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By Joseph Popiolkowski, USA TODAY
The cultural landscape in America is nothing if
not a tableau for fads and trends that drive certain objects in and out
of style.
Clothing? Consider how bell-bottom jeans of the 1970s gave way to tight-fitting bleached jeans in the 1980s, pleated khakis in the 1990s and the flat-front low-rise capris of today. A Western Carolina University psychology professor now has the proof that the same cultural winds direct people's choice in dogs. "At some point dogs went from being a custom — something that people kept because they were important in their lives and had utility — to a fashion," says Hal Herzog, who has studied animal-human interaction nearly 20 years.
Herzog and two colleagues studied the American Kennel Club's purebred registration records for the past 57 years — leaving him with a sample size of 48 million — and concluded that dog breeds go in and out of style the same way clothing, music and food styles do. This year, for example, the hottest breeds are the Havanese, Cavalier King Charles spaniels, Brussels griffons and French bulldogs — all small, cute dogs that adjust well to city life and apartment living. The old standards of Labrador and golden retrievers, German shepherds and beagles always will be popular, but exotic breeds will make inroads from time to time, says Jim Crowley, executive secretary of the AKC. Most often, a breed boom is a result of word-of-mouth or the influence of a personal network, but sometimes it comes from a popular movie, Herzog says. For example, the number of English sheepdogs registered with the AKC rose from 149 in 1960 to more than 16,000 in 1974 after Disney's The Shaggy Dog came out in 1959, Herzog says. For most breeds though, it doesn't take a movie. The poodle rose from 6,000 to 250,000 registrations during the 1950s with no movie to explain the shift. The poodle's popularity rubbed off: Remember the poodle skirt? "At some point in dog evolution, a human's cultural preferences in the form of fashion became a major driving force in breed popularity," Herzog says. The Dalmatian rose to fame in the 1990s with the release of Disney's 101Dalmatians, Herzog says. Buyers, however, weren't careful enough in considering whether that breed was suitable for them. "They're very nice dogs, but they're not for everybody," he says. The result was the wrong kind of boom: Lots of Dalmatians ended up at animal shelters. And bad breed choices are becoming all too common, Herzog says. Choosing a dog "is a lifestyle choice," Crowley says. Buyers need to consider how active they are and whether they live in an urban or rural setting and make decisions based on those factors, not what's dominating popular culture. "You need to choose a dog you can live with and one that can live with you," Crowley says. When the Brussels griffon was featured in the movie As Good As It Gets, breeders anticipated a rise in registrations and cautioned buyers that it might not be the dog for them. Brussels griffons tend to be shy, are not compatible with children and can be difficult to house-train. "Breeders are aware that this is a problem, and responsible ones are trying to do something about it," Herzog says. Herzog also cited the Rottweiller's climb from 25th to second most popular breed from 1976 to 1993 and its subsequent fall after a spate of fatal attacks. "Right now they're in the middle of a big crash," he says. Insurance companies have put exclusions on homeowner policies on certain breeds that are prone to more aggressive behavior, such as the Rottweiller, which contributes to its "negative stereotype," Crowley says. Herzog says his mathematical model will be useful for analyzing other social changes, such as baby names. Breeds and names ride a wave of popularity for several years before an ultimate burst — a natural consequence of the boom. "While this study is superficially about dog breed changes, and it's pretty cool in that regard, it's also an incredibly nice model for looking at rapid changes in culture." |
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