A Matter of Breeding

by Michael Brandow

  Boston terrier became a household name, and a host of ancillary products sprang up bearing the image. Mass-produced dog food, off-the-rack men’s suits, Studebakers, Camel cigarettes, playing cards, poker chips, gas-heating systems—not to forget those ever-popular Buster Brown shoes—the image of that weird creature with the Botox face, surprised stare, and alien-antenna ears added to the perception that big brand names were more reliable than the “heterogeneous types.”41 Standardization was the way of the future, and brand-name recognition had as powerful a draw as eugenics. “Do many of us truly assess the suitability of a breed,” David Hancock asks, again with disbelief, “mainly because of its role in marketing a brand of toilet paper? I’m eternally grateful that T.V. programs like Dallas and Dynasty don’t feature Kentucky Mousehounds or our quarantine kennels would no doubt be packed with them now.”42 And what about using basset hounds to sell Hush Puppies (and vice versa), or more recently in 1999, Mitchell Gold equating English bulldogs with six-pack abs, leather sofas, and Soho loft spaces?

  When he wasn’t busy conquering foreign markets and capitals, the Boston terrier helped wage a campaign to win hearts, wallets, and handbags at home. Over the course of the next century, the AKC managed to convince about half of American consumers not only that it was alright to keep dogs as house pets but that newfangled purebreds—those with the AKC’s good housekeeping seal of approval—were infinitely superior to the animals that had evolved side-by-side with humans for eons, faithfully fulfilling some of our most basic needs without presenting any registration papers or symmetrical markings at the door. Turning perfectly fine companions into surplus luxury items with gaudy extras was supposed to be the modern way, but in many ways, it was a return to primitive habits of tribalism, ancestor worship, and ritual display, now neatly packaged and available to anyone with the right price. To a sensible person living in an informed democracy, purebred dogs should seem no more fancy than Heinz ketchup, and a flea-bitten Dandie Dinmont terrier no better than Burger King, a queen-sized mattress, a Princess phone, a Countess Mara necktie, Royal Crown Cola, or an After Eight mint—even it comes “By Appointment To Her Majesty the Queen,” as did Spratt’s miraculous dog biscuits, junk food by today’s standards but promoted as the only decent diet for finer dogs and a longtime sponsor of Crufts. Once again, wording was what mattered, and gaining respectability was as easy as calling a low-grade mush of meat by-products with cheap corn and wheat fillers “Pedigree” or “Royal Canin,” giving that product a blue ribbon or a crown for a logo, then parading it around the ring at Westminster with dogs said to deserve only the best.

  “HIGH CLASS Boston Terriers for Sale,” reads an ad in Dogdom Monthly in 1920, because selling certificates of fair birth is what kennel clubs do for a living.43 The Boston terrier was plastered across the cover of the AKC’s Gazette in 1924 as “An American Gentleman” among other dogs “crowned during the past year,” irrefutable proof that “pure” blood could be produced domestically like fine wine.44 But the rest was business as usual with the same old bowing and scraping before foreigners. Simply being American would never be enough for social climbers at home, and when the fancy wasn’t tapping into anti-Anglo paranoia, it was encouraging the opposite, Anglophilia. “What a man Badger would be!” was the title of a 1924 Gazette article referring, not to the newly arrived Boston terrier, but to the high-born Airedale (likely a creation of the show ring, a breed that never existed in a part of England called Airedale or anywhere else).45 “I suppose that pup’s purty well bred, eh?” asked another article. “Indeed, yes,” it went without saying for pedigree pups, “like all real gentlemen are.”46

  The dog in question was not an American breed but an Irish terrier (billed by the AKC as “one of the oldest terrier breeds” but not a “purebred” with a standard coat, not even in England, until 1881). “Roots of Tradition: America’s Great Love of Pure-Bred Dogs Is Akin to That of Britain’s Royal Family” appeared in the AKC Gazette in 1946, when a mass consumer culture was about to emerge, reminding the status conscious they could still look abroad for their self-esteem. “Akin” was the operative term to describe the awe-inspiring process by which fair birth was achieved in mass quantities to surpass an Englishman’s wildest dreams:

  As NO people on the face of the earth ever produced and registered in their kennel club’s stud book so many pure-bred dogs as did the Americans in the past year—nearly 150,000—it might not be amiss to glance at the traditions motivating these born dog-lovers. We say “born” advisedly, for there is hardly a fancier who cannot recall the dogs of his or her childhood, the favorite of father and mother, often even those of the grandparents. Average memories stop at the grandparents, but it is safe to assume that this love of good dogs tails right back to the early beginnings of each family, just as the roots of all tradition are buried deep—often springing from lands far distant from the United States.47

  The AKC’s current registration drive pursues the same strategy by urging customers: “Register your dog! Join the fun and tradition!”48

  With all due respect to the Boston terrier and self-made men, the longer a breed’s mythical past, and the more generations that breed was a family tradition, the better it reflected daily on the owners whose choice of pets was a statement about origins. Finally, all men had the right to choose pedigrees equal to their own ambitions. Family pride could be based on faraway forebears rumored to have once had the same exact model of nonmongrel living under their roofs, and new dynasties could be founded on the latest canine crowned at Westminster. It’s difficult to imagine a more ulterior motive for having dogs or a thinner stretch of the imagination. Crude methods and blunt instruments were used by the fancy to convince average consumers that good families not only didn’t own mutts, but had aristocratic pets.

  Once again, the AKC rolled out Freeman Lloyd as proof of authenticity. Lloyd wrote, in an English accent like Robin Leach hosting Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, dozens of articles telling Americans that, so long as they brought “the dogs of our forefathers” on their hunts for fair birth, they could find bits and pieces of tradition and reassemble these fragments at home into a flattering mosaic of self-image.49 Among Gazette titles like “The Majesty of Hounds” and “When Royalty Gives Its Touch,” in a series called “Many Dogs in Many Lands: Different Races Favor Divers Breeds,” we find Lloyd sitting in a friend’s well-appointed mansion off New York’s ultra-elite Gramercy Park (where you still need a key to get in). He muses over the lavishly decorated rooms, where it’s his privilege to be a chosen guest imagining “long past ancestors” in faraway England. The walls are lined with old hunting books and painted scenes of dogs, horses, guns, and the proper gentlemen who owned them.50

  This deep-seated belief that nobility can be bought and sold has stood the test of time, if for no other reason than aristocracy has always been up for grabs, in one way or another. The mechanics of the deal aren’t always so obvious, but when people are asked to explain their brand-name loyalties to dog breeds, more often than not they refer to royalty with its vast estates and extravagant hobbies. Whenever the AKC mentions “the purebred dog,” we can safely assume it still refers to previous owners, real or imagined, listed in the section of the breed standards called “A Look Back.” Investing in a purportedly vintage pet is an example of what sociologists call “class imitation,” and dog owners typically look up, not down, for their cues. In fact, the pedigree dog cult is so thoroughly saturated with ruling-class references that the ruins of aristocracy absolutely litter the Land of Fancy, and only the most focused snobs can avoid tripping right over them.

  Many commercial breeders increase their appeal, for example, with audacious names like Royal Windsor Kennel (a manufacturer of various lapdogs of the fluffy white genus located not in an English castle but in Brazil). The royal list unfurls with Royal Vista Miniature Pinschers (in Virginia), Regal Point Vizslas (in Texas), Royal Court kennel (a Rhode Island breeder sworn to uphold the “essence and integrity” o
f American Staffordshires)—the list goes on far too long to be inclusive here. The naming of show-ring champions has also been inspired by an age-old fixation on princes and palaces in distant lands. Since these competitions began, accolades have gone to star players with names like Crown Prince, Plantagenet, Princess Wee Wee, and Saucy Queen. Canine bluebloods are linked to their birthplaces with “of,” “Von,” or “de,” turning the dogs into fine wines and the kennels into chateaux. Tyt See of Egham, Amirence King Eider of Davern, Khaos Von Salerno, Gero Von Rinklingen, and Fashion du Bois de la Rayère are among countless examples of aristocratic-sounding titles invented for show ring champs. Entire races receive royal billing. The Chihuahua made its AKC debut as “The Dog of Aztec Royalty.”51 The Gazette also celebrated “Queen Victoria and Our Collies” (italics mine).52

  Elitism is built into not just the names but the very bodies of purebreds, showing how very difficult pointless traditions are to shed. Several breeds are born wearing tuxedo jackets like the Boston terrier. Others emerge in regal shades of golden, purple, or even blue, as in Bleu de Gascogne. “The white, or ivory, coat,” one book heaps praise upon the limited-edition Kuvasz, “is another tribute to the breed’s aristocratic lineage.”53 Feathering on toes has been compared to long nails on the high born who need not work.54 Dogs have “royal crests,” “Roman” noses, “lion” ruffs, and “manes,” and the Belvoir strain of foxhound’s “black saddle mark” ties it to the equestrian class. “Demi-long dogs have culottes on the rump,” reads the AKC standard for the Pyrenean shepherd, referring to the style of trousers nobility wore before the French Revolution. That breed is also said to sport an “uncoiffed” coat and to have a “wind-swept face” (like portraits of Romantic heroes with Royalist leanings?). The hairstyle gives the Pyrenean a “triangular head” but without a Third Estate.55 “The ridge must be regarded as the escutcheon of the breed,” the English Kennel Club standard referred to the heraldic shield carried on backs of Rhodesians until the wording, and little else, was changed under pressure for reform from the BBC after 2008.56 “The ridge . . . should contain two identical crowns,” the AKC standard still refers to that sign of royalty and spinal deformity.57 According to ancient lore, the infection-prone wrinkles on the faces of pugs and Pekingese once formed the Chinese character for “prince,” a legitimate reason for maintaining that disastrous mutation.58 When human status symbols aren’t preserved by inbreeding, they’re added cosmetically after birth. A dog groomer in 1890s London monogrammed his clients’ animals with family initials he carved right into the fur! A certain Mrs. Beer of Chesterfield Gardens had her family crest, depicting a pelican feeding its young, sculpted onto the back of a poodle.

  Still not convinced that grown adults could be naive enough to believe in instant aristocracy through pet ownership? Purveyors of pedigree dog products are likely to buy their advertising space in over-the-top purebred publications like the one called—you can’t make this stuff up—The Blue Book. Pages are lined with ads for upscale breeders and canine fashion accessories, and advertorial odes to the wisdom of Westminster judges. The Blue Book appears in sporadic editions from a creepy clique of New Yorkers who call themselves the Metropolitan Dog Club. Hinting at bygone days of snooty social clubs and racial restrictions, the Metropolitans host meetings, lectures—even benefits for selective breed-rescue efforts that triage animals based on their physical appearance—under the roof of the prestigious National Arts Club on grand old Gramercy Park, a stone’s throw from the mansion in which Freeman Lloyd sat pondering the past and communing freely with ancestors romanticized beyond recognition.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SOME HUNTING DOGS

  Playing fetch with a ball-obsessed Labrador retriever can be fun, at least to a point. Who would deny a hyperstimulated canine, hopped up on tennis-ball action, its only goal in life? Limited though they were, I had to admire dogs so committed to a simple task and eager to pursue it to the ends of the earth, like Tess the yellow Lab whose habit I was hired to support for one hour each day.

  Throw/retrieve, throw/retrieve, throw/retrieve . . . The game never changed, and Tess wouldn’t have had it any other way. Her playing field, a narrow strip of asphalt enclosed by a chain-link fence, could have been a miniature tennis court, but in New York, they called it a “dog run.” The yellow Lab in my care might have been a tennis-ball-serving machine, but for the contracted time, she was the one being served, not me. She returned as fast as she’d been dispatched, laying the subdued green globe ceremoniously at my feet and commanding my full participation once again. An hour was enough for me, though Tess would have run herself to death, if allowed.

  “We’ve always had Labs in the family,” Tessie’s dad, my paying client, often inserted in the guise of an aside, until his dog’s hip dysplasia became too far advanced and my services were no longer required. “Countess Howe preferred blacks, so these were the dogs granddad kept on Long Island,” he said, reminding me of the breed’s illustrious past, which just so happened to overlap with his own family tree. “Most people don’t realize the Duke of Windsor fancied yellows before he abdicated, and only then did he became partial to pugs. Father simply adored them.” This family tradition I was hired to engage in daily reenactments came from a long line of Labrador stock. Tess was sired by a Westminster champ, which didn’t save her from arthritis at a young age, though she could trace her pedigree back to England and Scotland, where her race, called an “English Lab” on this side of the pond, was conceived.

  For all his dedication to preserving the past, Tessie’s dad couldn’t seem to find the time even to walk his own dog, which seemed strange because he was always at home when I arrived to pick up the lovely lady. At any moment of the day or night, he answered the door in silk pajamas, a monogrammed smoking jacket of red satin with gold brocade, and matching monogrammed slippers. As befitted a lord of the manor, he condescended to solemnly join the Coach leather leash to Tessie’s collar from the same purveyor. The ritual leashing completed, he sent us on our way to fun and frolic and returned to the sitting room—which could have been any room in that house—to resume his gentlemanly pursuit of watching television.

  What program of events was the master overseeing? Mostly soap operas and game shows, but not tonight. I’d come to give Tess an evening romp by the light of street lamps because her dad couldn’t miss the Westminster dog show, which aired at eight from Madison Square Garden, a quick cab ride away, though he’d never taken the trouble to attend. Not just any event merited this man’s attention. More than once he’d told me that only Best in Show was worth watching at the very end because, and I quote: “I don’t want to deal with all the riffraff leading up to it.”

  Are retrievers truly happy chasing toys mechanically on the pavement, or is this a poor substitute for what their ancestors used to do for a living? Until quite recently, it wasn’t automatically assumed that bringing country dogs into cities and making them pets was a wise move. On the contrary, it was considered cruel and self-indulgent to keep Great Danes or border collies locked in tiny one-room apartments, or to leave them to their own devices in New York’s crowded, urine-soaked ghettos called “dog runs.” Tess was bred to enjoy swimming, and every time I walked this water dog past a filthy, poisonous puddle on the street, she wanted to wallow in chemical sludge. The same goes for golden retrievers. Give one a feces-laced lagoon—which is what most of our dog runs are after a good hard rain—and that dog will plop down to stay. Breeds with oily coats, webbed feet, and a desperate drive to dive are out of their element in cities, suburbs, or anywhere but the country, with a body of water nearby. Lately New York has been growing more hostile to their needs. All dogs have been banned from drinking or frolicking in spring-fed streams and ponds of Central Park, even in the dog days of August. Corporate-backed gardeners and park police say they’d be destroying “the environment” by cooling off, pushing Labs and goldens even farther from their natural niche.

  Other dogs are equally out of pl
ace on the Isle of Misfit Breeds. A Norwich I knew, whose terrier ancestors chased rodents, raged demonically at air conditioners and ceiling fans in shops along the sidewalk, a real problem when trying to walk her anywhere. Urban greyhounds obviously can’t chase hare or deer as their instincts command and are forced to settle for trailing the occasional pigeon from a safe distance on the sidewalk, or window-shopping for squirrels on edges of lawns with signs declaring, “NO DOGS ALLOWED.” Jack Russells would probably prefer digging up foxes or badgers on farms, but they’re reduced to flying off curbs at passing skateboarders or eying rats that scurry fifty feet below the street grating. To anyone with a flair for observation, high-strung hunters look more frustrated than pleased when reaching the ends of their leashes and nearly snapping their necks. Unemployed animals with traces of ancestral urges are products of a sort of double arrogance. First, we unnaturally bred dogs to be fixated on some narrowly prescribed task. Then we told them, sorry, but you can no longer do the little your genes can remember since you were standardized into show dogs and pets. You’ll be forever denied what we made you crave like pooches possessed, and we expect you to pretend it doesn’t matter. Everyone makes a fuss over how well Labs adapt to their new surroundings despite needing so much more, as though this were a mark of nobility. We praise them for suppressing and abstaining, and while sheer boredom may motivate them to chase tennis balls, they appear jovial, upbeat, and bouncy.

  Maybe Labs do have some practical uses in their new urban settings. This sporting breed was invented to be mainly a man’s best friend, and for date-baiting purposes, taking Boomer or Bailey for a walk is breaking out the big guns. No other pooch packs more of a punch, for on the street those lady targets are struck from great distances by the sight of an in-charge stalker and his devoted companion ready to retrieve. The Lab wasn’t recently renamed a “versatile hunting dog” for nothing. Whether for one-night stands or long-term breeding, a rugged buck in pursuit of a trophy would be hard-pressed to find a friendship with more benefits or a finer tool for bagging babes. The fellow strapped to the yellow Lab is a step ahead of the game, because this particular shape, size, and color of canine has come to embody all that mainstream society wants in a husband and a father. A Lab is thought to have a character as solid as its coat color, with a level of blind loyalty that more spirited dogs would find degrading, and a mechanical predictability that more daring cynophiles find a bit boring—the perfect accessory for budding corporate executives. “I’m a team player and do as I’m told,” Labs tell the world as they pass. “I’m a good guy and will bring back the ball without fail,” barks the shameless sycophant fetcher. “I come from a good family. I have good genes. I’m a good provider and I’m good with children.” A Lab may not be the brightest bulb on the planet, but as one chronicler of snobbism remarks about its cousin the golden retriever, “I was only barely able to resist examining the chests of these amiable beasts to see if they didn’t bear the logo of Ralph Lauren.”1 The brand hints at wealth, privilege, and private woodland property somewhere in Connecticut. It comes complete with exaggerated ties to nobility that all the duck shoes and hunter-green sweaters in the world can’t buy. The Lab’s a basic provision for any gentleman worthy of the title, a model of domesticity and gracious living, a faithful protector of town and country and every upscale Main Street leading to a Polo shop. If Norman Rockwell were alive today, he’d surely be painting yellow Labs.