In photos: the dogs of Dogtown

When Dotan Saguy was walking along Venice Beach’s boardwalk one afternoon, a group of striking, knotted haired young people stopped him in his tracks. It was an uncharacteristically rainy day for the Los Angeles, California neighbourhood, which meant there was no one else around, except for the group of four, who steadfastly strummed their guitars, sang songs and played with their dogs while holding up a sign that read “Touring the world”.

“They were all like 16 or 17, probably runaways, and I befriended them,” Saguy says. “They were playing in the rain and then I got invited into their van with all the dogs and people, and one of them had pants with dogs on them. It was a surreal experience – like travelling to another world.”

As they folded their knees up in the van and chatted, passing around a spliff and cigarettes, Saguy raised his camera and took a picture of the scene, with a black labrador in the foreground. That black-and-white shot is now featured in his new photobook Dogtown, which documents Venice Beach’s dogs and their colourful cast of owners across its vibrant spreads.

Being just a few miles away from his LA home, Venice Beach is one of Saguy’s most visited, and treasured places to visit. The book’s name is actually taken from a nickname given to the area in the early 1970s, which at the time was a rough, run down part of town. Architecturally it was a wasteland relic of its former glory days as a seaside fairground destination.

“I cannot find a definitive reason as to why it’s called Dogtown,” Saguy explains. “There’s people who say there might have been a lot of stray dogs in the area, other people say it has nothing to do with the dogs – it’s just that it was kind of a rough atmosphere.”

Either way, in the present day, Dogtown is a fitting name for an area that is teeming with pets. From pint-sized chihuahuas to built bulldogs, dogs are everywhere on the beachfront, and Saguy’s pictures capture their diversity. “There’s a lot of bulldogs, some great danes, poodles,” he says. “The thing that’s really in fashion is pugs and bulldogs and there’s actually meets where they bring their bulldogs and they’re all decked out in Louis Vuitton, gold chains – it’s really funny.”

Venice Beach has long been known as a haven for LA’s countercultural types. A hotbed for graffiti, skateboard, and surf culture, it has influenced much of the rest of the world.

“The latest incarnation of Venice really got its start from the 50s then rolled into the 60s and 70s where they started skateboarding,” Saguy explains. “Right around the 70s, polyurethane had been invented and they started making wheels out of it, which was a huge change for skateboarding. Then there was this massive drought and there was this ordinance by the city of LA to keep the pools empty so a lot of working class kids from Venice started going into people’s yards and skating the pools – that’s where modern skateboarding was invented.”

Even now, as property prices have soared and the area has become a tourist destination, much of that original spirit remains – via its dogs and their owners. “The vibe of Dogtown is still very much Venice Beach culture,” Saguy says. “There’s skateboarders all over, people wear the Dogtown cross and there’s a lot of the iconography – it’s just in the air.

“And the dogs are part of that culture, so they share in that as well – that’s why you see dogs on skateboards, in hoodies,” he continues. “It’s pretty amazing.”

Dogtown by Dotan Saguy is published by Kehrer Verlag

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