How Movies Impact Dog Breeds: Popularity Can Last for 10 Years After Release

It's perhaps not surprising that dogs that are featured in movies become popular pets soon afterward. Now, though, scientists have taken a closer look at this phenomenon and have found that not only can the effect last for ten years after the movie is first released, but that the popularity of the dog breed is correlated with the general success of the movies.

"We focused on changes in trend popularity rather than on popularity itself to avoid attributing to movies trends that were already ongoing before movie release, as up-trending breeds may have been chosen more often for movies," said Stefano Ghirlanda, lead author of the new study, in a news release.

In order to find out a bit more about what effect movies have on dog adoption, the researchers used data from the American Kennel Club. They then analyzed a total of 87 movies featuring dogs. In the end, they found out that the release of movies is associated with an increase in popularity of featured breeds over periods of one, two, five and ten years.

For example, the 1943 release of "Lassie Come Home" was associated, in the following two years, with a 40 percent increase of Collie registrations in the American Kennel Club. Following the 1959 release of "The Shaggy Dog," Old English Sheepdog registrations experienced a 100-fold increase.

What was really interesting was that earlier movies were associated with larger trend changes than later movies. This could be due to increased competition with other media, such as television and the internet. In addition, the popularity of dog breeds was unrelated to breed temperament and health.

"If people buy en masse doges because they appear in movies the consequences can be negative for the dogs themselves," said Alberto Acerbi, co-author of the new study. "Our previous study found that the most popular dog breeds had the greatest number of inherited disorders. It's not surprising that we tend to follow social cues and fashions, as this is a quite effective strategy in many situations. However, in particular cases the outcomes can be negative. When choosing a new pet, we may want to act differently."

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.