Seeing the English Bulldog, pugs, collies and Great Danes, I find it hard to believe that the herding dogs had that long coat or the Great Dane was that big or English bulldog and pug was that ugly.When did people started to breed for that extreme look?
Pretty much all dogs were originally bred for function, not to fit a breed standard. When you look at old pictures of dog breeds, they’re usually recognizable, but deviate widely from what we think of as, say, a dachshund.
To an extent yes. People are constantly breeding the traits of the “best of breeds” into the next genaration. They do this with thier animals as well . . .
I work in a museum, and we have lots of old paintings and photographs of dogs in our collection. You can really tell how breeds have changed over the years, with some features quite altered.
For example, we have a charming painting from the Colonial period of a child seated next to a bulldog. The dog’s muzzle is quite a bit longer than modern bulldogs’. We also have one of a lady with a pug-- its eyes are not as protruding as modern pugs’ nor is its nose as recessed, but its still recognizably a pug.
Other dogs, like hunting hounds, are not always as recognizable-- “breed” as we think of it (AKC) was not as important as the skills of the dog. Hunters would breed two dogs who had good tracking skills or other desirable characteristics, not for appearance or breed standards as today.
That coat is surprisingly effective. Keeps the dog warm down to long past when you should’ve gotten the sheep to shelter and rain and burrs slip right off the long and glassy guard hairs.
That super long snout that was popular a few years back, OTOH…
I don’t know if you were just talking about dogs, but I know cats have changed quite a bit just in the last few decades. Your average Siamese cat used to be shaped like a cat, with a cat-shaped head, and be very smart. Cite. Recently people have been breeding them to be all long and pointy. Cite 2. I guess people think they look better this way, but their poor brains have been getting squished into these little pointy skulls and they have lost some of their famed intellect. The same is true for the breed Burmese.
Labradors used to be slender and athletic. I don’t know how one of those 100 lb brutes they have today is supposed to climb back into your boat.
Persian cats used to have actual noses, instead of the slits they now have. Predictably, once the muzzle disappeared, the Persians started having health problems.
Personally, I dislike excessively “showtype” animals. Collies used to be wonderful dogs, but now they have no room for any brains at all.
Some breeds have definitely been bred to be bigger (but not necessarily better).
The German Shepherd (my favorite breed) has been getting huge. I remember seeing a picture of Calvin Coolidge (a Shepherd onwer) and his dog (fully grown) looks more like a 6 month old shepherd pup.
That is the very reason I chose an “apple head” Siamese for my one purebred cat. I just don’t like the “pointy” looking ones - they always look underfed to me. I don’t know about the intelligence factor thought - Valentino is as beautiful as a sunrise and sweeter than sugar, but he’s about as intelligent as a sack of rocks.
Persians used to be beautiful cats, but now that they all have those scrunchy-faces, I find them rather unattractive (and this from someone who loves all cats). It always looks like they’re on the verge of tears or allergic reactions – and I wonder how that type of breeding was for any useful purpose. How long have Persians been bred to look like they’ve been punched in the face?
They’re a young breed (19th cent) but Dobermans were stockier than they are now. . From the photos I’ve seen, their ears were cropped drastically well into the 1900’s until the show crops appeared.
European Dobes are still pretty stocky compared to American Dobes. Scroll down a bit to see photos.
It is obscene what they’ve done to Persians’ faces (some examples). It’s occasionally gotten so bad in recent years that some Persians are being produced with the nostrils right between the eyes, and the face verging on being concave. Almost all modern Persians have no functioning tear drainage ducts, and so their eyes constantly run, and many have trouble eating normally, and have to lap up their food.
It’s only within the past 50 years or so that this has happened. If you look at pictures of Persians from the 50s (like these), the cats have short muzzles and flattish faces, but still within a normal range. This page (an excellent article on the modern taste for deformed show cats) has some good illustrations of the development of the Persian breed over the years, and how it got to its current wretched state.
Lot of gross pictures here. How do people do this to animals?
[WAG] Pedigreed dogs get their championship papers at dog shows, when the judges work off breed ‘standards’, written descriptions of the ideal of the breed. So if they say the standard for a pug is a round head or short snout or however they describe it, then the one with the shortest nose gets points over the others, all else being equal.
And championship papers, grand championships, ‘Best of Breed’, weigh with people buying pedigreed critters to breed, so there is a strong selective trend toward the extreme of the standard. [/WAG]
I did read somewhere that bulldog judges were trying to bring the standard back to a point where typical champion bulldog stock didn’t have eye troubles due to the pop-eye effect, and great danes wouldn’t have so much hip displasia. Sorry for the vagueness of cite; someone who actually knows something should be along any minute with some straight dope.
Fortunately, the odd, greyhound-like Siamese variation is not popular. All the Siamese cats I’ve ever seen look like cats.
IMHO MaryEFoo has it. I feel the same way about cats as Big Bad Voodoo Lou does. I don’t know where it’d be, but somewhere there’s a list of characteristics for certain cats and dogs, and some nutcases went all out. I’m convinced that if you invented a breed that’s supposed to have a ‘long tail’, in 10 years someone would be showing you a cat dragging three yards of tail.
According to this page most ‘breeds’ of cats are less than 100 years old.
Personally, I dislike excessively “showtype” animals. Collies used to be wonderful dogs, but now they have no room for any brains at all.>>>
I have sheepdogs (Border Collies) and I own a book that documents the winners of the International (in the UK) for the last 100 years or so. The dogs are no different in the beginning than they are now. Even after the most influential dog in the breed appears (Wiston Cap) in the middle- the dogs before and after are very recognizable as working Border Collies. Since their primary function and way of working has not changed much (except to demand them to work a larger variety of livestock, including cattle)- there was no reason to change their physical appearance except for where the job/environment dictated it to vary. Looking at the “new to the scene” AKC Border Collie (the show lines of which are heavily influenced by Aus/NZ show lines- very little working lines or ability there) , you do see some pretty distinct differences.
The old time collies were actually quite closely related to the Border Collies (there are sable Border Collies) but as they entered the show ring “fancy” , the working dog folk change the name from “collie” to “Border Collie” to differentiate between the two. May have to do that again today…
The first picture is so much attractive than the second picture.
I hate the pointy Siamese look.
I found pictures of bulldogs that seem to be from about 100-200 years ago here (scroll down to the bottom of the page, there’s a small picture with the caption “English Bulldog” on the left) and here (also a little scrolling). As you can see, the appearance has certainly changed over time, with more and more emphasis placed on the flatness of the face. (From the second link above.)
In addition to causing physically obvious problems like blocked tearducts in Persians or the need for most French bulldogs to be born via C-section, overly select breeding has less visible effects in the gene pool of the breed. A few years ago, Standard Pinscher breeders in Finland became worried that the gene pool of the breed was very narrow, with a few successful males fathering dangerously large amounts of pups. Therefore, the decision was made to cross Standard Schnauzers with Pinschers in order to get new blood into the line. This has been received well, and it’s recently been suggested that other breeds could also benefit from foreign blood from a related breed.