The Popularity of the Pug

By Amy Fernandez

America orbits in a Pug universe.  Frank, that extraterrestrial Pug from Men in Black might have been a fictitious character, but he was emblematic of the Pug invasion that has overtaken America.  They’re everywhere. Equally popular as pets and show dogs, you can’t buy a birthday card, open a magazine, or click on the TV without a reminder of Pug nation. However, the breed didn’t always hover in this celebrity galaxy.

The AKC Gazette reported, “This thought of newness was brought up when I recently learned what Sigvale Kennels of Mrs. Sarah Given Waller of Libertyville, Illinois had been doing in the dog game. It is something entirely different from the accepted order of events. Sigvale is a kennel of Pug dogs, and as far as the modern generation is concerned this is a new breed.” AKC Gazette editor Arthur Fredrick Jones didn’t quite know what to make of this curious Pug venture back in 1932. He wrote, “Pug dogs disappeared from public attention in America about the same time that the open barouche gave way to the automobile.”

Stereotyped as an outdated Victorian relic, Jones admitted that the Pug had gone out of “general circulation” about 40 years earlier. By then, AKC registered about five or ten a month. Therefore his curiosity about Sigvale was understandable. His first question, obviously, was why Pugs?

Waller’s explanation should stand as a lesson for every parent confronted with that time-honored refrain of “Please, please, can we get a dog?”  Sarah Waller was one of those kids. Her father probably thought he dodged that bullet by agreeing; as long as it was a Pug. “Of course, he knew that a youngster would find it impossible to purchase a Pug, since they were extremely rare at that time,” Jones reported.

I bet he regretted that decision. Established in 1928, by the time that Jones visited Sigvale in 1932, there were 100 Pugs in residence. He wrote, “It broke into the dog game as the first Pug dog kennel since the halcyon days of that breed in America.”  Situated a few miles outside of ritzy Lake Forest, the Wallers raised saddle horses and Ayeshire cattle prior to their Pug venture. “When Mrs. Waller decided to go into the Pug game in a serious way, she did considerable research to find the best blood to provide a new American line.” There wasn’t much to pick from at that point. She ultimately imported most of her foundation stock from England’s Broadway Kennel.

With 100 Sigvale Pugs looking back at him, Jones couldn’t help but notice a few things. Such as “how much real doggy nature is wrapped up in these little fellows…Sigvale has not a single Pug dog that would comply with the erroneous impression that has been built up about the breed. The visitor to this handsome establishment would be greatly surprised to find so many excellent specimens of this breed and all his pre-conceived ideas would be totally blasted away if he saw the Pugs taking their daily exercise and enlivening it with their hunting expeditions…Not only are they very friendly, but they are the cleanest of all breeds. They have courage too, and are vigilant guards. And somehow when you have had a Pug for any length of time he becomes almost like a close human friend.”  He pretty much recapped everything you hear about the breed today, especially his reference to their almost human demeanor.

It was hard to understand why Pugs had fallen off the grid, but it wasn’t going to last. Jones wrote, “The principal and practically the sole motive in back of Sigvale is to promote the Pug in such a manner that it will not only attain its finest development in the United States, but will be distributed among countless fanciers.” It didn’t happen overnight, but the breed earned its first Westminster group placement two years later, and eventually Ch. Udalia’s Mei-Ling won the group in 1945. By the late ‘50s Pugs were firmly ensconced in the top twenty. AKC registered 4303 in 1957 and 4698 in 1958. It was onward and upward from there. If you need the confirmation of the breeds ascendance in our culture, check out Men in Black.

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Posted by chesliepickett on May 18 2016. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.