The recently released LEGO Collectible Minifigures gave us a number of new elements, including a brand new dog mould. I find it fascinating that it has been only in the last few years that LEGO started to add more animals to their sets. Most people – especially kids – love animals, and puppies, kittens, ponies, bunnies, birdies and other adorable creatures have been used as toys from pretty much the beginning of human history. So why with all their resources and research LEGO is only waking up to this reality is quite baffling and amusing. 🙂
While new animal moulds are still quite few and far in between, there are definitely much more than we have seen in the past. To welcome to the pack the new Bulldog, I thought to do a bit of research on the history of LEGO dogs and when they were released.
The first LEGO dog appeared in 1986 in the LEGO DUPLO line; a small black Terrier named Scotty. In regular LEGO sets, we didn’t get a dog until 1994, when a few different variations (standing, sitting, various prints) were added to the LEGO Belville and LEGO Scala sets. However, because both LEGO Belville and LEGO Scala had larger human figures, the animals are also larger than what would be an appropriate next to standard minifigs.
The first minifig-scale dog was released in 2004 – this is the standard LEGO dog most LEGO fans are familiar with. Because of the very generic shape, it represented both a dog (brown) and a wolf (gray) in LEGO sets, and was unprinted. A slightly updated mould variation of the same dog appeared in 2011 in different colors and with various prints to create some variety. This is still the most common dog that comes with regular LEGO sets. Notice that we are now in the 21st century and we still only have one dog mould!
LEGO Friends came onto the scene in 2012, and the theme finally gave us more dog variations. We got a number of different puppy moulds and colors, however all of them have a more rounded, and cutesy style, which fits well with LEGO Friends style figures, but doesn’t always look good in traditional LEGO settings.
For regular LEGO sets, we slowly and gradually got four more dogs, and interestingly, the majority of them first appeared in the LEGO Collectible Minifigure line. The Chihuahua came with the LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series 10 Trendsetter released in 2013, and since then appeared in three regular LEGO sets. The Husky came with the LEGO City Arctic sets released in 2014, and have been added to a few other sets since then. The Terrier came with the LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series 16 Dog Show Winner released in 2016, and still hasn’t shown up in any other sets. And finally, this year (2017), we got a little Bulldog with the LEGO Collectible Minifigures Series 17 Connoisseur.
In addition, there are a couple of non-standard dogs like Santa’s Little Helper that came with one of The Simpsons LEGO Collectible Minifigures in 2015, and Scooby-Doo (two mould variations, five different prints) in the LEGO Scooby-Doo sets also released in 2015.
To summarize, we are still lacking dogs, but there is some hope. The LEGO Friends theme is the best source of puppies, but their style doesn’t always fit well with regular LEGO displays. In standard LEGO sets, the original generic dog is the most common, and printed versions have been offering some long overdue variety. There are four other LEGO moulds that came out in the past few years, however only two of them have been used in regular LEGO sets (Chihuahua, and Husky), the other two (Terrier and Bulldog) have only appeared in the LEGO Collectible Minifigures packets. So, if you have any of these rare LEGO dog varieties, treasure them!
What do you think? Would you like to see more dogs and other animals in LEGO sets? Do you collect LEGO animals? Which ones are your favorites? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below! 😉
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Hot Dog! Doggamn!
I’d guess a corresponding cat feature is up for the future?
There hasn’t been a new cat mould for a very long time. Even LEGO Friends only got two cats, so there is not much to talk about. Of course there are the new big cats in the LEGO City sets, so maybe those could be added to the list. 😀
The first picture is so cute! Welcome to the pack! Maybe there are fewer cats because cats all have the same basic shape, while dogs have a much bigger variety.
Naah, not completely… My friend has two Cornish Rex(es), they look like a mix between a cat and a rodent…
They look a little too weird to be traditionally cute, though…
Just looked them up on Wikipedia. Really interesting stuff: “The Cornish Rex is a genetic mutation that originated from a litter of kittens born in the 1950s on a farm in Cornwall, UK. One of the kittens, a cream-colored male named Kallibunker, had an extremely unusual, fine and curly coat; he was the first Cornish Rex. The owner then backcrossed Kallibunker to his mother to produce 2 other curly-coated kittens. The male, Poldhu, sired a female called Lamorna Cove who was later brought to America and crossed with a Siamese, giving the breed their long whippy tails and big ears.”
My friend’s ex-girlfriend really wanted cats, but he had some cat allergy, and this was one of the few breeds he could stand. Later, they broke up, and he somehow got stuck with the cats. (He has found a new girlfriend now to help him out, though, when she’s not busy with her horse…)
Yeah, I read that those cats work great for people with allergies. Horses and cats usually get along. 🙂
He placed his veto against keeping the horse in the apartment, so, you know, the cats and the horse never meet…
(Although the cats seem just as happy anyway…)
LOL! 😀
I didn’t know there were so many dogs now. I will definitely look out for them. All I have is the generic dog.
Persians, Siamese, Calicos, Sphynx, etc., the Cat Fanciers’ Association recognizes 42 different breeds of cats. Lego needs to add more cats to their line, not only different breeds, but different colors and types of “fur” (long vs. short). Also, they need to add more black cats to the sets, not just to Halloween sets. Labeling the black cat as the stereotypical “evil” cat is outdated and wrong, because the sad reality is black cats are the last ones to be adopted at shelters and are all too often euthanized, because they can’t get adopted at all due to being black (a lot of people are still superstitious about black cats). I see a LOT of dogs and horses in Lego sets, but not nearly as many cats, and cats are the number one pet in the US, and probably in a lot of other countries too. I hope this will change and we will see more Lego cat sets in the near future, not just dogs and horses.
The goths seem to love black cats, though…
That’s really sad about black cats… they are beautiful!
The set of lego dog looks so cute, I like LEGO Scooby-Doo sets because I like to watch this cartoon.
So cute!