Dogs were originally breed and kept to do some type of work.
Originally dogs might have been sentinels, letting people know when people from another tribe were near.
Early dogs probably also helped with hunting, by spotting animals, tracking animals, catching animals, and by being team players that helped chase or toll animals towards the hunters or other dogs.
Dogs that ate more meat than they helped catch, probably didn’t live as long as those who were a benefit to the tribe.
Dogs in cold wintery places, helped people find the breathing holes of seals (the little spot that seals keep free of ice so that they can come up for air). Dogs also helped people find where animals have denned up for the winter. And the dogs helped drag the meat back to the tribe, by pulling a sled.
If you were a shepherd, and you herded sheep from pasture to pasture, you kept dogs that help you herd sheep. If you had sheep that grazed far from your home, you might keep a dog with your flock of sheep to protect the sheep from wolves and thieves. Dogs that you entrusted with your sheep, but who attacked, killed, or ate your sheep, probably didn’t live to repeat that mistake.
Dogs usually bond well with people, and will often defend their people against all other people (in times of hand to hand combat).
From there on, dog breeding has gone down hill.
Kings often kept rarities (both people and animals) so that royals, who came to his court, would be able to go home and tell about the wonders that they had seen there. This attracted more diplomats and royal visitors, as well as lords from his own country, and ladies who were potential wives who could help form allegiances.
Who wouldn’t want to see a white ferret with ruby red eyes? an adult the size of a child? a dog the size of a pony? a horse whose mane grew to the ground? a dog that could fit in a pocket? a dog with two noses? a two-headed rooster that walks? a dog whose nose grew inward instead of outward?
A mouse with two tails was a gift fit for a King or Queen. An albino cockroach could be a royal gift. A person could go home and say: I went into the King’s sitting room, and there I saw a cockroach the color of cream!
People still travel to see something different.
Flat faced dogs were an attraction. A palace tried to not let their rarities reproduce, because then they wouldn’t be rarities anymore. Even princes and princess who married out of their country would not be allowed to take an oddity. These were as much a part of a palace as the paintings.
But some of these dogs have reproduced, and become breeds. People think they are cute and buy them, but people often don’t understand the suffering of some of these breeds, or that these dogs are not fit to be left out in the snow, or out in the summer heat, and they may have special needs or may require expensive veterinary care.
Some breeds have been bred to be more and more extreme. It is not enough to have a big dog, for him to be a rarity he must be abnormally huge. It is not enough for some people that their dog be tiny, they want to produce the tiniest dog.
More hair, flabbier skin, deeper wrinkles, thicker flews, pop eyes, kinky tails, jutting jaws, recessed nostrils, almost no muzzle, not just short legs – but the very shortest legs, longest backs, strangest colors, strips of fur that grow the wrong way – people breed these oddities, prize them, and have shows for them.
They can no longer be called rarities, because there are whole breeds of them. But there are problems, some of these traits cause the dogs to suffer, require situations that their owners don’t provide, or cause the dog to die young.
It might be best if we let these traits go back to being rarities, the unusual that pops up by chance, not a whole breed. Only healthy animals, who do not need specialized care, should be bred and sold, or displayed in shows or traveling tours (where the animals might have to experience the discomforts of traveling in a crate or waiting for days in a van or in a cage in an RV).