99% Invisible - 467- Cute Little Monstrosities of Nature

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

The French bulldog is now the second most popular breed in America. Their cute features, portable size, and physical features make for a dog that can easily travel and doesn't require a lot of exercise. But these characteristics sometimes have a detrimental effect on the dog's health. Tove K. Danovich writes "Rather than requiring human owners to change their lives to accommodate a new dog, the French bulldog is a breed that’s been broken to accommodate us."Historically, dogs were bred for functional reasons, not aesthetics. But evaluating a breed based on how they accomplish a task is tricky, leading to the rise of visual standards more easily judged. As breed standards were formalized, purebred dogs grew in popularity and became a luxury of sorts; but with a limited genetic pool, this popularity naturally led to a lot of inbreeding to maintain breed consistency.Cute Little Monstrosities of Nature

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. In February of 2021, at around 9.40 pm, Ryan Fisher was taking a lovely evening stroll down Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Fisher, a self-described nanny to a frenzy of Frenchies, had three French bulldogs in tow as he turned onto a residential street. Suddenly, a white sedan pulled up next to him and two men sprang out of the vehicle. They were armed and they demanded that he hand over the dogs immediately. That is journalist Tova Denovich.

Brain Fisher did not hand over the dogs and as a result he was shot once in the chest. Gunshots were heard, two of them. The victim falls back as the assailants race back to the car with the two dogs. And the attackers fled with two of the three Frenches who were named Koji and Gustav. Fisher luckily survived the shooting, but this dog-napping triggered a wave of media attention because Koji and Gustav weren't just any Frenches. They were Lady Gaga's Frenches. Friends of the man who was shot tell us he was constantly walking Lady Gaga's dogs in this

neighborhood, and he doesn't know what that was. Due to their celebrity owner, a lot of people assumed the dogs were stolen to collect a ransom from Lady Gaga. She did in fact offer a $500,000 reward for their return, which is a lot of money. Yeah, that is a lot of money. But the truth is, if anyone had been walking down this road in Los Angeles with Frenchies, at the time that this dog

walker was, those dogs would have been targeted. This whole fiasco had nothing to do with Lady Gaga. It was just a crime of opportunity. Because at the end of the day, dogs aren't just pets. They're commodities. And while this particular case got a huge amount of media attention, French bulldog theft is actually extremely common. Frenchies can cost anywhere from $3,000 to $9,000. And some with rare colored coat patterns go for up to $20,000. The average take in a bank robbery,

by the way, according to the FBI, is $6,500. I'd wager that stealing someone's French bulldog off the street is significantly easier than robbing a bank. $15,000 worth of French bulldog is a pretty good day, I would say. There is a huge demand for French bulldogsdogs because these dogs are selectively bred and designed with human needs in mind. Frenches are marketed as easy and friendly, perfect for millennial workers on the go. They don't bark much or shed, they barely need walks.

They're the second most popular dog breed in America today, presumably because they don't have many of the needs or demands of regular dogs. But how did we get here to this point where we've tried to breed the dog out of dogs? Tova Denevich wrote a great essay about the history of purebred dogs for Vox, and she says it oddly enough to understand the modern obsession with purebred dogs like the Franchi, you actually have to start with chickens.

Victorian era chickens. Someone brought Queen Victoria some extremely fancy chickens. And soon after receiving these very bougie chickens, the Queen became obsessed with owning poultry, which eventually meant everyone became obsessed with owning poultry. Victorians never met a fad they didn't like, so. It became an international craze. These chickens would go for the equivalent of thousands of dollars

and would be exhibited at poultry shows. They called it hen fever. And it was because of all of these livestock shows and chicken shows that people were like, you know what, we should also show dogs. And you know, usually show that my dog is better than the dog that you have bred specifically. But how can you tell if my dog is better than your dog?

Today, we'd compare breeds. But before the Victorian era, the term breed didn't actually exist. Instead, people use words like strain or variety to describe different types of dogs. They were grouped according to the work they did, hurting and protecting, hunting and retrieving, pointing, guarding, sniffing. And until the Victorian time, when we looked at dogs, we really looked at what purpose

did they serve. And the dog that served that purpose could look like just any number of different things. It didn't really matter. Meaning, there wasn't any concept of different things, it didn't really matter. Meaning there wasn't any concept of categorizing a dog based on what it looked like. It was all based around what it could do. Any dog that was good at fetching things was retriever. It didn't matter if it was baker's small, slobbery, or hairless. And then, in 1860, dog shows started popping up in England, and they were meant to determine

the best dog. But of course, it's really hard to prove my dog is the best at retrieving. My dog is really good at finding rats in small holes. Skills like sniffing or retrieving are all kind of relative and hard to judge in competition. So instead of that really kind of subjective way of going about things, they're like, you know, we'll make a standard that says a terrier should be 16 inches high, have this color fur, a tail that looks like this, this approximate body shape, because this is really easy to judge.

A dog show was essentially a dog beauty contest with very strict guidelines. Judging was entirely based on a dog's visual appeal. And because of these shows, dogs started to become categorized as breeds, which was much more than just a language change. Dog breeds for something entirely new, defined by their form and not their function. The different types of dogs became like blocks on a pantone color card, each uniform and discreet. So it made it so people could compete with a wide range of dogs

and say, my dog is the finest of all the dogs. And that's really why that change happened. This standardization of dog breeds was driven by a group of people in England called the dog fancy. The fancy were a loose group of urban working class Englishmen who bred and sold dogs. And as you can imagine, the fancy were interested in spectacle and show, but they had a problem.

The fancy felt like the judges at these dog shows were just giving the top prizes to their friends. So they came up with a kind of rubric, a standardized set of points that would determine the best dog. And for the first time ever, there were vigorous disagreements about the correct angle of an ear or the desired curl of a tail. And to develop a breed, all you really had to do was get a group of probably men together who wanted to breed dogs that all looked x-way and say, okay, we have now made the Labrador Retriever how wonderful.

We've all decided that it should look in the specific way, so we are going to go to the local Penal Club, apply for our dog to become a new way. So we are going to go to the local Penal Club, apply for our dog to become, you know, a new breed, and the books will be closed. Meaning once the fancy had established a certain set of characteristics, that was the definition of the breed. And what that means is if there were 30 dogs at that time that were considered Labrador Retrievers. There can never be any new Labrador Retriever added to that gene pool. And that is actually the definition of a purebred dog is that it only comes from this group of genes when the books were closed.

It was the dog show that really defined the dog breeds we have today. I think dog shows are really the reason for the transition from function to form. So all of the changes that we've made to dog breeds because the breed itself is a very visual standard have been aesthetic choices. Throughout history, these dog breeds have been shifting and morphing based on aesthetic standards

that change over time. Sometimes for no good reason other than personal taste. The German Shepherd is a really great example of this because the vast majority of German shepherds today can trace their lineage back to the very first dog known as the German Shepherd, who was named Horin von Graffeth, which is fantastic. The breeders scoured different villages until they found Horin, and they bred him as the source of the original German Shepherd line, a dog breed specifically bred to her sheep. If you looked at him compared to the German shepherds that might be at Westminster dog show today, they're

very, very different. That's because people's taste for what a German shepherd should look like has changed since the first German shepherd, again, I'm going to say his name, Horan von Graff-Rath, came on the scene. It became a thing in the mid-century for German shepherds to have a sloping back on them. People began selecting for a sloping back, even though it hindered, you know, herding sheep and was detrimental to the dog's health. And this was done for literally no practical reason, just because it looked cool.

So over time, they've really changed from a dog that could herd sheep to one that, you know, maybe has trouble running because of the aesthetic choices that we've made. The governing aesthetics of dog shows trickled out to the masses, even when purebred owners never had any intention of breeding or showing dogs themselves. And over time, breeds started to rise in fall and popularity, like fads. Purebreds would become a proxy for class and social status. People started talking about how purebred dogs were, you know, really healthy and dignified and so classy and always well behaved and the dogs of the poor, those guys who even know what they're going to get up to.

So that became a very, very quick class distinction. That didn't really change until after the middle of the century. The dog aids men in other ways. In time of war, his workers of a serious nature. In the post-war era, pure-bred dogs were being bred on a much larger scale, like cars, guns, and sliced bread. Dogs became another example of 20th century mass production. Today there is no question of the dogs' place in society. He goes everywhere.

A lot of farmers were kind of urged to treat dogs as like a side crop. Farmers in the Midwest were facing hard times with massive crop failures. In the idea of breeding and selling purebred puppies started to seem like a fool-proof way to make some extra cash on the side. Plus, breeding dogs is much less labor intensive than what it takes to grow food. The USDA even had a program promoting them. American farmers started to pack dogs into chicken coops and rabbit huts and sell puppies to pet stores.

The supply of these pirabret dogs exploded and with this newly booming retail pet industry, a lot of middle-class families could suddenly afford a pirabret dog for the first time. But I think throughout history, we've really seen this same pattern play out where rich people did something and then people who were in a class slightly below them wanted to emulate that. That's four to a couple of decades and then we have TV and movies to help us determine which dogs we think of as cool and trendy. So once television in particular became a really big medium, we started watching these dogs to really amazing things.

When I was a kid, the Itdog was the collie because of the last-e-movies and TV specials. For the generation before me, it was the German Shepherd because of Ren Tenten. When I was young dating myself, we had wishbone. So anyone with a Jack Russell Terrier was the coolest person in school. So we kind of get this idea implanted,

probably subconsciously, that, hey, if I get one of these dogs, maybe it will also be amazing. Remember 101 Dalmatians that Disney and Made a Movie based on the novel about 101 Dalmatians? Well, after the movie came out in the 1960s, everyone wanted a Dalmatian. And when they remade the film in the 90s. Something kind of interesting happened, which is that the same fudge occurred. People went out, bought a lot of Dalmatians, but people started noting that these Dalmatians were then winding up in animal shelters.

Because people were buying their really cool spotted dogs. You had dogs who had much higher energy needs, then we're really appropriate for the families who are going out and cool spotted dogs. You had dogs who had much higher energy needs than were really appropriate for the families who were going out and buying these dogs. And it was a really huge problem. It's such a problem, in fact, that people tend to refer to this rise and fall in dog popularity as the Dalmatian effect. We see these cycles of it dogs going in and out of style throughout the years, certain breeds being sold and later abandoned. And today, it seems like the apotheosis of all this

is perhaps the French bulldog. These dogs are everywhere, which makes sense because they're so damn cute. Frenchies in particular fall into a specific kind of lifestyle that they're really great for, and there is a reason why they're specifically very popular in cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, where there are a lot of wealthy people who maybe like to travel a lot. These are dogs that are about 20 pounds. They are very small dogs, little tiny waste, giant head, big expressive eyes that kind of sit wide on their face. They have this delightful smile, big bat ears, the way they vocalize. A lot of Frenchy owners describe it as talking,

because it's kind of a bit of a yodel, really, because the best way to describe it. Those indirendly large, roly-poly heads mean they usually have to be born by C-section. The tiny little ways can cause a lot of spine deformities and nerve pain because they're so disproportionate. All those cute face wrinkles can make them prone to skin infections. And their squished faces lead to a lot of breathing problems. They're not really good at exercising, so you don't have to feel bad for not taking them on long walks to the specially in the hot day. It's really not good for them.

So yeah, they're these cute little monstrosities of nature that because of all of these characteristics that have been bred into them, they're often really sick dogs. In a way, we are still breeding dogs for a purpose, like we were before the Victorians, but the purpose has changed. It's not hurting or hunting. It's to fit into the modern world. Breeders will first sell you the idea of an easy dog on that's hypoallergenic or small enough for your purse, and then the industry will sell you the stuff to go along with it, the timed feeders and waterfounts,

the motorized doggy doors for dogs to go in and out by themselves and pee on little patches of fake grass. But it's gotten to the point where, as Tova says, we've broken the dog to accommodate us. After a century of breeding dogs for looks and not for health or talent, a study in the 90s found that a quarter of all dog breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club suffered at least one genetic disorder.

The long list of degenerative conditions goes from German shepherds with bad hips to bull terriers that can spend 80% of their time uncontrollably chasing their own tails. Golden sheavers, for example, 60% of them get cancer, which is a huge issue. And I think a lot of people getting that dog's, you know, that's not on the brochure when you're going to buy your dog. And it's, I think a lot of people would still get them and love them anyway, but I think it's really horrible to set people up without the information of this thing that they're buying into. But again, it's a matter of

priorities. And getting rid of encephalitis and pugs and preserving the pugs' cute, squish nose can be to conflicting priorities. Genesis discovered that the mutation contributing to widespread deafness and Dalmatians is the exact same mutation that creates its signature spots, about 30% of Dalmatians end up losing their hearing. But will people who want Dalmatians abide a Dalmatian without spots? They're mongrels, no spots! No spots at all! What horrible little white rats!

There's a reason why we as humans obsess over breeds. We don't have a lot of information available to us when we have to decide which dog to get. So we categorize dogs into breeds because it gives us a sense of predictability and control. We're always putting you know people, things, feelings into categories. It's a lot easier for us to understand the world in categories. And when you're getting a dog, you have this for the dog's lifetime commitment of this creature from another species

that you can't talk to that you're bringing in your house. And in an ideal world, maybe you would like take some time to get to know each other first. But typically you have to decide, I'm gonna get this dog, or I'm gonna leave this dog behind within, you know, 30 minutes minutes maybe when you meet them. And that's really tough.

And sure, your friendship may be cute and apartment friendly, like the brochure said. But of course not every French bulldog will be as advertised, and not every owner is prepared for all the health issues that might come up over time. I think there are some people who are just not set up for even the most easy-going dog in the world. There are a lot of people who should maybe get an old dog and not a puppy. And I think until we start talking about what breeds can and cannot guarantee, that's going to keep being a problem. There's a breeder in the Netherlands, Shantal Van Cruining, who is experimenting with breeding

a new kind of Frenchie. She's reshaping the French bulldogs' smushed face to try to make it healthier. Chantal's Frenchies have all the characteristics people love about these dogs, but they look distinctly different. They have a much longer neck and a longer nose. These new Frenchies would hopefully have less genetic abnormalities. These dogs wouldn't be accepted as fringies by the American Kennel Club, and they couldn't compete at dog shows. But to the average consumer, it would hopefully mean their dogs can live longer.

From a consumer standpoint, I think people would be a lot happier with it, but it kind of goes against like the ethos of what the purebred dog is. Or maybe we should move on from the idea of breeds and think about dogs the way we did before Queen Victoria got those fancy chickens. The best thing to do is until look at dog breeds, but to actually return to those groups like the Herding Group, Terrier Group. Because if you look within there, the traits do tend to be a little bit more accurate. You can kind of see, okay, does a Terrier really fit my lifestyle when I have this beautiful garden and, you know, a fence

that's very easy to dig under? And that's going to tell you a lot more than any specific dog within that. We could just go back to classifying dogs by what they could do as dogs. There'd still be some sense of the predictability that we crave. It just wouldn't be based on looks. I don't know if it's what I see as the future of pure bread and designer dogs here,

but I would really like for that to happen. I think that we should not be reading to a standard that necessitates the dog be unhealthy. That seems like a pretty easy shift to make from where I'm standing. The other easy shift is just to go to your local shelter and adopt a mutt because pure bread or not, they're all good dogs. After the break, the creator of the Labradoodle says, breeding this dog is his life's regret.

After this. Bugle, cockapoo, schnoodle, yorkipoo. I'm sure you've come across these dogs before. Dogs that are hybrid breeds made from two peer breads squished together with a cutesy portmanteau. These dogs are often called designer dogs, and perhaps the most notorious of all designer dogs is the Labritudele.

And that dog is what we consider to be the very first designer dog. But the guy who created the first Labritudele wonders whether he bred a designer dog or a disaster. So in 1989, a man named Wally Conrin was a breeder with a guide dogs for the blind type organization in Australia. Wally was contacted by a woman in Hawaii who was looking for a guide dog.

But she had a problem, which is that her husband was very allergic to the Labrador Retrievers that are commonly used and trained to be guide dogs. So Wally really wanted to solve this problem for the women, and his first thought was, I'll take puddles, which are known to be pretty low shedding, a little bit hypoallergenic. Breathe that to one of these Labrador Retrievers, and maybe I'll find a dog that has the right temperament to be a guide dog, but isn't going to trigger these allergies in the same way. So he finds these two dogs to breed. Three puppies come out of the litter.

He sends off hair samples from all of the dogs to Hawaii, and only one of them is actually not going to trigger this husband's allergies, so they get that puppy. But while I had a problem, two of the Labrador Poodle puppies weren't hypogenic, and he didn't know what to do with them. And despite the fact that the guide dogs program had a three to six month wait for guide dogs

when he called people, and the less they were like, we're going to wait for one of your normal dogs. Thank you very much. And he was so frustrated by this that he went to their PR department and was like, look, just tell the media, we've bred a new special kind of dog. It's called a Labradordoodle. It was the exact same dog as the Labradordoodle crossbreed, just with a different name. It was a marketing gimmick that really got on.

The name stuck and people started to go wild for these dogs. All of a sudden he started getting all of these calls. Well, he says he realized what he had done within a matter of days. He went to his boss and said, look, I've created a monster. We need to do something to control it. But they couldn't put a patent on the breed, and soon breeders from all over the world join in on the trend. They became so popular that like every other time a dog becomes,

you know, the it dog, a lot of people started breeding these dogs together to make money. And then my friends as our designer dogs first came on the scene. That was 1989. Today, Wally Conran is retired and he deeply regrets breeding that first lab riddle. He says he feels like he quote, opened Pandora's box and quote, released a Frankenstein. That's because when a popular commodity collides with greed, things get ugly. In this case, it means a lot of these dogs aren't carefully bred, or that they're overbred, and they end up with a whole host of health issues. We had so much demand for dogs last year, in particular, that a lot of dogs have been

actually coming in from overseas and those are marketed as, you know, the same dog, you know, no one tells you that they're actually coming from the Ukraine and a lot of these dogs are removed from their mothers younger than they're supposed to be, you know, vaccination records are falsified. It's just any time you're turning a living animal into a commodity, and then that commodity becomes popular, there are just snowballing problems that are going to come from that. Of course, a lot of people,

lab or at-doodle owners included, would disagree that their dogs are the equivalent to Frankenstein's monster, and it totally makes sense that they would. The individual dogs are probably great, and if they're overall not as healthy, so be it, your dog is great, and it has a cute name, how could you not love that? But the dilemma is exactly the same

as it is for purebred dogs. They just have a catch your name. 99% Invisible was produced this week by Lashem Mdon and edited by Vivian Le. Mixed in Tech Production by Dara Hirsch, music by our director of Sound, Swan Rihau. Delaney Hall is the executive producer Kurt Colstad is the digital director. The rest of the team includes Chris Peruvé, Christopher Johnson, Emmett Fitzgerald, Joe Rosenberg, Sophia Klatsker, and me Roman Mars. Special thanks to Tova Danevich, check out her article, The Very Cute, Totally Disturbing Tale of the American It Dog on Box and keep an eye out for Tova's fourth-coming book about chickens.

We are a part of the Stitcher and Serious XM podcast family now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building, In beautiful. Uptown. Oakland, California. You can find the show and join discussions about the show on Facebook. You can tweet at me at Roman Mars and the show at 99PI or on Instagram and Reddit too. You can find links to other Stitcher shows I love as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99PI.org. Okay, Kara. Light down. Good boy, Kara. Say, Stitcher.

Good. Say, Series XM. Good boy. Good. Say, Siri sex him. Good boy.