THE BREEDS OF DOGS.
The dog exhibitions that have annually taken place for the last eight years at Paris and in the principal cities of France have shown how numerous and varied the breeds of dogs now are. It is estimated that there are at present, in Europe, about a hundred very distinct and very fine breeds (that is to say, such as reproduce their kind with constant characters), without counting a host of sub-breeds or varieties that a number of breeders are trying to fix.
Most of the breeds of dogs, especially those of modern creation, are the work of man, and have been obtained by intercrossing older breeds and discarding all the animals that departed from the type sought. But many of these breeds are also the result of accident, or rather of modifications of certain parts of the organism—of a sort of rachitic or teratological degeneration which has become hereditary and has been due to domestication; for it is proved that the dog is the most anciently domesticated animal, and that its submission to man dates back to more than five thousand years. Such is the origin of the breeds of terriers, bulldogs, and all of the small house dogs.
Man has often, designedly or undesignedly, aided in the production of breeds of this last category by submitting the dog to a regimen contrary to nature, or setting to work to reproduce an animal born monstrous, either for curiosity or for interest. As well known, the accidental characters and the spontaneous modifications which work no injury to the essential functions of life became easily hereditary, and the same is the case with certain artificial modifications pursued for a long series of generations.
It was the opinion of Buffon that the breeds of dogs, which were already numerous in his time, were all derived from a single type, which, according to him, was the shepherd's dog. Other scientists have insisted that the dog descended from the wolf, and others from the jackal. At the present time, it is rightly admitted that several species of wild dogs have concurred in the formation of the different breeds of dogs as we now have them.
In the lacustrine habitations of the stone age in Sweden, and in the kjoekkenmoedding (kitchen remains) of Denmark, of the same epoch, we find the remains of a dog, which, according to Rutymeyer, belongs to a breed which is constant up to its least details, and which is of a light and elegant conformation, of medium size, with a spacious and rounded cranium and a short, blunt muzzle, and a medium sized jaw, the teeth of which form a regular series.
This dog, which has been named by geologists Canis palustris, fully resembles in size, slenderness of the limbs, and weakness of the muscular insertions, the spaniel, the brach hound, or the griffon.
This dog of the stone age is entirely distinct from the wolf and jackal, of which some regard the domestic dog as a descendant, and as it has appeared in Denmark as well as in Sweden, there is no doubt that this species, peculiar to Europe, was subjugated by man and used by him, in the first place, for hunting, and later on for guarding houses and cattle. Later still, in the age of metals, we observe the appearance, both in Denmark and Sweden, of larger and stronger breeds of dogs, having in their jaws the character of mastiffs, and probably introduced by the first emigrants from Asia.
There are, moreover, historic proofs that the dogs of the strongest breeds are indigenous to Asia, where we still find the dog of Thibet, the most colossal of all; in fact, in Pliny we read the following narrative: Alexander the Great received from a king of Asia a dog of huge size. He wished to pit it against bears and wild boars, but the dog remained undisturbed and did not even rise, and Alexander had it killed. On hearing of this, the royal donor sent a second dog like the first, along with word that these dogs did not fight so weak animals, but rather the lion and the elephant, and that he had only two of such individuals, and in case that Alexander had this one killed, too, he would no longer find his equal. Alexander matched this dog with a lion and then with an elephant, and he killed them both. Alexander was so afflicted at the premature death of the first dog, that he built a city and temples in honor of the animal.
Did the mountainous province of Epirus called Molossia, in ancient Greece, give its name to the molossi that it produced, or did these large dogs give their name to the country? At all events, we know that it was from Epirus that the Romans obtained the molossi which fought wild animals in the circuses, and that from Rome they were introduced into the British islands and have became the present mastiffs.
Although our hunting and shepherd's dogs have a European and the mastiffs an Asiatic ancestry, the ancestry of the harriers is African, and especially Egyptian; in fact, in Upper Egypt we find a sort of large white jackal (Simenia simensis) with the form of a harrier, and which Paul Gervais regarded with some reason as the progenitor of the domestic harrier, and a comparison of their skulls lends support to this opinion.
A study of the most ancient monuments of the Pharaohs shows that the ancient Egyptians already had at least five breeds of dogs: two very slim watch dogs, much resembling the harrier, a genuine harrier, a species of brach hound and a sort of terrier with short and straight legs. All these dogs had erect ears, except the brach, in which these organs were pendent, and this proves that the animal had already undergone the effects of domestication to a greater degree than the others. The harrier of the time of the Pharaohs still exists in great numbers in Kordofan, according to Brehm.
Upon the whole, we here have, then, at least three stocks of very distinct dogs: 1, a hunting or shepherd's dog, of European origin; 2, a mastiff, typical of the large breed of dogs indigenous to Asia; and 3, a harrier, indigenous to Africa.
We shall not follow the effects of the combination of these three types through the ages, and the formation of the different breeds; for that we shall refer our readers to a complete work upon which we have been laboring for some years, and two parts of which have already appeared.[1]
We shall rapidly pass in review the different breeds of dogs that one may chance to meet with in our dog shows, beginning with the largest. It is again in mountainous countries that the largest dogs are raised, and the character common to all of these is a very thick coat. The largest of all, according to travelers, is the Thibetan dog. Buffon tells of having seen one which, when seated, was five feet in height. One brought back by the Prince of Wales from his voyage to the Indies was taller in stature, stronger and more stocky than a large mastiff, from which it differed, moreover, in its long and somewhat coarse hair, which was black on the back and russet beneath, the thighs and the tail being clothed with very long and silky hair.
In France, we have a beautiful mountain dog—the dog of the Pyrenees—which is from 32 to 34 inches in height at the shoulders, and has a very thick white coat, spotted above with pale yellow or grayish fox color. It is very powerful, and is capable of successfully defending property or flocks against bears and wolves.
The Alpine dog is the type of the mountain dog. It is of the same size as the dog of the Pyrenees, and differs therefrom especially in its coloring. It is white beneath, with a wide patch of orange red covering the back and rump. The head and ears are of the same color, with the addition of black on the edges; but the muzzle is white, and a stripe of the same color advances upon the forehead nearly up to the nape of the neck. The neck also is entirely white. There are two varieties of the Alpine or St. Bernard dog, one having long hair and the other shorter and very thick hair. We give in Fig. 1 a portrait of Cano, a large St. Bernard belonging to Mr. Gaston Leonnard.
Although this breed originated at the celebrated convent of St. Bernard, it no longer exists there in a state of purity, and in order to find fine types of it we have to go to special breeders of Switzerland and England. The famous Plinnlimon, which was bought for $5,000 by an American two or three years ago, and about which there was much talk in the papers, even the political ones, was born and reared in England. It appears that it is necessary, too, to reduce the number of life-saving acts that it is said are daily performed by the St. Bernard dogs. This is no longer but a legend. There was, it is true, a St. Bernard named Barry, now exhibited in a stuffed state in the Berne Museum, which accomplished wonders in the way of saving life, but this was an exception, and the reputation of this animal has extended to all others of its kind. These latter are simply watch dogs kept by the monks for their own safety, and which do not go at all by themselves alone to search for travelers that have lost their way in the snow.
The Newfoundland dog, which differs from the preceding in its wholly black or black and white coat, was, it appears, also of mountain origin. According to certain authors, it is indigenous to Norway, and was carried to Newfoundland by the Norwegian explorers who discovered the island. Adapted to their new existence, they have become excellent water dogs, good swimmers, and better life savers by far than the majority of their congeners.
Is it from descending to the plain that the mountain dogs have lost their long hair and have become short haired dogs like the English dog or mastiff and the German or large Danish dogs? It is very probable. At all events, it is by this character of having short hair that mastiffs are distinguished from the mountain dogs. Again, the large breed of dogs are distinguished from each other by the following characters: The mastiff is not very high at the shoulders (30 inches), but he is very heavy and thick set, with powerful limbs, large head, short and wide muzzle and of a yellowish or café-au-lait color accompanying a black face; that is to say, the ears, the circumference of the eyes and the muzzle are of a very dark color. The German or large Danish dogs constitute but one breed, but of three varieties, according to the coat: (1) those whose coat is of a uniform color, say a slaty gray or isobelline of varying depth, without any white spots; (2) those having a fawn colored coat striped transversely with black like the zebra, but much less distinctly; (3) those having a spotted coat, that is to say, a coat with a white ground strewed with irregular black spots of varying size. These, like those of the first variety are generally small-eyed. Whatever be the variety to which they belong, the German or large Danish dogs are slimmer than, and not so heavy as, the mastiffs. Some, even, are so light that it might be supposed that they had some heavier blood in their veins. They have also a longer muzzle, although square, and are quicker in gait and motions.
The largest dogs are to be met with in this breed, and the beautiful Danish dog belonging to Prof. Charcot (Fig. 2) is certainly the largest dog in France and perhaps in Europe. It measures 36 inches at the shoulders and has an osseous and muscular development perfectly in keeping with its large stature, and at the same time has admirable proportions and lightness, and its motions are comparable to those of the finest horse.
Among the English dogs or mastiffs, we very frequently meet with individuals in which the upper incisors and canines are placed back of the corresponding ones in the lower jaw, this being due to a slight shortening of the bones of the upper jaw, not visible externally. This is the first degree of an artist of teratological development, which, since the middle ages, has become very marked in certain subjects, and has given rise to a variety in which this defect has become hereditary. Such is the origin of the breed of bulldogs. The latter were originally as large as the mastiffs. Carried to Spain under Philip II., they have there preserved their primitive characters, but the bulldogs remaining in England have continued to degenerate, so that now the largest are scarcely half the size of the Spanish bulldog, and the small ones attain hardly the size of the pug, although they preserve considerable width of chest and muscular strength.