# Why Are You Keeping a Brachycephalic Dog? Insights from Interviews with Brachycephalic-Dog Owners

## TL;DR

This study explores why people continue to own brachycephalic dogs despite their known health issues, revealing that personal justifications and emotional attachments often override awareness of animal suffering.

## Contribution

The study provides new sociological insights into the motivations of brachycephalic dog owners and highlights the need for legal and educational interventions to improve animal welfare.

## Key findings

- Owners often use individualized arguments to justify their dogs' health despite breed-related issues.
- Emotional bonds with dogs include roles beyond companionship, such as substitutes for children or romantic partners.
- Education alone is insufficient to change ownership patterns; legal measures and targeted communication are also needed.

## Abstract

The number of brachycephalic dogs is steadily increasing, regardless of scientific warnings about the health problems of this breed. Despite awareness campaigns and media reports about the suffering of the animals, the popularity of these dogs remains high. The aim of this study was to better understand the reasons for buying and keeping these dogs. For this purpose, 16 interviews were conducted with owners from German-speaking countries (southern Germany and Switzerland). The interviews showed that many owners find individual reasons to justify their dogs, although they are aware of the problems of the breed. Health benefits or the animal’s performance are often emphasised, which can indicate a kind of cognitive dissonance—i.e., the suppression of contradictory beliefs. The study provides important insights into the motivation and perception of owners. It shows that education alone is not enough to reduce animal suffering. Instead, legal measures are also needed to stop the breeding of dogs that are prone to suffering. Overall, the findings of this work call for social reflection on human preferences for pets and emphasise that animal welfare can only be achieved through a combination of education, legislation and social rethinking.

Despite increasing efforts by the scientific community to raise awareness of breed-related health problems through educational campaigns, public information initiatives, and veterinary outreach programmes, brachycephalic dog breeds remain highly popular. As the number of brachycephalic dogs increases, the prevalence of associated health problems rises accordingly. Ethical and animal welfare considerations appear to play a limited role in breed selection. In German-speaking regions, extensive educational efforts have been undertaken in recent years to address the issue of so-called torture breeding, defined as intentional selection for extreme phenotypic traits that impair health, reduce welfare, and cause chronic suffering, particularly in brachycephalic breeds. The aim of this study was to determine the underlying reasons for the decision to buy and keep a brachycephalic dog. Although the veterinary profession is already improving education and communication, this qualitative study intended to find new starting points for targeted education against animal suffering and to explore the sociological background of the ownership of such dogs. For this purpose, semi-structured interviews with people with brachycephalic dogs were conducted throughout Switzerland (n = 16). The focus was on the animal–human relationship. The interviews were defined by systematically applied guidelines for the design of the interview process, while still allowing maximum openness (all possibilities for expression). The transcribed interviews were coded and analysed according to the Kuckartz methodology, which allows us to set certain focal points of analysis and to structure them according to codes. The results of this study indicate that, although awareness of torture breeding is present within the broader population, owners of brachycephalic dogs frequently rely on individualised arguments and rationalisations. These typically involve emphasising the perceived health, functionality, or exceptional characteristics of their own animal (e.g., claims that their dog is “healthy” or not affected by breed-related problems), thereby distancing their personal ownership experience from the general welfare concerns associated with the breed. This psychological pattern can be interpreted as cognitive dissonance, in which contradictory beliefs are harmonised through selective perception or re-evaluation. The results also show that brachycephalic dogs offer a very strong projection surface: their owners assign them a variety of social roles that go beyond the classic animal–human relationship—for example, as a substitute for children, a romantic partner, or a best friend. This qualitative study provides differentiated insights into the attitudes and motivations of owners of brachycephalic dogs and illustrates that traditional awareness campaigns have not been sufficient to effectively change problematic breeding practices and ownership patterns. In order to develop long-term effective solutions, interdisciplinary cooperation is therefore needed—for example, between veterinary medicine, animal welfare, communication science, psychology and law. In addition to individual education, new, target-group-specific communication strategies and consistent legal regulations are needed to protect animal welfare in the long term. This study is intended to serve as a catalyst for a broader ethical and social debate on the keeping of torture breed dogs.