Identifier: newbookofdogcomp01leig (find matches)
Title: The new book of the dog : a comprehensive natural history of British dogs and their foreign relatives, with chapters on law, breeding, kennel management, and veterinary treatment
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Leighton, Robert, 1859-1934
Subjects: Dogs
Publisher: London New York : Cassell
Contributing Library: Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Tufts University

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the drovers originated it. Their dogs,kept for working purposes, were immunefrom taxation, and they adopted this methodof distinguishing the animals thus exempted.It has been argued, by disciples of theDarwinian theory of inherited effects fromcontinued mutilations, that a long processof breeding from tailless animals has resultedin producing puppies naturally bob-tailed. THE OLD ENGLISH SHEEPDOG. ii5 and it is difficult, on any other hypothesis,to account for the fact that many puppies areso born. It is certainly a fact that one ortwo natural bob-tails are frequently foundin a litter of which the remainder are dulyfurnished with well-developed tails. Andit is interesting to note that the proportion is in the bob-tails welfare, and attempts weremade to bring him into prominence. In1873 his admirers succeeded in obtainingfor him a separate classification at a recog-nised show, and at the Curzon Hall, atBirmingham, in that year three temerariouscompetitors appeared to undergo the ordeal
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GROUP OF MRS. PHILIP RUNCIMANS SHEEPDOGS, CH BEAT THE BAND, CRESSWELL RAGS. CRESSWELL LASSIE, CRESSWELL SUNNY JIM. Photogarph by Jones and Son, Surbiton. much higher in some strains than in others,and that a few stud dogs consistently sirebob-tailed puppies in almost every litter. From careful consideration of the weightof evidence, it seems unlikely that the breedwas originally a tailless one, but the moderncustom undoubtedly accentuates its pic-turesqueness by bringing into special prom-inence the rounded shaggy quarters andthe characteristic bear-like gait which dis-tinguish the Old English Sheepdog. Somewhere about the sixties there wouldappear to have been a revival of interest of expert judgment. It was an unpromisingbeginning, for Mr. M. B. Wynn, who officiatedfound their quality so inferior that he con-tented himself with awarding a second prize. But from this small beginning importantresults were to spring, and the Old EnglishSheepdog has made great strides in popu-larity sin

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