I can’t say I’ve actually noticed a difference. It seems that the dogs roaming around the neighborhood (owned by the residents, not strays) are the same medium-sized mutts.
About how far back are you guys comparing? I can’t say I ever remember poodles being a big thing, for example. So perhaps it was before my time.
English Sheep Dogs were 60s and 70s.
Standard Collies & Shelties were big in the 60s & 70s (and I believe before)
Dalmatians were biggest in the 60s
Mini-Poodles were big 60s through 80s I believe.
So, yeah, pretty much all before my time. I turned 5 in 1990.
Yeesh, you’re right between my niece and nephew in age.
The Dalmatians were really before my time. But they were more common in the 70s still than later.
Most of the “don’t see those much anymore” breeds mentioned went through waves of popularity and over/sloppy breeding during their heyday.
I’m especially sorry about what happened to the American cocker spaniel, which was a sturdy, stocky hunting dog and pet but lost its mojo starting in the 1930s-1940s after movie appearances boosted its popularity, and ultimately was bred into the pin-headed, uber-furred horror you see in dog shows. There are still pet-quality cockers that aren’t so malformed, but nothing compared to the classic cockers of old. My favorite was Obo II.
Pluto, our black field spaniel resembles Obo II but in a larger size. Field spaniels supposedly claim cockers as distant ancestors.
Collies got ruined by popularity–they started out as tough, smart herding dogs then people started breeding them for those long needle noses and excessive coats and they got stupider and stupider the more inbred they got.
Hunting dogs as a group are stupid and stubborn and only want to do the thing they were bred to do. This makes them not so good pets and people figure that out after the craze wears off.
Dalmatians were bred to be pretty and showy and able to run behind a carriage all day. This does not require brain power and it shows. Stupid as a fried popsicle, most of them.
The Cavalier King Charles spaniel is notorious for what inbreeding did to them–they were bred to the point where their brain pans are too small for their brains, resulting in dogs that are intractable pain most of the time and prone to seizures. Price of popularity, I guess.
American bred German Shepherds are another victim of popularity–bred for that ridiculous dropped ass that makes a huge percentage of them at extreme risk for hip dysplasia, sometimes so bad it’s visible via x-ray in the puppies of a pregnant bitch. This is why Belgian shepherds and Malinois have become more popular, they’re still functional dogs with working hips.
Let’s not even get started on what’s been done to English and French bulldogs and pugs. That’s gotten to criminal levels.
Popularity is probably the worst thing that can happen to a breed of dog.
No, they just buy Pit Bulls now instead. Seems that there’s roughly 20 year cycles on what the “scary dog” du jour is, which is quickly adopted by toxic assholes who want a dog that makes them look “tough.” Used to be German Shepherds, then Dobies, then Rottweilers, then most recently Pit Bulls. Seems we’re due for a new breed of dog that makes people irrationally frightened. My vote? Choodles.
Back when I worked as an assistant at a vet clinic in the late '90s/early '00s, I would see occasional Chow Chows and Chinese Shar Peis. Now I seldom see either. I think that’s a good thing: those were probably my least favorite breeds to work with. They seemed to live in their own little world and were very unfriendly to anyone besides their owners. Dobermans and Pit Bulls, on the other hand, more often than not were very pleasant to work with.
There is a regional preference at work as well. Up in Minnesota the dog you see most often is a retriever - labs and goldens. But some sort of spaniel is likely. Good bird dogs. Pit bulls are also seen a lot.
In the South, you get more hound breeds, which are far less common here.
Also, it depends on where you are looking. Most of my “see other dogs” is when I take mine to the dog park - and the dog park leans towards larger dogs who need more room for exercise. A Yorkie can get all the exercise it needs running around an apartment - in the suburbs you don’t even need to take them on a leash for potty time.
This is an excellent point. In my previous post about Chow Chows and Shar Peis, I neglected to mention that I live in a demographically different area than where I worked as an assistant at a vet clinic. Granted, I still live in the same state, but there are sufficient differences that I should have mentioned this fact. For all I know, maybe that clinic still gets its share of Chows and Shar Peis.
German Shorthaired Pointers seem to be the hunting dog of preference around here. My neighbor has one and so does a friend, and so does his neighbor. When we go to the dog park there’s a pack of 4, plus their German Wirehaired Pointer brother.
Boxers, German Shepherds, Aussies, retrievers and pitbulls/Am. Staff seem to be most popular around here, along with mutts (probably about 50% mutts at our park).
In the small dog area there’s your chihuahuas, Pomeranians, Maltese, pugs, doxies…all of them pretending to be the biggest dog there 
I for one am terrified of chi-yip-yaps, although it’s a rational fear. I might trip over one of those little things & hurt myself on the fall.
Little known fact; they were the model for the Who’s that Horton hears - Yip-yap - Wearehereweareherewarehere - yap-yap. Yip-yap - Wearehereweareherewarehere - yap-yap. Yip-yap - Wearehereweareherewarehere - yap-yap. Yip-yap - Wearehereweareherewarehere - yap-yap.
I knew this but it was still depressing as hell to be reminded of it. This is animal cruelty by any definition.
I think excessive inbreeding often rises to the level of cruelty more often than people are willing to admit. Shar-peis were mentioned upthread and those are massively inbred, basically every Shar-pei in the country comes from an incredibly small gene pool, as in single digits of origin dogs. This means the skin diseases they’re prone to get from all those wrinkles are magnified by reinforced recessives. I think the hip dysplasia large breed dogs are prone to is another example and the AKC should start being a lot more proactive about barring genetic lines that tend toward it.
My current favorite dog breed is the Australian Cattle Dog and I live in terror that people might figure out they’re basically a Corgi who can keep up with a bike and inbreed them into useless stupid dogs bred for some meaningless appearance characteristic instead of leaving them as the intelligent, tough, fast, energetic, stubbornly independent cuddly bastards they’re meant to be. I tend to prefer herding dogs because they tend to resist overpopularity due to being smarter than humans–the average person can’t handle them so the word doesn’t get out.
We’ve always had doxies, and people who haven’t think they’re little, so they’re floofy dogs. Nope. They’re hunting dogs bred to go down into badger dens. And were bred to be independent thinkers so they could make decisions when they were underground in the burrows. I love the breed, but they can be obnoxious little buggers.
I hate what they’ve done to GSDs. They’re not just damaged dogs – they’re ugly.
One of my neighbors had a big beautiful Doberman. He was such a sweetie. He’d give this tiny little whines whenever he saw me until I came and gave him scritches. Sadly, he died shortly before this neighbor had to move, and it was at the beginning of the 2020 lockdowns, so I couldn’t hug her when she told me. I never did find out what happened.
We had a Cattle Dog Beagle mix who had Cattle Dog intelligence combined with Beagle temperament. We lost her early in the year, and I miss her terribly. She had the most striking blue eyes.
That’s a pretty harsh way to put it. Not everyday is suitable for every life style. If I want a dumb sweet floofy dog that’s only desire is to hang out and snuggle, it’s not that my character is lacking, it’s just I want a certain type of pet.
I have a ruby CKCS and I lost my black and tan CKCS a couple of months ago. I’m already in the process of getting another. I can safely say there are a respectable number of King Charles spaniels in Toronto.
You have that backwards. People get a herding dog (or another example, a husky or Malemute or Samoyed) because they’re thinking how cute they are and very shortly discover they have an extremely smart, horrendously energetic and fiendishly evil if left to their own devices dog that takes about 97 times as much effort to civilize and turn into a Good Dog as your average Lab or golden. Way too often that dog ends up as a rescue or in the pound and some crazy lady like me who LIKES that level of brains/independence/cussedness takes them on. And the person who couldn’t stand that dog any more learns a valuable lesson and finds a dog that better suits their needs and personality. Herding dogs are smarter than everyone aside from the people who know they are not up to dealing with their nonsense and the people who find the challenge to be a good thing.
I used to have and still love the snow dogs but I had to face reality and acknowledge that I am no longer physically able to keep one busy enough to be happy and not an escape artist menace to the neighborhood. I’d love to be able to have a husky again but that’s just not gonna happen, especially because I’m heading toward living out in the country eventually and a husky has much too high a prey drive to be allowed to run loose on acreage because they’re much too likely to end up shot for attacking livestock. It would be irresponsible of me to take on a dog I know I’m not up to training and socializing properly. So I stick with herding dogs because I know how to keep their brains engaged and I keep two of similar age to exercise each other.
I keep the kind of dogs I like because their temperament, size and activity levels suit me and others do the same–the problem comes when someone takes on an unsuitable type of dog for their needs because they don’t know what they’re getting into, and way too often it’s because they saw one in a movie and thought it would be a good idea to get one based on a trained dog. I bet a whole lot of people who got Jack Russell terriers based on watching Frasier had a real nasty shock once that cute puppy got to be about eight months old or so.
[quote=“SmartAleq, post:39, topic:948371”] I
keep the kind of dogs I like because their temperament, size and activity levels suit me and others do the same–the problem comes when someone takes on an unsuitable type of dog for their needs because they don’t know what they’re getting into, and way too often it’s because they saw one in a movie and thought it would be a good idea to get one based on a trained dog. I bet a whole lot of people who got Jack Russell terriers based on watching Frasier had a real nasty shock once that cute puppy got to be about eight months old or so
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I think part of the reason people do this is because of the “the average person isn’t up to handling a dog as smart as this one” attitude. They get the message that a highly intelligent, high energy dog is a better dog, and the owners are more impressive people. So they get an unsuitable dog.