Status Dogs Jennifer Maher, Harriet Pierpoint and Claire Lawson Introduction Historically ‘status’ dogs have taken many forms: as fashion items (toy or ‘bag’ dogs), national icons (English bulldog) and status symbols (such as the American pit bull terrier [pit bull] or Staffordshire bull terrier [sbt]) In previous decades, reference to ‘status’, ‘accessory’ or ‘fashion’ dogs implied association between some (usually) small dog breeds and rich and famous persons (that is, the Queen’s corgi, Paris Hilton’s chihuahua) These breeds then act as conduits for transferring the status and image of these iconic owners to other dog owners (Hirschman 2002).1 The dog becomes inextricably linked to the owner’s identity This relationship commonly requires the dog to look and behave in a certain way, which often conflicts with their As is commonly promoted in the purchase of other status items such as cars, clothes and food J Maher (*) Á H Pierpoint Centre for Criminology, University of South Wales, Pontypridd, United Kingdom e-mail: jenny.maher@southwales.ac.uk; harriet.pierpoint@southwales.ac.uk C Lawson Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals & Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom e-mail: LawsonCE@cardiff.ac.uk © The Author(s) 2017 J Maher et al (eds.), The Palgrave International Handbook of Animal Abuse Studies, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-43183-7_7 131