From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2008:
WASHINGTON D.C.– “At the time,” in 1952, “‘Doggie in the
Window’ seemed like a sweet and harmless message,” recalls singer
Patti Page. Selling more than a million copies in five months, the
song became Page’s fourth recording to top the charts in five
years–and became the unofficial anthem of the pet industry.
Opening with the question “How much is that doggie in the
window? I do hope that doggie is for sale,” the song helped to
popularize the concept of purchasing commercially bred puppies from
pet stores, at a time when the overwhelming majority of pet dogs in
the U.S. were mongrels and about 30% of the U.S. dog population were
street dogs, as in much of the developing world today.
Page recorded “Doggie in the Window” for a children’s album,
early in the “Baby Boom” that doubled the U.S. human population and
brought a trebling of the pet population within a generation of the
end of World War II. By the time the “Baby Boom” children began
raising families and acquiring pets of their own, the U.S. street
dog population had been eradicated by the combination of improved
sanitation, more vehicular traffic, and more aggressive animal
control. Nearly half the dogs in the U.S. were now purebreds, and
U.S. animal shelters were killing seven times as many dogs as in 1952.

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