Dog breed ownership maps onto social class hierarchies

Evidence

From there the logic of human hierarchies seeped into canine hierarchies as well: English dogs were superior to foreign breeds, puppies of champions enjoyed great cachet. (Among the writer Dorothy Parker’s final possessions was “a certificate of the aristocratic origins of a beloved poodle.”) By the twentieth century, as historian Paul Fussell notes, the ownership of particular breeds served as class markers in the United States: Labradors and golden retrievers at the top, Scottish and Irish setters in the middle, and pit bulls at the bottom. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 802

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Status-driven dog breeding now overrides health in perceived beauty — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 803; Animal dominance hierarchies poorly model human status structures — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 62; Bourgeois animal breeding cultivated the doctrine of race as nobility (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Modern race thinking emerged from bourgeois breeding and pet-keeping hobby culture #corroborates (0.90) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 118
• Bourgeois animal breeding cultivated the doctrine of race as nobility #expands (0.85)
• The ordoliberal Ordo concept legitimized a hierarchical social order as natural and irrevocable #expands (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 510
• Attributing success to traits rather than position blocks social mobility #complicates (0.72)