Practically no one in the United States owned an Old English sheepdog until 1959, when a particularly adorable one named Chiffon appeared in the Walt Disney film “The Shaggy Dog” and sent breed registrations, as tracked by the American Kennel Club, through the roof. Over the next decade, the number of registered sheepdogs climbed to 4,226 from 112 — an increase of more than 3,600 percent.
The case of “The Shaggy Dog” is one of dozens of examples in a new study about the way cinema influences the popularity of certain dog breeds. And the more popular a film, the stronger its effect: Collie registrations more than doubled within two years of “Lassie Comes Home” (1943) and Saint Bernards spiked dramatically after “Beethoven” (1992).
Meanwhile, some breeds fell out of favor after the release of a few of the films — some of them critical or box office duds. Siberian Husky registrations, for instance, plummeted in the 1990s after the release of “Iron Will” (1994) and “Balto” (1995).
Impact of Movies on Breeds
A recent study examined the impact dogs in movies has had on the popularity of different breeds in the United States. The study looked at the number of registrations with the American Kennel Club in the 10 years previous to and following the release of each film.
OLD ENGLISH SHEEPDOGS
COLLIES
DALMATIANS
The Shaggy Dog (1959)
Lassie Come Home (1943)
101 Dalmatians (1961)
5
,000
30
,000
10
,000
4
8
20
3
6
2
4
10
1
2
0
0
0
’49
’59
’69
’33
’43
’53
’51
’61
’71
GERMAN SHEPHERDS
SAINT BERNARDS
SIBERIAN HUSKIES
All Dogs Go to Heaven,
K-9 (1989)
Beethoven (1992)
Iron Will (1994),
Balto (1995)
80
,000
10
,000
30
,000
8
70
20
6
4
60
10
2
50
0
0
’84
’94
’04
’79
’89
’99
’82
’92
’02
OLD ENGLISH
SHEEPDOGS
COLLIES
The Shaggy
Dog (1959)
Lassie Come
Home (1943)
5
,000
30
,000
4
20
3
2
10
1
0
0
’49
’59
’69
’33
’43
’53
GERMAN SHEPHERDS
DALMATIANS
All Dogs Go to
Heaven, K-9 (1989)
101 Dalmatians
(1961)
80
,000
10
,000
8
70
6
4
60
2
50
0
’51
’61
’71
’79
’89
’99
SAINT BERNARDS
SIBERIAN HUSKIES
Beethoven (1992)
Iron Will (1994),
Balto (1995)
10
,000
30
,000
8
20
6
4
10
2
0
0
’84
’94
’04
’82
’92
’02
The study — led by Stefano Ghirlanda, a psychology professor at Brooklyn College, and published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE — suggests that social or cultural considerations are more important to prospective dog owners than how well-behaved or healthy a breed is.
“These fluctuations in breed popularity exude all the characteristics of fashion,” said Mr. Ghirlanda, who co-authored the study with Alberto Acerbi, an anthropologist based in Britain, and Hal Herzog, a psychologist who has written extensively about human-animal relationships (his last book is called “Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat”).
The researchers first attempted to see if celebrity dog ownership — Madonna’s decision to buy a Chihuahua, say — might have had an effect on breed popularity, but they couldn’t find reliable data on celebrity-owned pets. “At some point, we realized that there are dogs that become celebrities themselves,” Mr. Ghirlanda said. “Those that star in movies.”
Mr. Ghirlanda and his colleagues examined about 100 dogs featured prominently in films between 1939 (Toto, the Cairn terrier from “The Wizard of Oz”) and 2003 (Hubble, the border terrier from “Good Boy!”). Over that period, they noticed a significant uptick in films featuring dogs in general; there was about one dog movie per year in the first half of the 20th century but as many as eight per year more recently. That extra competition, Mr. Ghirlanda said, reduces the duration of the popularity effect that any one film can have on a given breed, he said.
Mr. Ghirlanda said he and his colleagues were surprised by the extent to which films seemed to influence vogues for certain breeds. There are plenty of widely publicized breeds that don’t have such an effect, he said, noting that the type of dog that wins the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show each year does not correlate at all with breed popularity. “The idea is that there must be a strong social component rather than a rational decision here,” he said.