Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat

by Hal Herzog

  The transformation of American dogs from pals and working partners to fashion statements began on a warm September day in 1884, when a group of sportsmen met in Philadelphia to form what became the American Kennel Club. They were following the lead of their British counterparts who, a decade earlier, had established the first all-breed kennel club, called, appropriately, the Kennel Club. The AKC soon established a registry that originally included 1,400 pedigree dogs representing eight breeds. As in England, the growth of enthusiasm for purebreds in the United States was spectacular. Dog shows began as a pastime of the landed gentry, but in the second half of the nineteenth century, the dog fancy caught the interest of the growing middle class. It was a classic case of fashion trickle-down from the rich to the wanna-be-rich.

  Between 1900 and 1939, annual AKC registrations went from 5,000 puppies to 80,000. The big craze for purebreds came after World War II, when the proportion of American dogs that were purebreds jumped from 5% to 50%, and registrations were growing fifteen times faster than the human population of the United States.

  I trace the explosion in pedigree dogs to the G.I. Bill of 1944, which enabled millions of Americans to buy homes in the suburbs with dog-friendly yards. My family was typical. My father, a bomber pilot, came home from the war in 1945. With a low-interest loan from the Veterans Administration, my parents bought a house with a lawn and got a beagle for my sister and me to play with. We were proud that Bosco had “papers” from the AKC. In truth, no one in our family really knew what AKC registration meant, but it sounded good to us. Our puppy was an aristocrat.

  By 1970, the AKC was processing a million new registrations every year and was the world’s largest registry of purebred dogs. The ’80s and ’90s were flush times for the organization. In 1990, one half of eligible dogs in the United States were registered with the AKC. In 2007, the AKC, a not-for-profit organization, took in $72 million, about half of which was generated by puppy registration fees.

  Dark clouds, however, loomed. Long controversial, the AKC took a major hit in 1990 with the publication of a devastating critique in the Atlantic Monthly. The author, Mark Derr, depicted the AKC as an elitist and secretive organization that was myopically focused on profits derived from the overbreeding of dogs for good looks. In 1993, registrations began a decline that looked increasingly like a death spiral.

  Over the last fifteen years, AKC registrations have plummeted 50% from their mid-1990s peak of a million and a half new puppies each year. In 2008, the board of delegates was informed that if present trends continued, registrations would soon drop to 250,000 puppies, and the AKC would face a $40 million shortfall. In his report to the board, chairman Ron Menaker did not mince words: “Make no mistake, the very future of the AKC and the sport as we know it is at risk.” He warned delegates that if the hemorrhage in registrations is not stemmed, the AKC will join the ranks of extinct corporate icons like Westinghouse, Pan American Airlines, and the Standard Oil Company.

  The AKC is falling victim to changing cultural attitudes about the desirability of genetic purity in dogs. An AKC conformation show is a curious mix of eugenics and philosophy in which breeders chase an elusive Platonic ideal. Show dog people tell you that their sport is ultimately about improving the breed, bringing it closer and closer to perfection. Perfection in the show world is defined by a written code—the breed standard. According to the AKC standard, a Yorkie with a one-inch white spot on its chest is OK. A Yorkie with a two-inch white spot is disqualified. My favorite rule dictates that a Clumber spaniel have a “pensive expression.”

  While the breed standards pay lip service to a dog’s temperament, in reality there is more emphasis on the color of the rims of its eyes and shape of its head than on traits that would make it fun to live with. I asked a handler at the Asheville show how much it would cost me to purchase a show-quality Silky Terrier. He said $2,000 to $3,000, but then added that he could put me in touch with a breeder who would sell me a “pet quality” Silky for around $800. In the dog show world, “pet quality” means “loser.”

  But a good pet is exactly what most people are looking for in a dog. In other words, the animals that breeders are trying to produce are different from the animals that most people want. And, in their efforts to create the perfect dog, professional breeders have produced an animal whose elegant beauty is literally skin deep—a dog that looks terrific until you peer under the hood. That is the paradox of the show ring.

  Mary Jean and I are suckers for big, good-natured dogs, dogs you can trust, dogs that like children. That’s why we are drawn to Labs and golden retrievers. We have had three, and we have loved all of them. In each case, however, the hereditary burdens of their tribe came bundled with their registration papers. Both Molly and Tsali, our Labs, developed crippling hip dysplasia. In Tsali’s case, it was so bad that we had her euthanized when getting up in the morning had become an exercise in pain management. Dixie inherited a full complement of golden retriever maladies—dermatitis, hip problems, hypothyroidism, and congestive heart failure, the condition that finally did her in. Hereditary diseases are the rule, not the exception, among purebreds. Over 350 disorders lurk among the 19,000 genes that dogs carry around. Because many of these are shared with humans, purebred dogs have become a favorite animal model for the study of human diseases like narcolepsy, epilepsy, and cancer.

  Pedigree dogs are especially susceptible to genetic disorders for several reasons. Some are the consequence of intentional selection for physical deformity. The best example is the bulldog. To preserve the breed, bulldog owners sought to transform an animal designed to latch on to the nose of a raging bull into a household pet. They did this by selecting for docility rather than athleticism and pugnacity. Bulldogs with monstrous heads and pushed-in faces became fashionable. This look was achieved by selecting for a skeletal malformation called chondrodystrophy. These distortions of the head and face produced a host of problems, including the inability to deliver puppies through the birth canal, labored breathing, snoring, and sleep apnea. Similar artificial selection for exaggerated structural features was responsible for bad hips in German shepherds (the consequence of breeding for sloping hindquarters) and bad backs in dachshunds.

  Most genetic problems in pedigree dogs, however, are the by-product of inbreeding, not intentional selection for morphological weirdness. The majority of the 400 or so existing breeds of dogs were developed in the last 200 years from small pools of sires. All of the 20,000 AKC registered Portuguese water dogs trace their ancestry to thirty-one animals, and 90% of water dog genes come from only ten dogs. Inbreeding from a limited gene pool means that a puppy is more apt to inherit harmful recessive alleles from both its parents. Bad genes in just one ancestral line can do a lot of damage to a lot of dogs. This is known as the popular sire effect. Springer spaniels, for example, have the annoying habit of biting the hand that feeds them. Researchers at Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania have linked the occurrence of aggression in this breed to one kennel, and more specifically, to a single dog. (The researchers also found that lines of springer spaniels bred for the show ring are more apt to turn on their owners than are springers bred for hunting.)

  When 25% of a product is defective, you would expect a consumer revolt. As the bloom on registered purebreds has faded, the mixed-breed dog, which until the 1950s was the most popular pet in America, has regained its cultural panache. In the 1980s, animal protection groups began to promote the adoption of dogs relinquished to animal shelters, regardless of their pedigree, as morally superior to purchasing a purebred puppy. In late 2008, Vice President Joe Biden’s family picked a purebred German shepherd puppy to take with them to Washington. The headline on PETA’s blog read “Joe Biden Buys One, Gets One Killed.” The Bidens suddenly decided that they really needed a second dog, a rescue dog.

  ARE WE RUNNING OUT OF GOOD DOGS?

  As with other shifts in our tastes in dogs, the desirability of owning mixed-breed and rescue dogs has had an unanticipated c
onsequence: As the number of people who want to adopt shelter dogs has gone up, the supply has gone down—way down. In 1970, 23 million dogs and cats were euthanized in animal shelters in the United States. In 2007, the number had dropped to an estimated 4 million. This drastic reduction in the number of abandoned pets is the result of the most successful campaign in the history of the modern animal protection movement: the spay and neuter crusade.

  One result of our rush to pluck the gonads from every household pet is that America may be running out of dogs. Richard Avanzino, president of Maddie’s Fund, a $300 million foundation that aims to eliminate euthanasia in animal shelters, worries that the slack will be taken up by puppy farms in China and Mexico. Others in the animal rescue community are not so sure that there is a dog shortage. They argue that we have plenty of adoptable dogs, they are just in the wrong parts of the country.

  By some estimates, as many as 90% of adoptable dogs in some parts of the Northeast are ex-pats from the South. My county exports 200 shelter dogs north every year, and the Atlanta Humane Society packs off 600 of them. Rescue Waggin’, part of PetSmart Charities, moves about 10,000 dogs a year from parts of the country where they aren’t wanted to places where they are needed. The abundance of unwanted dogs in southern states reflects regional differences in attitudes toward neutering pets. Spay and neuter campaigns have been much more successful in the Northeast, the Midwest, and on the West Coast than in my part of the country. The per capita euthanasia rate of unwanted pets is forty times higher in North Carolina, for example, than it is in Connecticut. Our local animal rescue group tried to prod the town council into enacting a mandatory spay and neuter law. It was a nonstarter. People in the rural South don’t like restrictions on their dogs any more than they like zoning, gun control, or laws that keep you from carting little children around town in the back of an open pickup truck.

  My friend Jill’s day job is teaching history to college freshmen, but her passion is finding homes for abandoned dogs. Over the years she has saved 2,000 dogs from the needle. Once a month, she plays God. It’s heartbreaking. Jill walks the aisles of our local shelter carrying an arm made out of rubber. If she thinks a dog has a future, that someone could fall in love with it, she runs the dog through a standardized behavioral screening test. That’s what the fake arm is for. She puts a bowl of food right in front of the dog’s nose. Then, once it starts eating, she snatches the food away with the rubber hand. If the dog growls or goes for the hand, it is toast.

  Most dogs don’t make the cut. Some of them bite the hand. Others are unadoptable because they are old or ugly. Because small dogs are “in,” it has gotten harder to place big dogs, especially the black ones. Jill also avoids pit bulls. Too often, she says, they are adopted by the wrong kind of people. Almost all the animals she rejects will be euthanized. The dogs she deems adoptable will be vaccinated against rabies and parvo. Two weeks later, they will join two dozen other dogs in the back of a truck headed up I-95, riding the underground dog railway to suburbs in the Northeast.

  Not all of Jill’s migrants work out. Last year, she got a call from an animal shelter near Greenwich, Connecticut, that was not happy with one of the dogs Jill had sent them, an Australian shepherd mix. He did OK on Jill’s rubber hand test, but he got seriously cranky once the truck passed the Mason-Dixon Line. The shelter gave her a choice: Either you come and get the dog, or we euthanize it. Jill got in her car that evening, drove fourteen hours up the interstate, picked up the dog, turned around, and drove fourteen hours home. It was a wasted effort. The Yankees were right; the dog was dangerous. A month later, Jill had to put him down.

  THE HUMAN-DOG RELATIONSHIP IS A MIXED BAG

  The decision of a handful of wolves 20,000 or 30,000 years ago to entrust the destiny of their species to humans has been a mixed bag. Over time, the descendents of these animals weaseled their way into our hearts and the fabric of human society. The upside was a steady food supply and a warm fire to curl up by. The fact that the dogs’ bipedal benefactors cooked a puppy now and then seemed a small price to pay for the security of home and hearth. But then came the leash, the collar, the fighting pit, obedience school, the animal shelter. Finally, there was the ignominy of genetic sculpting, in which humans transformed the basic canine form—a model of grace and efficiency—into shapes, shades, and sizes never found in nature. We have jiggered the dog genome into a bewildering array of animals that look magnificent but that, in the end, are like modern tomatoes, a triumph of style over substance. We now choose our animal companions using the same facile consumer psychology that we apply to choosing the latest clothing styles. The transition from function to friend to fashion statement is complete.

  Yet, at the same time, we love our dogs. We confide in them, buy them Christmas presents, take them on vacations, make Web sites for them, and treat them like our children. They sleep in our beds. We grieve when they die. The paradoxes of the human-dog relationship are particularly evident in people who are the most devoted to their animals. I admire the passion of purebred dog fanciers whose lives are focused on improving their breed. Their love for dogs is deep and real. But in their efforts to create the perfect dog, they have produced millions of animals with itchy skin, skulls that are too big, hearts that are too small, and hips that always hurt. Animals that suffer.

  Nancy Brown’s mission in life is to make her posse of wolf-dogs as happy as possible. But the hard truth is that these creatures are an uneasy mix of the wild and the tame, destined to spend their lives in the confines of a chain-link pen.

  Jill knows that two dogs will be euthanized in my county for every one that she finds a home for. She bears the moral burden of deciding which ones will live and which ones will die. Her commitment to dogs that no one else cares about has restricted her social life and interfered with her career. She looks sad most of the time. She got it right when she told me, “This is not something that you can do a little of.”

  My own relationship with dogs is also complicated. I have loved all the dogs we have lived with, even Puppy, a Benji look-alike we rescued six years ago. She was the smartest dog I have ever met. Puppy’s innocent face, however, belied a mean streak that got worse as she got older. She terrorized our aging Lab and eventually bit every member of the family, some several times. I consulted some of the best animal behaviorists in the country to no avail. One afternoon, with no warning, Puppy attacked a friend who was visiting. It was the last straw. Dr. Shields, our veterinarian, told me that I needed to face reality. It was time to put her down.

  I remember that last long drive to the vet’s office as if it were yesterday. It’s been four years, but her death still weighs heavily on me. Maybe that’s why we have a cat now. But I do miss having a dog around the house.

  5

  “Prom Queen Kills First Deer on Sixteenth Birthday”

  GENDER AND THE HUMAN-ANIMAL

  RELATIONSHIP

  As a society, we expect women to respond to the suffering of animals; we see that as a “natural” part of womanhood.

  —BRIAN LUKE

  Men enjoy hunting and killing, and these activities are continued in sports even when they are no longer economically necessary.

  —SHERWOOD WASHBURN

  When I began my first forays into anthrozoology, I was struck by how differently men and women interacted with animals. For instance, I once interviewed veterinary school students about their reactions to moral issues such as euthanizing healthy animals. One of the women, Elizabeth, told me, “I cried the first time and I cried the fifteenth time. It hasn’t gotten any easier, but I have learned to mask my feelings in front of the client, to be strong for them.” Her male counterpart, William, had a completely different response. “Euthanasia doesn’t affect me,” he said. “I wonder about myself sometimes, but, honestly, I don’t feel bothered by it.”

  After hearing a lot of similar statements, I came up with an obvious hypothesis; namely, women are nice to animals and men, well…not so much. Then I began to
stumble on anomalies, the people who don’t fit our stereotypes about how the sexes relate to other species—women like Evelyn Clancy and men like Bill Gibson.

  WHEN STEREOTYPES FAIL: STUDYING

  THE GENDER BENDERS

  One afternoon, a graduate student named Amy Early walked into my office and told me she wanted to write her thesis on women hunters. It was good timing. I had just read a story in my town newspaper about a young woman who, on her sixteenth birthday, put a .30-30 slug in the chest of an eight-point buck. In addition to being an ace hunter, she was also the high school prom queen. The newspaper story made me wonder how women who hunt negotiate the delicate line between nurturance and their desire to kill animals.

  My eyes lit up when Amy told me about her thesis idea. “Great project. Let’s run with it.”

  One of the first people Amy interviewed was Evelyn Clancy, a middle-aged housewife who loved animals but who also loved to shoot them. Her passion was big game. She and her husband had been on several African safaris, but she had never bagged a zebra. One afternoon, Evelyn and her hunting guide, Anthony, came upon a large zebra herd. Whispering, she asked Anthony which of the animals she should aim for. He pointed out a big male. She snapped a bullet into the chamber, got the animal in the crosshairs of the scope, took a breath, held it, and squeezed the trigger. The zebra dropped.

  Anthony turned and said, “That’s not the right one.” They walked over to the zebra. It was a female, and Evelyn burst into tears.

  “I had shot a female,” she told Amy. “I cried all night. I had tears in my eyes the next morning. It was the only time I ever shot the wrong animal. I felt awful about killing her. She may have been a mother. She may have had a little colt running around. She could be pregnant. That’s the reason it upset me so much, shooting the wrong zebra.”