Labrador retrievers are still tugging hardest on US dog lovers’ heartstrings, but poodles just strutted back into the American Kennel Club’s top five most popular dog breeds for the first time in nearly a quarter-century.
The club’s annual popularity rankings came out Tuesday, drawn from more than 800,000 purebred puppies and older pooches that joined the nation’s oldest canine registry last year.
After Labs — No 1 for an unprecedented 31 straight years — the top 10 are: French bulldogs, golden retrievers, German shepherds, poodles, bulldogs, beagles, Rottweilers, German shorthaired pointers and dachshunds.
Photo: AFP
With 197 recognized breeds, the list ranges from familiar furry faces to the newly added Biewer terrier (making a strong debut at #82) and unusual pups like the hairless Xoloitzcuintli (#119).
For dog fans, there’s plenty to dig into (like a dachshund, #10) and point out (like a pointer, #120). So we’ve rounded up (like a border collie, #31) some highlights.
OODLES OF POODLES
Poodles reigned as top dog from 1960 to 1982 before falling off somewhat in popularity. But in the new statistics, they reclaimed the fifth spot for the first time since 1997. (The standard, miniature and toy sizes are all counted as one breed.)
With their proud stance and elaborate cut in the show ring, “they do have a reputation, in some circles, as just being froufrou,” says longtime poodle owner and sometime breeder Page Hinds-Athan of Roswell, Georgia. “There’s definitely more to them.”
Poodles historically were water retrievers, and they remain athletic animals renowned for their smarts, not to mention their allergy-friendly coats. Hinds-Athan’s poodles have made therapy visits in hospitals and compete in obedience. Other poodles work as guide dogs for the blind, hunt or compete in agility or other dog sports.
Their intelligence comes with some high expectations, Hinds-Athan says: In training, “if you’re going to fuss at them, you’d better be really right. Because if you’re not really fair with them, they remember it.”
Poodles also make up part of several popular hybrids, such as Labradoodles, maltipoos and sheepadoodles. The AKC, a governing body for many dog shows, doesn’t currently recognize any of those as breeds. But AKC spokesperson Brandi Hunter says poodle-mix fans have made some inquiries about what recognition would involve.
One key requirement is articulating an ideal for the breed, in order to attain some consistency.
“The predictability is one of the things that draws people to purebred dogs,” Hunter explains.
The rarest breed last year was the Norwegian lundehund, consistently sparse in the US. The smallish dogs boast extra toes and unusual flexibility that once helped them climb Norwegian cliffs to hunt puffins nesting in narrow crevices.
BREEDS ON THE RISE
The standings often don’t change a lot from year to year, but they do over time. Eight breeds, from the low-lying Pembroke Welsh corgi (#11) to the towering great Dane (#17), have entered the top 25 since the start of the century.
Some have made Olympian leaps in popularity. French bulldogs, now #2 and a common sight from TV commercials to cosmopolitan streets, ranked a distant 71st in 2000. The cane corso, which wasn’t recognized until 2010, has since climbed from 51st to 21st.
The imposing, mastiff-style cane corso goes back many centuries in rural Italy as a farm guardian that also pulled small carts and hunted wild boar. Its versatility endures, says Anthony Simonski, who has owned or bred corsi (that’s the proper plural) that compete in agility, dock diving and other sports and have appeared in TV shows and music videos.
While the dogs are protective, “it’s not about being mean — it’s about understanding its job,” says Simonski, of Acworth, Georgia.
Simonski has owned corsi since 1998 and is married to Cane Corso Association of America President Rebecca Simonski. He has mixed feelings about their growing popularity, feeling that it draws questionable breeders.
“There’s a side of you going, ‘Oh, my God, the cat’s out of the bag.’ But the real problem is what people are doing with that cat once it’s out of the bag,” he says.
DOG BREEDING DEBATE
Some animal-rights advocates say dog breeding itself is a problem. They argue that fanciers focus more on dogs’ appearance than their health and that promoting purebreds ends up fueling puppy mills and stranding other dogs in shelters.
The AKC says it and its affiliated breed clubs champion and invest in dog health, including through an AKC-affiliated foundation. The club also maintains that properly done breeding has a purpose: to produce dogs with known traits, from size to sniffing ability, that fit different human needs and lifestyles.
New purebred registrations, which are voluntary, have increased by 45 percent in a decade, the club says.
Nothing like the spectacular, dramatic unraveling of a political party in Taiwan has unfolded before as has hit the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) over recent weeks. The meltdown of the New Power Party (NPP) and the self-implosion of the New Party (NP) were nothing compared to the drama playing out now involving the TPP. This ongoing saga is so interesting, this is the fifth straight column on the subject. To catch up on this train wreck of a story up to Aug. 20, search for “Donovan’s Deep Dives Ko Wen-je” in a search engine. ANN KAO SENTENCED TO PRISON YET AGAIN,
Despite her well-paying tech job, Li Daijing didn’t hesitate when her cousin asked for help running a restaurant in Mexico City. She packed up and left China for the Mexican capital last year, with dreams of a new adventure. The 30-year-old woman from Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, hopes one day to start an online business importing furniture from her home country. “I want more,” Li said. “I want to be a strong woman. I want independence.” Li is among a new wave of Chinese migrants who are leaving their country in search of opportunities, more freedom or better financial prospects at a
During her final years of high school, Chinese teenager Xu Yunting found an unusual way to make some pocket money: transforming herself into male video game characters and taking their female devotees on dates. The trend, called “cos commissioning,” has gained traction in China recently, with social media posts garnering millions of views as an increasing number of young women use their purchasing power to engineer a meeting with their dream man in real life. One early morning in Shanghai last month, Xu carefully inserted contacts to enlarge her irises and adjusted a tangerine wig to transform into “Jesse,” a character from
When the Dutch began interacting with the indigenous people of Taiwan, they found that their hunters classified deer hide quality for trade using the Portuguese terms for “head,” “belly,” and “foot.” The Portuguese must have stopped here more than once to trade, but those visits have all been lost to history. They already had a colony on Macao, and did not need Taiwan to gain access to southern China or to the trade corridor that connected Japan with Manila. They were, however, the last to look at Taiwan that way. The geostrategic relationship between Taiwan and the Philippines was established
RSS