A Matter of Breeding

by Michael Brandow

  This question of mutilating the ears to cancel the effects of breeding or domestication—using a knife to restore a more feral effect and create a more natural-looking dog—remains a subject of bitter debate in the dog world. The British fancy banned cropping early on when the monarchy declared that no dog could compete in such an altered state. Unless a breed was born with upward ears, it couldn’t have them. Sir Edwin Landseer, the great dog painter, refused commissions from barbarians who’d butchered their animals in this way. The distinction between “prick” as opposed to “drop” ears is mainly an esthetic matter now, though you wouldn’t think so to hear people still defending the archaic custom of cropping. Shorter ears were once a practical matter for fighting dogs because they gave an opponent less occasion to grab and tear. Whether they were worn in the pit or on the battlefield, long ears were liabilities. “We do not, however,” Thomas Bewick wrote in 1790, “admire the cruel practice of depriving the poor animal of its ears, in order to encrease its beauty.”19 Animal fighting has been illegal in most Western countries for many years now, and today’s war dogs tend to be used as scouts, sentries, trackers, and explosive detectors, not as fighters. Still the attachment to tailored ears has remained strong in pets and show dogs remade for looks alone. A group of nostalgic purists in the nineteenth century appeared before a British judge to argue that, although the mastiff could no longer legally fight lions, tigers, or bulls, his life still depended on having ears so carved up that they might be served as chateaubriand.

  Tails are attached to the less noble end of the beast, where they’ve caused endless controversy. It is universally accepted that the greyhound must have “a tayle lyke a ratte.”20 But whether these extremities should fall naturally on other breeds, or be shortened to stand erect like a finial on a china cabinet, is open to debate. Over the centuries, there have been many theories on stubby tails. “When wolves are in danger of being taken by hunters,” Topsell explained in 1607, “they bite off the tip of their tails.”21 There was also a medieval theory used to justify the practice of docking. In yet another confusion of the species, it was widely believed—owing to a misunderstanding inherited from the Romans—that the tail had to be cut off for health reasons, because when it was removed, long, sinewy strands resembling “worms” had been found.22 What better way to deworm a dog than to cut off its tail? Docking was seen as the best way to battle these parasites, though anyone today ought to know that a tail is not a worm but very much a part of the dog, something to which he’s grown attached.

  Still the esthetic preference for stubbiness has been defended on practical grounds. A long tail on a spaniel, or any other dog that hunts low to the earth in heavy brush, might be torn and infected, defenders argue. So they cut it off. Too much tail could blow a dog’s cover as it rises from tall grass, alerting the birds to his approach. So they cut it off, even from dogs never destined to hunt. Small terriers are said to need diminutive stumps to burrow into fox and badger holes without becoming stuck like Winnie the Pooh in the honey tree. The idea is to leave just enough of a handle for the hunters to grip and pull the dog out before he’s torn to ribbons. So they cut it off, from hunters and house pets alike. Along similar “practical” lines, a tax on dogs in Norman England no doubt played a role in our present-day taste for sawing them at one end. The wording of the law was such that an owner’s responsibility was to pay only by the number of tails the tax collector counted—a rule not unlike the one imposed on New York hot-dog vendors, who must pay their suppliers, not by the number of dogs left at the end of the day but by how many buns.

  Interestingly enough, old English game laws once required the tails of commoners’ dogs, the usual suspects for poaching, to be cut short, the intention being to disable them from hunting. However the question of docking is sliced, depriving animals of body parts has typically not been for their own benefit. On land, tails are used for balance. This is why dogs have them. In the water, a tail doesn’t operate so much as a ship’s “stern,” a term used in the fancy, as it serves as rudder. On land or at sea, a Labrador retriever needs his “otter” tail no less than an otter does. Mutilating dogs was once defended for the benefit of humankind, though today this archaic custom is purely for show. A rugged-hunter-turned-lapdog doesn’t require surgery to sprawl across a living room sofa. Nor does he need a historically accurate behind to be seen in public. Fanciers want to preserve the pointless custom of docking certain breeds on the pretense that long tails are easily bloodied and broken, when all they really need to do is be more careful when slamming doors. These same fanciers defend the practice of breeding unnaturally long ears on golden retrievers and cocker spaniels, even though these are prone to infections, proving that at the end of the day their true concerns are esthetic and not practical.

  Dog snobbery has little to do with practical uses of our longtime companions and lots to do with memorizing the proper terminology, like those breed connoisseurs on the sidewalk, to show a level of refinement superior to the uninitiated. The essence of the French bulldog was once compared to “the exquisite quality of Bordeaux, the glorious vigour of Burgundy, the exhilarating sparkle of champagne with the culminating satisfaction of an ‘eau de vie’ of purest Cognac.”23 The Frenchie and other breeds such as the so-called Coton de Tuléar actually come in a shade called “champagne.” Similarly, as buzzwords go, the logo chosen for the Westminster Kennel Club in the 1870s was the profile of a champion pointer imported from England deemed to have a perfect head and a coat in “lemon and white,” an expression still in use today. “Orange” can be found within the spaniel spectrum. The “rich chestnut” patch of color on the forehead of the Cavalier is a noble birthmark known as the “Blenheim spot,” referring to both a famous battle and an English castle. Among other tasteful expressions dog enthusiasts should have under their belts is “Belvoir tan,” sported only by hounds in a hunt of the highest caliber.

  After lemon and orange, “apricot” is another favorite flavor of dog, as in the “apricot poodle.” Ladies of leisure used to having high tea might prefer their poodles in “teacup” size. Chow chows come in “cream” and “cinnamon.” Many breeds are “dish-faced,” the Old English sheepdog was once said to have a “china eye,” and some breeds have “tea-pot” tails.24 “Blue” is a Wedgwood favorite but utterly foreign to mammals. Nonetheless, stare long enough and you can almost see it in the coats of chows, Australian cattle dogs, Kerry Blues, and aristocratic Great Danes that come in “pure steel blue.” The color possibilities are endless. The Encyclopedia of the Dog, an important etiquette manual for the upwardly mobile, displays the coats allowed for each breed in small rectangles like fabric swatches from a J. Crew catalog. French bulldogs can be ordered in fawn, pied, red-brindle, or black brindle. Pugs come in silver, apricot/fawn, and basic black.25 Chessies are available in “deadgrass,” and Wheatons resemble rolling fields of the purest grain. Shar-peis come in “sand,” since one of the main attractions to those bountiful waves of infected, rotting skin has been their resemblance to a rolling desert landscape. A breed can be “harlequin,” “particolored,” or “flowered coat,” so long as its standard allows, or even “piebald,” like fancy chickens, horses, and pigs once were.

  “Yellow” Labs became socially accepted when the Duke of Windsor showed a penchant for a weave quite rare at the time. “Dark chocolate” is a newer term—what child would want a “liver” Lab? The age-old “black-and-tan” still applies to several breeds, a classic two-tone coat appealing to experts who’ve mastered the art of wine snobbery and graduated to beer. “Mouse” is within the tasteful range for the Weimaraner, “a snob sporting dog,” Roger Caras recalled, “developed and jealously guarded by the one of the biggest collection of snobs the dog world has ever seen.”26 Then there are the vizslas, Weimaraners of a different color, described by a dog trainer friend of mine as “dumb as they are red.”27

  Fruits and spices, tulips and roses, alligators and goats, horses and hippopotami, bulls and bears, bat
s and mice—by far the most common disguise for dogs is, if we are to believe the Saturday morning cartoons, their polar opposite. The term “cat foot” appears on the AKC’s website at least 127 times. The word “lion” occurs some 401 times and, in the vast majority of cases, refers to dogs rather than anything they might chase if given the opportunity. This odd habit of making dogs look like cats, or anything else for that matter, predates the standards and the modern fancy itself. Canines recalling the king of the jungle were around long before Britons adopted the lion as a symbol of their pride, or Romans and Chinese were grooming their lapdogs to look like lions. The English idea that lions were noble likely came from their Norman invaders, who’d borrowed this from the Byzantines, who in turn had been inspired by the Greeks. A look at the endless quest for a feline form reveals, once again, not only a tendency to point out surprising similarities between different animals, but a conscious effort to turn these observations into idealized “points” in the breed standards that determine how dogs must, in fact, be made to look. In one of many species mergers, a kind of feline fetish has developed, and this has affected dogs deeply.

  Mythical lion dogs of China and Japan called “Foo Dogs” and “Shishi dogs” no doubt played a role in making the ideal so sought after. Whenever the owner of a Lhasa apso, shih tzu, or some similar breed praises a pet for its catlike aloofness, or for un-doglike habits like climbing on backs of chairs and lounging in windows, the ancient belief in feline-canine fusions rears its hybrid head. The single-most far-reaching distinction made in today’s breed standards, the detail most likely to qualify or disqualify canine contestants in the ring, is whether the feet are of the cat or hare variety. Dozens of breeds are dissected in this way. Tibetan mastiffs, Shetland sheepdogs, pugs, coonhounds, and Chihuahuas—these and many more are judged by the degree their feet resemble a cat’s or a hare’s. The Dogue de Bordeaux “trots like a lion,” and the proper footwear for the golden, a lion among lions, should go without saying.

  “No living thing is capable of expressing in its face and bearing so much contempt for the world at large,” explained the London Times about the snooty appeal of the Pekingese or “lion dog of Peking” in 1914.28 The taste for dogs done in this high-class style is so old and widespread that it’s difficult to know where to begin. For untold ages, breeders have strived to make dogs resemble the beast royale. The pug was once known as the “hairless lion dog.” The chow chow, says the AKC, is a “lion-like, regal breed” with its ample mane and catlike aloofness.29 The Tibetan spaniel has been billed as “the dog for cat people.”30 Closer to home, the Boston terrier looks no less feline. Papillons, Cavaliers, Japanese Chins, and long-haired Chihuahuas have been deliberately bred to look like little lions. “Shih tzu” literally means “lion dog.” Löwchen means “little lion dog” or petit chien lion. The Maltese was once known as “the little lion dog of France,” and a breed that was neither lion nor French—and probably not even Maltese—was first listed in the United States as the “Maltese Lion Dog” in 1877. The Lhasa apso was once known as “the barking lion sentinel dog.”

  A closer look reveals a long list of breeds, some that even professional fanciers don’t suspect, clearly lionized in one way or another. The early twentieth century saw a short-lived fad for something called a “Danish Lion Dog”—perhaps a Great Dane? On American Eskimo dogs “the coat is thicker and longer around the neck and chest, forming a lion-like ruff,” reads the AKC standard.31 Setters have a “cat-like crouching attitude,” according to a famous breeder.32 “The Leonberger was originally bred to resemble a lion,” explains that breed’s ultimate purpose.33 Winnie the French bulldog, with her domed skull, arched back, and round paws, would look more catlike still if only her ears were “correct.” While smaller dogs are common candidates for lionization, any breeds valued for their feline appearance or demeanor should be considered “lion dogs.” One need only look at old artworks to see hunting and war dogs traditionally portrayed with ferocious grins, lionlike feet, claws and teeth, and powerful tails.34 Breeds with any of these traits, including compressed faces, strong jaws, abundant wrinkles, manelike hair with golden, tawny, or reddish coloring—or the overblown coats on golden retrievers—are born from the same tradition of making animals look like something they’re not. No other species has played a larger part in this metamorphosis than the lion, so highly prized that the fetching price for the world’s most expensive dog to date—sold in 2014 to a Chinese property developer scrambling for status symbols—was the $1.9 million gladly paid for a very lionlike Tibetan mastiff puppy.35

  Dogs that aren’t inbred for some feline effect are altered cosmetically. The Löwchen’s look is due more to his creepy hairdo—called a “Löwchen clip”—than how he came out of the womb. Tibetan terriers, terriers only in name, are groomed to the same end. The bichon frise has a mane sculpted in the lion style that became fashionable in Italy during the fourteenth century, and many breeds are traditionally shown with a lion clip. One mastiff was actually reshaped and passed off as a lion by a Chinese zookeeper in 2013, until it barked and gave itself away!36 A royal crown and a lion’s pride—whether having a mane makes these pets look noble, or ridiculous, is a matter of opinion. Topsell explained why this particular garb could be so revered in the animal kingdom. “The hair of some of them,” he wrote describing, not lion-dogs but real, honest-to-goodness lions, “is curled, and some of them have long, shaggy, thin hair, not standing upright but falling flat, longer before and shorter behind.” This could easily be the description of a well-groomed Löwchen. “And although the curling of the hair is a token of sluggish timidity, yet if the hair is long and curled at the top only, this portends abundant animosity.”37

  The formula for a top-heavy aristocrat with a seventies manperm could also describe a poodle. Viewed as effeminate today, thanks to the outlandish bouffant it often sports, this breed was originally a rugged and respected hunter. Poodle-like dogs have been around for a long time. As seen in engravings, they once wore thick, curly, but shapeless coats, helpful when hunting birds in marshlands and without all the sculpting that’s done today. The over-the-top afros and funny pompoms sculpted around legs and hindquarters supposedly to keep vital parts warm hardly just happened to fit the same lion mold as so many other dogs throughout history, and were added for reasons at least partly esthetic. Similarly, the Portuguese water dog, a White House resident during the Obama administration, is often recast as the Lion King and ends up looking like one of those enormous topiary bushes at the entrance to Disneyland. Any breed with a lion clip becomes a kind of cartoon animal. As with ear cropping and tail docking, the elaborate and intricate “practical” reasons supplied for breeding, mutilating, or grooming animals should be treated with skepticism. In light of the overwhelming evidence, a more plausible explanation would be that a good many dogs have been forced over the centuries to look unreal or exotic, like other species altogether, or anything else in the whole wide world, so long as they don’t look like wolves—and very often not like dogs, either.38

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE MIDAS TOUCH

  Unseasoned dog walkers would have turned away and gone on straight to their next gig rather than confront the snarly forces behind that door. Sight unseen, inside the unlit apartment were two bellicose Boston terriers, sisters with the endearing names of Marge and Eunice, but whose behavior was anything but cute at the moment. It didn’t take a dog whisperer to guess they were at each other’s throats.

  Fighting dogs can be intimidating to anyone who doesn’t know how to handle them, and being shielded by a thin piece of steel and a series of expensive locks is a small comfort. Unable to witness the bared teeth and shooting blood, the squeamish would still be daunted by the muffled sound of high-pitched screams, a pretty good sign that fur and flesh are being torn. The frenzied scratching of paws on hardwood floors, the gnashing of teeth and locking of jaws, and the occasional thud of two bodies united in rage suggest two animals engaged in mortal combat.
This was a situation I encountered daily. The deal was to brace myself and intervene as quickly as possible, get through that door, grab those bickering Bostons, and pull them apart before their scheduled walk turned into an emergency visit to the vet around the corner with a crimson trail along the way. Taking good care of Marge and Eunice was about more than letting two dogs relieve their bladders: it was a matter of damage control.

  What was all the fighting about? The whole fiasco was pointless really, which didn’t stop it from happening every day. Unnatural aggression is one of the many side effects of inbreeding in fighting dogs, which the ancestors of Marge and Eunice were. These weren’t “bad” dogs, just badly programmed. Tightly wound terriers like these tend to respond mechanically, like Pavlov’s dogs, to what sets them off, with limited thinking between stimulus and response, which is why they can be such ruthless, even foolhardy hunters. Many other small terriers—the only true terriers according to some hunters—were designed to insinuate themselves into fox holes and not mind having their faces torn off once they hit pay dirt. Is that a sign of intelligence? Electronic-locator collars are standard equipment, so when they bury themselves alive, as they often do, they can be found and dug up before it’s too late. Such a lack of forethought is a far cry from the way wolves methodically stalk their prey, sometimes for days, before the pack moves in for a kill. Nature rewards those who avoid injury—and as long as no one’s starving, what’s the hurry? Wolves may not even finish eating right away, but sometimes dance and play around their victims, which is more in line with human table manners than stuffing one’s face and losing it in the process.