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The metropolitan dog walker is a judgmental type. I know, because I am one. The daily ball-throwing expeditions in the park serve as both loyal devotion to one’s four-legged’s health and wellbeing and also a prime opportunity to fiercely critique other people’s dogs.
I don’t know about you, but I consider myself something of an expert in the art of London pouch-panning and dog-bitching. I am an Anna Wintour/Suzy Menkes sort, checking out coats and paws, pricked-up ears and waggly tails on the international runway known as the Kensington Gardens Broad Walk.
The most pleasure that I derive on a walk is to decide, completely unreasonably, but quite definitively, whether your dog is posh... or actually quite naff. So what are the rules of posh pooches? Does your choice of dog say U, or Non-U?
Schnauzers, for example, are now 10 a penny in the capital — so they’re common, yes. But they’re not “common”. Black lab? For me this is a docile, friendly, slobbery, handsome, kid friendly, useful classic that says big house in Notting Hill, even bigger second home in the Cotswolds. Gun dogs are terminally cool.
Rescue dogs for the upper class?
Rescue dogs are also quite upper-class these days. Guy the Beagle (RIP), adopted in Canada after he had been saved from a “kill shelter” in Kentucky, was the only good thing to come out of Meghan Sussex’s kitchen (sadly, he died before her interminably boring show With Love, Meghan was released). Queen Camilla’s favoured breed, the Jack Russell, is the new Corgi. Kate Middleton and Prince William’s first dog together, who arrived in 2011, was Lupo, a fine specimen of the country-estate mainstay, the sleek, shiny, working cocker spaniel.
Hypoallergenic breeds — doodles and poos, in case you didn’t know — are very much the dog for people with “dietaries”, “intolerances” and who need emotional assistance on aeroplanes. Not posh.
But back to the dogs that can no longer own a place on the Kensington catwalk. The French Bulldog has slid right down the list. It’s London-ubiquitous — the Beckhams have one — but also terminally naff. Who wants a dog that breathes like Dot Cotton and needs picking up all the time? “Air dogs” are so Paris Hilton/Noughties, and as such, straight to the top of the “very common” list.
Right now, it is the whippet that is riding high. The elegant, S-shaped breed, which just won Best in Show at Crufts (adorable Miuccia from Venice, Italy) was once the mainstay of the flat-capped and mufflered Yorkshireman. But it suddenly has serious London it-dog potential and zeitgeisty, thoroughbred chops, with whippets being sleek, low maintenance, a bit nervy and neurotic, non-barking, doe-eyed and very, very photogenic.
Blonde, leggy beauties such as Miuccia (named after Miuccia “Miu Miu” Prada, one hopes?) are also loyal, skinny-lean, fleet footed and, although not completely hypoallergenic, also short-coated and mostly non-shedding, so friendlier to allergy sufferers than many breeds.
Whippets love sleeping and curling up into adorable shapes. They give good park and social media. This, then, is the new fashion dog. Le chien à la mode. Totally chic. They are as at home in an aristocratic country kitchen as they are bounding across the Heath. It wasn’t always like this for the humble whippet in the UK.
For most of the 20th century “the poor man’s racehorse” (the fastest idle-to-running acceleration of any dog in the world — the word “whippet” being olde English for “moves quickly”) was a dour, working-class, downmarket dog, synonymous with amateur racing and tweedy headgear, owned by coal-miners living in cramped terraced houses and the butt of parodying from the likes of Monty Python.
Now, the prestige of Crufts and the low growl of a cultural/canine vibe shift away from the confrontational, jolie laide features of pugs and boxers and bullies (awful! Bottom of the list!), combined with the latest celebrity patronage of Blur’s Alex James, will whip up a whippet social media and shopping frenzy. And Lucian Freud had two whippets, painting his beloved Pluto, the same Pluto who inspired the logo of his daughter Bella’s fashion brand.
The common dog species?
Just as plain, working-class names such as Charlie and Alfie and Elsie and Maud have been reclaimed by the affluent middles, so it is with dog breeds. What used to be déclassé and only good for ratting is now fashionised and rebranded for people with three thousand quid to spend and 10,000 followers to keep entertained.
But with fashions in dogs rising and falling like skirt hems and heel heights, and the success of Crufts runner-up and fan favourite Ana the Jack Russell probably about to cause a similar spike in registrations (darling photos of Camilla’s Jack Russell terriers Bluebell and Beth draped in their owner’s pearl necklaces and shot for Country Life will have helped), does that mean that your dog, or even worse, MY dog is now… unfashionable and uncool, and a little bit common? Yes, trusty labradors and froofy French bulldogs, poos and doodles are still popular. But are they also... whisper it... naff dogs?
During his 19-year tenure at Country Life, editor Mark Hedges has watched breeds come in and out of vogue. He puts his success as editor down to three simple working policies: “Start early, finish late, and put a dog on the cover.” Hedges’ Country Life may be full of property porn, articles about hedge-laying and adverts for moleskin, but its full colour pages are frequently packed with dogs, images and expert words that are a bellwether of what is haute classe, and what is definitely not.
Recently, Hedges has been noticing a swell of affection for the Border Terrier, and nostalgia for old, forgotten and extinction-endangered breeds such as the smooth fox terrier. Hedges has inner knowledge of the hot/naff breed of every given decade. The “it” dog of the 1920s, for instance? The wire fox terrier, as owned by Queen Victoria and Edward VII — 1929 being the year that Tintin’s pure white wire fox terrier sidekick Snowy was “born”.
In the 1950s and 1960s, breedfluencers including Winston Churchill, Barbra Streisand and Elvis gave poodles — miniature and toy — the run of park. During the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and 2010s? Britain was over-run with labradors and who didn’t love a handsome, docile, slobbery lab? Tastemaker Nicky Haslam, that’s who. The snooty interior designer thought they were (and still are) naff and clichéd. “They’re all called Coco and they’re all incredibly stupid,” the pronouncer of all things “common” decreed. “For heaven’s sake, have a pekingese.”
A pekingese… like Queen Victoria, the Roosevelts and “the” JP Morgan used to have? Very “now”, apparently. As is any small, handbaggable and Instagramable dog with a brachycephalic baby face. (Even though I consider them all very naff indeed.) The times from 2018 forwards, notes Hedges, have been momentous years for the British and its bulldogs. In the same year that Prince William and Kate Middleton had their third child, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle got married and a nappy-clad, Trump baby blimp greeted the US president as he arrived for a state visit, the French bulldog overtook the labrador as the UK’s favourite breed for the first time. Lady Gaga, Martha Stewart, Hugh Jackman and Michael Phelps had French bulldogs; Carrie Fisher’s assistant took care of the actress’s French bulldog therapy mutt Gary after she died; and the Beckhams had one called Scarlet. The country went “ah”.
See also: What are the most stolen pets in London?
We once had looked to keen retrievers and working dogs the size of a small horse for our canine companions, but we had now traded in practicality for dogs that were photogenic and social-media friendly. (Beckhams + dogs = naff. These are Instagram people. Not proper dog people.) In fashion, lots more women, eg Victoria Beckham, began owning dogs and according to a recent survey, canine ownership in the UK is now a predominantly female thing — some 73.5 per cent of dog registrations are from women. Women tend to like smaller dogs, too — hence a boom in the popularity of “laptop” dachshunds, pugs and bichon frises, etc. (Cool, naff — though also historically posh — and naff, respectively.)
And what gives me the right to assess every thoroughbred, mutt and puppy for cuteness, delight, behaviour, handsomeness, friendliness and general loveliness? As I walk, I mark on coat quality, character, affability and playfulness. Each one is judged — wildly unfairly, of course — against the gold standard of poodle/schnauzer gorgeousness and furry bella figura fabulosity on the end of my own Hermès-orange leather leash, my black schnoodle Wilma being west London parkland’s best-in-show for some nine years now.
Beckhams + dogs = naff. These are Instagram people. Not proper dog people
I know what it is like to have a top, un-naff dog — Wilma is always the most fashionable mongrel off-lead in K&C. She has a Cindy-Crawford-like strut, and Naomi Campbell silhouette. She’s part of a Kensington Gardens dog pal gang, which also includes the dog belonging to Ed Simons from the Chemical Brothers. Wilma and I once bumped into Bill Nighy on Notting Hill Gate, and the actor and ubiquitous West End flaneur was so entranced by Wilma that he had to pick her up and cuddle her.
There was another magical moment when we (Wilma and I, that is) met a couple in the park who told me how they had encountered Wilma a few years previously and had been so delighted by her that they’d decided to buy their own schnoodle (schnauzer/poodle cross) for themselves… and there she was, just the same, sniffing Wilma’s face (though not quite so pretty, obvs). My dog, the breedfluencer!
Wilma is mobile and immaculately behaved; she likes to have lunch at Fischer’s in Marylebone, sitting up at the table and behaving impeccably. She’s had breakfast at Brown’s in Mayfair (they do a special dog menu) and once spent the weekend at The Emory, overlooking Hyde Park, charming everyone in the elevators and the lobby. Posh pup, surely? Things were looking good for Wilma.
But then, as with all things fashionable — over-exposure, questionable celebrity association — your canine brand succumbs to crisis. While Wilma was still a puppy, the execrable Zoolander 2 was released and it was a very unfashionable flop. Worse still, Derek Zoolander’s dog of choice in the movie was… a schnoodle — named “Karl Dogerfeld”. Everyone hated the film but seemed to know all about Derek’s schnoodle Karl. So much so, that when I told them what breed my own dog was they’d say, “Oh — like Derek Zoolander’s.” (He also had a cockapoo named “Bark Jacobs”.)
So, perhaps, after living with toxic celebrity endorsement and dated pedigree for almost a decade, it is time for this fashion dog-walker to re-home Noughties schnoodle Wilma and trade up to a more au courant, Miuccia-ish whippet?
Only kidding… I would never swap her for a whippet! It is of course going to be a Jack Russell.
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