In 1989, journalist Margo Kaufman reported in the Los Angeles Times how a stranger shouted “Hey, ugly!” upon seeing his two pugs walking down the street. It was not an isolated case, in his chronicle he commented that the derogatory comments accumulated day after day. At the time, these dogs were seen as comical anomalies, far removed from the prestige enjoyed by the German Shepherd or the Labrador.
Three decades later, the world has turned upside down. What used to provoke ridicule today generates fascination. The networks have been filled with hairless Chihuahuas, toothless Chinese Cresteds, bulldogs that snort like locomotives and identical Brussels Griffons still Ewok. The phenomenon is as visible as it is undeniable: we are falling in love with ugly dogs.
The rise of ugly dogs. The most compelling data It is contributed by The Wall Street Journal: As of 2022, the French bulldog is the most registered breed in the United States, displacing the Labrador retriever after 31 years of absolute reign. And it is not an isolated case: pugs, Brussels griffons, Chinese crested dogs and peculiar chihuahuas accumulate searches, followers and adoptions.
Although Spain does not have a record as exhaustive as the United States, the trends point in the same direction. Industry platforms place the French bulldog, Chihuahua and other small and striking breeds among the most in demand in big cities, a symptom that aesthetics ugly-cute It is also gaining ground here. As explained by Elias Weiss Friedmancreator of The Dogist account, people look for dogs that stand out, animals whose appearance attracts attention and says something about the owner.
Social networks as an amplifier. The aesthetics ugly-cute (translated as cute, but ugly or funny) is a fashion promoted by influencers and celebrities, who boast on Instagram of their pugs (either pugs) either french bulldog (either frenchies), contributing to normalize—and popularize—its extreme appearance.
And contests also help: in 2025, the winner of the historic World’s Ugliest Dog Contest It was Petunia, a hairless French bulldog, rescued in Oregon. The contest may sound ridiculous, but its function is to make dogs from shelters and illegal breeders visible and facilitate their adoption. Ugly sells and moves.
However, this trend is not sustained by virality alone. There are deep psychological mechanisms.
But why? The general health psychologist Alejandra de Pedro González explains to Xataka that the fascination with the “rarest” dogs responds to a very human instinct: taking care of the vulnerable. “We associate certain traits—lameness, hairlessness, deformities—with a need for protection. That activates our most basic prosocial instinct,” he points out.
This impulse is not exclusive to our species. Scientist Konrad Lorenz defined in 1943 the baby schema: a set of childhood traits (big eyes, round face, small nose) that trigger caring behaviors. Many “ugly animals” share these exaggerated traits: bulldogs and pugs with flattened snouts, Chinese crested dogs with prominent eyes, chihuahuas with disproportionate heads. The researcher Marta Borgi, in a study published by the scientific journal Frontiers in Psychologyexplains that these traits increase the willingness to protect and reduce aggressiveness towards the individual.
Beyond tenderness. According to De Pedro, unusual dogs allow you to project an almost human personality: “With a strange dog you can almost invent a personality,” he details. This fits with what picks up The Wall Street Journal: owners who describe their dogs as elves, babies, literary characters, or even tragic souls. Crooked faces, prominent eyes or disproportionate bodies become emotional canvases.
In addition, these breeds require special care—fold cleaning, respiratory medication, constant checkups—which strengthens the bond. For the psychologist, this emotional investment is a form of parentification: “In an individualistic society, people look for someone to take care of. An ugly dog is the ultimate expression of unconditional love, it doesn’t even have to be cute for you to love it.”
The dark side of the trend. Brachycephalic breeds—pugs, French and English bulldogs, Boston terriers—suffer from severe respiratory problems, difficulties regulating temperature, eye diseases, and infected skin folds. Veterinarians cited by The Wall Street Journal They describe these extreme cases as “medical nightmares.”
Countries clike Holland and Norway have banned the breeding of some breeds for violating the animal welfare law, by perpetuating characteristics that condemn the dog to a life of pain. In fact, studies from the Royal Veterinary College show that English bulldogs are more than twice as likely to suffer from diseases compared to other breeds and have a drastically shorter life expectancy. Even so, owners and breeders resist changes: some people They think it’s “funny” the snoring or noisy breathing of pugs, without understanding that they are clinical signs of suffering.
The (im)perfect beauty. Petunia, the hairless bulldog crowned in California, doesn’t know that she has been on the front page of newspapers. Nor has it fueled a global debate on aesthetics, vulnerability or animal welfare. He only wags his tail when someone approaches him.
And perhaps therein lies the true explanation of this contemporary obsession. In a time that demands perfection —symmetrical faces, ordered lives, polished bodies—, ugly dogs offer us the opposite: unconditional tenderness. It doesn’t matter if they have a crooked tusk, a milky eye or a snorting snout. His way of loving does not change. Perhaps that is why we look so much for these unlikely animals: because, when we look at them, we recognize that tenderness remains a basic human need that does not understand symmetries.
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