A new Disney movie, 101 Dalmatians, has created both a demand for puppies as pets and a fulsome distaste for the breed's temperament and physical drawbacks.
Published: The Globe and Mail, December 14, 1996 FOCUS
By Deborah Jones, Vancouver
THERE'S a movement afoot to protect bears from hunters. Forget it. Bears don't need protection nearly as much as Dalmatian dogs, the object of a -- sometimes deserved -- hate campaign. The fact is, few people who know them have unreserved affection for the spotted dogs.
"There's nothing wrong with Dalmatians that a good furrier couldn't fix," wrote David Plotz this month in Slate, the Internet magazine. That was merely the opening salvo in a scathing denunciation. Writer/editor Plotz, as well as critics with impeccable scientific credentials, charge that the breed can be irascible, dog-aggressive, people-aggressive, high-strung, hyperactive, prone to biting and barking when startled, bad with children, constantly shedding in both black and white, hard to train and susceptible to skin problems, kidney problems and epilepsy. The dogs are also very often deaf.
Indeed, Mr. Plotz finds it eminently reasonable that Dalmatians should end up as fur coats -- the evil goal of Cruella DeVil, the villainess of 101 Dalmations .
Ms. DeVil's ambitions and Mr. Plotz's (hopefully tongue-in-cheek) rant aside, nobody is recommending actually skinning puppies. Scientific-minded people recommend more humane means of killing them.
The extreme criticism that the dogs attract -- including almost-daily statements by dog experts and North American pet shelters warning people against Dalmatians as family pets -- is in many ways deserved. Blame it on a collision of questionable motives of breeders, questionable genes (or at least human folly in tampering with the gene pool) and questionable literature and movie-making.
Dalmatians -- the word is derived either from a 16th-century Turkish poet named Dalmatius or the Yugoslavian province of Dalmatia -- are believed to have once run alongside Egyptian chariots. Later, they were used by the gentry in Europe as carriage dogs. And, of course, they have long been associated with firefighters. They would run for long distances under the front axle of a horse-drawn vehicle. When it stopped, they'd circle the carriage and horses to protect them against ne'er-do-wells.
"In effect they were the very first car alarm," says Stanley Coren, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, a professional dog-trainer and author of The Intelligence of Dogs .
For Dalmatians to do that job well, he points out, they had to be hyperactive, aggressive and suspicious around strangers. And unlike other guard dogs -- all of whom are territorial -- Dalmatians protected territory that constantly moved, making it impossible for them to distinguish between their domain and that of others.
Left to nature, Dalmatians would likely have gone the way of the horse-drawn carriages they guarded. But, in 1956, a children's book titled 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith was published. Its enduring popularity has assured the continued demand for the medium-sized, black-and-white dogs.
Walt Disney Co. released an animated version of the story in 1961. This fall it otopped the box office with yet another 101 Dalmatians , this time starring Glenn Close as Cruella DeVil.
With every new version of 101 Dalmatians , there has been renewed demand for puppies of the breed. Reputable dog breeders resist the fad, but "the puppy mills just don't care. They're creating objects and their brood bitches are little manufacturing plants," says Dr. Coren.
Given the peculiar traits so carefully bred into them as carriage dogs as well as a host of physical problems peculiar to the breed, Dalmatians have never been easy pets for most people. "A Dalmatian can run 50 miles, have a rest and run another 50 miles," says Ontario Dalmatian owner and breeder Kim Ondaatje. "People who work and leave a Dal penned up all day after it has slept all night are going to drive it crazy . . . When they don't get their exercise, they become naturally destructive, aggressive, hyperactive."
That fascinating Dalmatian fur is also thin, lacking the warm undercoat found in many breeds. They become cold when they are made to stay on the floor, says Ms. Ondaatje, and cannot be left outside in a Canadian winter.
Despite all this, dalmations, because of their striking appearance, are one of the breeds most often used in advertisements and art. Depending on the latest movie or book fad, they rank between 14th and 30th place in popularity polls in North America (though no one really knows how many dogs of any type there are).
Dalmatian lover Ms. Ondaatje rejects the common assertion that they're unintelligent; one of her dogs opens doors, just like the male star in the latest movie, and has on occasion worked a deadbolt to release puppies from a cage. "Dalmatian puppies to the experienced and informed owner can be a gift from heaven; to the inexperienced and uninformed, a demon from hell," she says. "I've known Dals to destroy homes. I've known Dals to dig up every rose bush in someone's garden because they knew they were being treated unfairly. They're highly intelligent and know how to get even."
By the time 101 Dalmations was published many doggy generations ago, there were few Dalmations left in the world and their gene pool was already thin. In response to the demand over the years, unscrupulous people produced dogs by breeding bitches with their own fathers, sisters with brothers and often cousins with cousins.
Ms. Ondaatje also blames the breeders who breed only for show and national kennel clubs. "They have put the emphasis on looks rather than temperament and health."
Inbreeding exaggerates existing genetic imperfections, and the majority of Dalmatians suffer from a host of problems, including kidney disease (their metabolism prevents them from digesting most common dog foods), skin allergies and deafness. John Lowrey, director of the Dalmatian Research Foundation in York, Pennsylvania, says the dogs' average life expectancy is just seven years unless they are fed a special diet. (He feeds his dogs cooked brown rice, which he mixes with a small amount of raw lamb and cod, supplemented by a vegetable soup.)
Dr. Strain's research shows that 8 per cent of Dalmatian puppies are born deaf in both ears; another 22 per cent are deaf in one ear. Though he has sympathy for the dogs (he has his own breeding colony of deaf Dalmatians) and owners, Dr. Strain unequivocally says puppies born deaf in both ears should always be put down and dogs deaf in one ear should never be bred.
"Not all deaf dogs develop aggressive or anxious personalities, but there is no way to predict which will or will not, and those that do are the ones that attack neighbours or family members," says Dr. Strain.
Deaf dogs are a difficult to raise and train. Many quickly learn to respond to hand signals and other indicators such as a flashed porch light or training shock collars set to the lowest intensity. Nevertheless, he says, "they are a disaster waiting to happen."
Experts say improving the breed can best be accomplished by eliminating faulty puppies and by encouraging pet buyers to purchase dogs only from breeders who can prove that at least three generations of their dogs are sound.
Other breeds have been improved in this way, says Dr. Coren. "People used to talk about Dobermans as slavering beasts that ate children. Doberman breeders were responsible [for improving the dogs' behaviour]. They put a temperament standard on the breed that meant any dog that was spontaneously aggressive had its breeding certificate pulled. A lot of beautiful dogs were taken out of the genetic line, but now the Doberman is a good, solid, steady working dog."
Michael Goldman, a B.C. dog-show judge who has bred Dalmatians for 30 years in England and Canada, is proposing a novel solution. He wants the Disney company to donate half of 1 per cent of profits from the movie for research on Dalmatians, to discover the genes linked with their deafness.
Ideally, he says, a simple blood test, similar to tests for some genetic defects in humans and other animals, would be developed to show whether a Dalmatian carried the deafness gene or was suitable for breeding. "A lot of the problems with the breed stems from lack of knowledge."
Meanwhile, though, Dalmatians continue to take their licks. Even the staid Wall Street Journal engaged in canine clubbing this month, with a life-echoes-art story about a new fashion fad of clothing made of dog hair -- though unlike in 101 Dalmatians , the real clothing is made of woven hair rather than dog hides.
The journal, however, couldn't resist pointing out that Dalmatian fur is "totally unfit for spinning."
Deborah Jones is a contributing editor with The Globe's Report on Business magazine and Chatelaine.
Copyright Deborah Jones 1996
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