot on the chest is permissible, but not desirable,” reads the AKC standard out of sheer charity.5 Any highlights such as graying on the face that can’t be explained by age—though one of the Lab’s possible ancestors, the Saint John’s water dog, had these distinctions at birth—are grounds for disqualification. Heaven help the puppy born brindled.
Matching accessories are no less carefully thought out in advance. “Eye color should be brown in black and yellow Labradors, and brown or hazel in chocolates,” reads the standard. “Black, or yellow eyes give a harsh expression and are undesirable. Small eyes, set close together or round prominent eyes are not typical of the breed. Eye rims are black in black and yellow Labradors; and brown in chocolates. Eye rims without pigmentation is a disqualification.” It doesn’t stop there. Black and yellow Labs must have black noses. Chocolate Labs must have brown. And the pink snout often seen on today’s very popular yellow Lab is simply “unacceptable.”6 Skin, like fur, must be laid out as per instructions, especially on breeds with too much of it. English bulldogs and Dogues de Bordeaux, for example, cannot be champions if those distinctive folds aren’t mapped symmetrically across the faces. A breeder of Rhodesian ridgebacks admitted to the BBC in 2008 that puppies born without that distinctive mark along the back—even though it’s linked to a defect of the spine—are killed out of some (misguided) sense of mercy.7
Arbitrary but idealistic as this enormous body of rules might seem to outsiders, standards didn’t fall from the sky. Winnie the French bulldog didn’t inhabit her cartoon shape by accident. Before the AKC had the final word on her look, early pioneers fought long and hard to get this dog on a path to some preconception of perfection. Authorities back in the late nineteenth century bickered over whether the tail should be straight or curly, and the breed itself almost didn’t happen. Three different runners-up vied for recognition from the kennel clubs and a lasting place in our hearts. The miniature bulldog, the toy bulldog, and the French bulldog all looked quite similar, and only one would live on to be ranked among the most popular breeds in the world. After some prolonged cat-fighting between ladies partial to each of these types, speculators on two variations stepped aside. The Frenchie was the social survivor.8
But with victory comes responsibility. The struggle wasn’t over, because sponsors hadn’t agreed on what it took to be a champion in the show ring, that celestial ideal to which any dog worthy of its name should aspire. The French bulldog had a good following, but the finer points were not yet etched in stone, and with no formal criteria for handing out trophies and rosettes—and nothing for the society column of the New York Times to write about the owners—the breed was “unstable,” as fanciers call a type that has not achieved “breediness,” or “reproductive uniformity.”
Those funny, substandard ears on dear Winnie would have been no laughing matter to the elite corps of ladies who formed the French Bull Dog Club of America, the first of its kind devoted to this somewhat recent arrival on the purebred scene of 1897. Frenchies had come a long way in a short while. Originally English bulldogs whose size had been allowed to “deteriorate” in England, they are believed to have been transferred to the Continent by lace makers who migrated to Normandy.9 While in France, the diminutive bulls grew smaller still by mating with local dogs. Isolated from their land of birth, they flourished and evolved in different ways, but until some grande dame from Paris snatched one up as a fashion accessory and made it a darling of urban elites, breeding was not controlled and pedigrees weren’t recorded. In the early years, owners were typically working folk who made clothing for the rich but had
no social use for pets that matched their wares. This dog wasn’t even a breed yet because it lacked that couture perfection demanded by the big-city kennel clubs. Proto-Frenchies were kept for companionship and not for show. They were free to mix their blood indiscriminately with other dogs, a thought that strikes terror into the hearts of pooch purists.
Returning to this pressing question of head ornaments, a topic that occupied fine ladies for many an afternoon tea and the inspiration for forming the Frenchie club in the first place: “To what type of dog the toy bulldog was bred in France to create this particular ear formation,” one writer recalled, “will, perhaps, always remain a mystery.”10 This was precisely the sort of ambiguity that fanciers could not abide. The ears had no known origin. A gap in the dog’s family tree suggested something suspicious in its character. A minor detail drove a major wedge in the canine community, festering unfriendly feelings for years to come. When this rough draft of a recognized breed was thrust onto the social scene, it had the lack of distinction to be born with two types of ears. The first took a semi-erect, roselike shape. This was the ear on Winnie, and the style worn by her rightful ancestor, the hearty old snorting pride of England. But somewhere along the line, a mutation had occurred. A problematic protuberance struck a bold new stance, a posture as prickish and arrogant as one of those newfangled American skyscrapers. No one had taken the time or trouble yet to draw up an official standard for the dog, though this “bat” ear was considered a distinct disadvantage in some circles, while it was admired in others. Europeans frowned upon the pushy parvenu, and both English and French authorities agreed that only the “rose” variety should be considered in good taste. As far as they were concerned, the bat ear was a radical intrusion, and many American competitors at Westminster hedged their bets by importing rose specimens directly from purveyors in Paris. Owners of these pricy dogs expected their loyalty to pay off in cash prizes and silver cups, and more importantly, in social distinction and praise.
A Matter of Breeding Page 4