For this week’s blog, Vegan Publishers’ staff writer Christopher-Sebastian delves into the ethical issues surrounding the breeding of dogs for particular aesthetic traits, and talks about the connection between breed and race. Whether you are a human animal or a non-human animal, “putting someone into a box based on what we believe to be true of others who share some physical features does that individual a harm.”
Does This Dog Make Me Look Racist?
This is my buddy Orion. I met him when I was volunteering for the Coastal German Shepherd Rescue a few years ago. He’s what they call a failed fostering assignment. For the uninitiated, that means I adopted him.
One of the questions I get most frequently when we’re hanging out at the dog park is, “What is he?”
This question makes me uncomfortable on many levels. I know that the intent of the asker is very innocent. People are genuinely curious, and they mean it as a conversation starter because he’s obviously a very handsome gentleman. But beneath that innocent inquiry lies a vaguely insidious cultural and social construct.
I tell people he’s a dog. Plain and simple. Sometimes people leave it at that. But occasionally people are more persistent. “Yes, but what IS he?”
Clearly, I know that the question they are really poking at is “What BREED is he?” But answering them the way that they want me to centers dog breeds in a way that I reject. Dog breeds are arbitrary physical characteristics created by humans that have nothing to do with the value of that animal as an individual. Obviously since I adopted him from a GSD rescue, he shares some genetic traits that are common among GSDs. The rest of him? An indistinguishable smorgasbord of canine DNA.
But what does the combination of dog genes say about Orion? Really very little. Dog breeds are a fairly recent phenomenon created by humans who decided to exploit particular features for their own pleasure and use. Some of these features, indeed many of them, are dangerous genetic defects in the animal, a eugenics experiment to create a specific aesthetic that someone has arbitrarily decided is superior.
Race acts in a similar way. Take for instance this popular YouTube video in which a white male jogger meets an attractive woman and subjects her to a series of inquiries about where she is from, even though she insists that she is from San Diego. When he finally harasses her to the point that she discloses her biological ancestry (Korean) and she turns the tables on him, he is not obliged to play ball (he’s just “regular” American, from San Francisco). In this example, the gentleman here centers whiteness as the template by which other races are measured. His biological ancestry doesn’t require explanation because whiteness simply IS. This type of racial aggression should be directly (although gently) confronted in our society.
Likewise, we should recognize how we unintentionally center animal breeds in general (and dog breeds in particular). And we should confront those aggressions as well. Putting someone into a box based on what we believe to be true of others who share some physical features does that individual a harm. It is functionally no different than crafting a mental narrative about a black American based on (often inaccurate) media representations about what black Americans are like.

While Vick’s actions were definitely deplorable, how much of our perceptions of him and our perceptions of pit bulls are tied up in constructions of racism and breedism?
Is there a space for us to exercise physical preferences that we find appealing? Of course. We do that with humans all the time. Some people find appeal in features such as height, hair color, and build to name a few. However, recognizing preferences doesn’t mean that we should craft new persons with the specific look we enjoy. Hopefully, we learned this from Nazi Germany!
Furthermore, these physical features are often nothing more than celebrating birth defects. Would we want to go through life with an elongated spine that supports the bulk of our weight like a daschund? Is it fair to make someone live with respiratory problems and trouble eating because we enjoy the look of an exaggerated jaw and flat face like a bulldog? Would we intentionally curse our children with a high probability of hip dysplasia like a GSD if we could avoid it?
If the answer to these questions is no, then there is no sound argument for why we should design such deformities in anyone else.
Now is it fair to say unequivocally that all physical characteristics of dog breeds are bad? Of course not. However, the problematic thing to address here is controlling someone’s agency to procreate the way that they otherwise would…and then proceeding to ascribe value to the new life because of what we find desirable.
Let’s stop perpetuating stereotypes against other sentient lives based on ideologies developed from decades of human supremacy and interference. Let’s reject notions of class and social affluence based on how much one is able to pay for an allegedly superior bloodline. Let’s respect the genetic diversity that comes with natural selection and an individual’s reproductive rights.
Remember, how we behave toward nonhumans directly informs how we behave toward one another. As a person of color, I am sincerely tired of being judged based on someone else’s biases and prejudices toward black people. I’m an individual. Orion is too. And he has no idea what being a GSD mix means for him… nor should he.
Longtime vegan and social justice advocate Christopher-Sebastian McJetters lives in New York City with his rescue dog Orion. A copyeditor by profession, Sebastian is currently a staff writer at Vegan Publishers. In his spare time, he organizes events and discussions relative to exploring the intersectionality of veganism and other movements for social justice including women, the LGBT community, and people of color. He also bakes vegan cookies that are guaranteed to end wars, lower taxes, save marriages, and raise consciousness.
We’ve been getting our pets exclusively from http://www.dalmatianrescue.com since 1998. We love our pets to death and honored to have them in our lives.
Don’t breed. Don’t breed dogs, cats, or people. Is there some shortage I don’t know about?
The site Lora mentioned is a rescue, not breeders.
Hi Christphper-Sebastian,
Your blog is well written, insightful, honest, blunt …..I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
Now it’s my turn to be honest and blunt……could you please share your vegan recipe for cookies that “will end wars, lower taxes, save marriages & raise consciousness”….??
I recently made the transition from vegetarian to Vegan and I would love to try other Vegans recipes
Thank You,
Terri Taylor (Cat Lover, Mother to Luci a 21 year old raven haired beauty)
I love this blog, Christopher! I LOVE Orion! I love that he ‘tolerates’ shows of affection – but only on HIS terms. You are so RIGHT ON in your analysis of this topic. As a lover of dogs, it doesn’t matter to me what breed they are – I simply ‘love’ THEM! [Although I admit to having a laugh or two when I see a dog who physically resembles its owner LOL] You and Orion resemble each other, not physically [white surfer??], but both of you seem to share a ‘no-nonsense’ ATTITUDE and you are both beautiful! So glad I took the time to read this; your perceptions and writing skills are pleasing to my ??? PEDANTIC nature! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK! #afan
Love it- I have never liked the way people boast about their “purebreeds” and you just helped me understand a little better why it bothered me so much…. Excellent, thank you!
Very in-depth and well written, Christopher. – Lisa Williams
Well said. I need to show this to my neighbor, who has a Teacup Yorkshire Terrier named Misty, who she claims is “royalty” and that she has the papers to prove it. Yes, she has the papers handy to show that Misty’s father was a “king.” As a result of this Misty’s aristocratic status, she never had her spayed, and just earlier this year, her dog suffered a horrible disorder. At the age of 15, Misty had to have an emergency spay surgery, thus compromising her health in her senior years by putting her through an invasive procedure at such an old age.
I have always preferred “mutts.” Breeding is vile, and it’s not limited to nonhuman animals. They did it to the slaves to try to increase the productivity of all the free labor the economy was benefiting from. There’s just something so obviously insidious about overseeing and exploiting the reproductive systems of others, whether it be bovine, canine, or human.
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