Are Brachycephalic Dogs Really Cute? Evidence from Online Descriptions

Brachycephalic dog breeds have become increasingly popular in recent years, despite showing a high incidence of conformation-related disorders and early mortality. It has been suggested that this popularity might be explained by public perceptions of these short-muzzled dogs as looking particularly infant-like or "cute." Here, the hypothesis that short-muzzled breeds are especially likely to be described as cute was investigated by analyzing the word contents of advertisements for dogs and puppies being sold online. The ages and breeds of dogs being advertised were considered, in addition to whether the text of each advertisement included the word "cute" or two associated words: "adorable" and "sweet." Analyses of the entire sample of advertisements (n = 43,312) indicated that younger dogs were more likely to be advertised as "cute" and "adorable," while older ones were more likely to be advertised as "sweet." Shortmuzzled, brachycephalic breeds (cranio-facial ratio < 0.5) were more likely to be advertised as "cute," with brachycephalic puppies under 6 months of age being particularly likely to be called "cute" and also "adorable." However, breed size had a larger and wider effect on word use in advertisements, with smaller dogs being advertised more frequently using all three words: "cute," "adorable," and "sweet." When data for adult dogs only were considered (n = 11,400), and continuous muzzle shortening and age data were used, a somewhat different and more complex pattern of results were found. Use of the words "cute" and "adorable" were not associated with degree of muzzle shortening among these adult dogs, but "sweet" was used more often in advertisements for longer-muzzled breeds. We conclude that the present dataset provides partial support for the assertion that short-muzzled dogs are described as more "cute" than longer-muzzled ones, but that small size is a better predictor of the use of "cute" and its synonyms.