I have drawn upon one of our Sunnybank collies for the name and the aspect and certain traits of my “Treve” book’s hero. The real Treve was my chum, and one of the strangest and most beautiful collies I have known.
Dog aristocrats have two names; one whereby they are registered in the American Kennel Club’s immortal studbook and one by which they are known at home. The first of these is called the “pedigree name.” The second is the “kennel name.” Few dogs know or answer to their own high-sounding pedigree names. In speaking to them their kennel names alone are used.
For example, my grand old Bruce’s pedigree name was Sunnybank Goldsmith;—a term that meant nothing to him. My Champion Sunnybank Sigurdson (greatest of Treve’s sons), responds only to the name of “Squire.” Sunnybank Lochinvar is “Roy.”
Treve’s pedigree name was “Sunnybank Sigurd.” And in time he won his right to the hard-sought and harder-earned prefix of “CHAMPION”;—the supreme crown of dogdom.
We named him Sigurd—the Mistress and I—in honour of the collie of Katharine Lee Bates; a dog made famous the world over by his owner’s exquisite book, “Sigurd, Our Golden Collie.”
But here difficulties set in.
It is all very well to shout “Sigurd!” to a collie when he is the only dog in sight. But when there is a rackety and swirling and excited throng of them, the call of “Sigurd!” has an unlucky sibilant resemblance to the exhortation, “Sic ’im!” And misunderstandings—not to say strife—are prone to follow. So we sought a one-syllable kennel name for our golden collie pup. My English superintendent, Robert Friend, suggested “Treve.”
The pup took to it at once.
He was red-gold-and-snow of coat; a big slender youngster, with the true “look of eagles” in his deepset dark eyes. In those eyes, too, burned an eternal imp of mischief.
I have bred or otherwise acquired hundreds of collies in my time. No two of them were alike. That is the joy of collies. But most of them had certain well-defined collie characteristics in common with their blood-brethren. Treve had practically none. He was not like other collies or like a dog of any breed.