The Dog Fancy at War: Breeds, Breeding, and Britishness, 1914-1918

Abstract

This essay examines the impact of the Great War on the breeding and showing of pedigree dogs (the "dog fancy") in Britain. Hostility toward Germany led first to a decline in the popularity of breeds such as the dachshund, with both human and canine "aliens" targeted by nationalist fervor. Second, the institutions of dog breeding and showing came under threat from accusations of inappropriate luxury, frivolity, and the wasting of food in wartime, amounting to the charge of a want of patriotism on the part of breeders. Third, the paper shows how the "dog fancy" responded to this "agitation against dogs," turning on mongrels, stray dogs, and "useless" and unpatriotic humans, exposing deep divisions within the dog breeding community. By looking at the politics of the "dog fancy" in wartime, this paper extends the discussion of animals and national identity, arguing that while dogs could be used to articulate patriotic sentiments, their conditional citizenship meant that they were uniquely vulnerable at a time of national crisis.

English Bulldogs in the UK: a VetCompass study of their disorder predispositions and protections

“…Moreover, they also reveal that the fashion for extreme English Bulldog conformation has persisted for over a century despite widespread awareness of the linked health issues [ 8 ]. Because of the preexisting significance of the breed as a nationalistic icon, the new body shape of the (English) Bulldog was widely depicted in patriotic imagery from 1900 onwards, and became firmly established in popular culture thereafter [ 3 , 9 ]. Although (English) Bulldogs have continued to change physically since then, they therefore still retain many physical attributes (such as facial skin folds or the ‘screw’ tail) that were considered desirable novelties in the late Victorian show-ring.…”

Furry Families: Ethical Entanglements Through More-than-Human Domestic Dramas

“…Previous research in human–animal studies have shown humans tend to shore up, reproduce, and amplify human-centric understandings of animals and cross-species relationships in social, cultural, and political contexts (cf. Howell, 2013; McCarthy, 2015). Consequently, we need to acknowledge that more-than-human domestic drama privileges NZ European women’s familial experiences with CA, but these views may be in tension with other animal welfare discourses.…”

Breed wealth: Origins, encounter value and the international love of a breed

“…This may reflect antipathy to breeding as a dimension of human domination of animals and to racist deployments of ideas of breeding and bred purity, as well as animality more broadly (Anderson, 2000; Rasmussen, 2016; Skabelund, 2008; Tyrell, 2015). Yet recent attention to the implications of new genetic technologies for farm animal breeding (Gibbs et al, 2009; Holloway et al, 2009; 2011; Holloway and Morris, 2014; Morris and Holloway, 2009), nationalist animal breeding discourses and practices (Howell, 2013; Raento, 2016), breeding in livestock rewilding projects (Lorimer and Driessen, 2013), and the geographies of livestock breed diversity (Evans and Yarwood, 2000; Yarwood and Evans, 1998, 1999) suggest ways to build a geographical analytical framework for engaging more fully with breeds and breeding. This would include critical engagement with the naturalisation of human categories of difference (especially race and nation) and heteronormative reproduction through ideas of breeds and breeding, but also explore the embodied, material, cultural, biopolitical, economic, relational and practised geographies of breeding; the sites, spaces, networks, landscapes, and ecologies co‐constituted through breeding and bred animals; and the historically and geographically situated ethical complexity of breed practices, ideas and relations.…”