A FLAWED Pedigree
IN THE PIT OF EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR that was March, many of us spent considerable time panic-buying on the internet: flour, hand sanitizer, yeast, Scrabble, beard trimmers—and puppies. Just as with toilet paper, suppliers struggled to meet demand and, consequently, hiked their prices. Six months on, the craze for pandemic puppies is throwing a light on the murky ethics of pedigreed and designer dogs, as governments begin to crack down on fashionable breeds.
During lockdown, puppies appealed both to single people facing months without human contact and to desperate parents seeking playmates for their lonely, screen-addicted children. Pandemic dog fever was particularly fierce in locked-down Spain, where people were allowed to leave their homes only for essential reasons, one of which was walking your dog, leading to a flurry of illicit pet rentals.
In the US, there has been a run on canines of all kinds, from rescue mutts—ASPCA shelters reported a 400 percent rise in adoption applications in March and April—to pedigreed pooches and designer crossbreeds. The American Kennel Club (AKC) reported a spike in purebred puppy registrations starting in March; at its British counterpart, the Kennel Club, searches for purebred pups on the club website in May were up 237 percent from the previous year.
Designer crossbreeds have also been in high demand. “I am sold out for the next nine months,” says MaryPat Thate, a New Hampshire breeder of Australian Labradoodles (a variant of the popular Labrador/poodle cross with an
