The white and black variety are, as a rule, slightly taller, smaller in loin and longer in head, but these differences in the two varieties are being rapidly removed, and at no distant date the white and black variety will probably be as correct in type and symmetry as the black variety now is.
For very many years the black variety has been the better in type; and in breeding, if blacks are desired, it will be safer as a general rule to insist upon the absence of white and black blood in any of the immediate ancestors of the sire and dam. But if, on the contrary, white and black dogs are required, the proper course is to make judicious crosses between the black and white, and black varieties, and destroy any black puppies, unless they are required for further crosses with white and black blood. In any case the first cross is likely to produce both black and mis-marked white and black puppies; but the latter, if bred back to the white and black blood, would generally produce well-marked white and black Newfoundlands.
In mating, never be guided solely by the good points of the dog and bitch. It is very desirable that they should both have good points, the more good ones the better, but it is more important to ensure that they are dissimilar in their defects, and, if possible, that in neither case is there a very objectionable defect, especially if such defect was also apparent in the animal's sire or dam.
[Illustration: MRS. VALE NICOLAS'S NEWFOUNDLAND CH. SHELTON VIKING
Photograph by T. Fall]
It is, therefore, important to study what were the good, and still more so the bad, points in the parents and grandparents. If you do not know these, other Newfoundland breeders will willingly give information, and any trouble involved in tracing the knowledge required will be amply repaid in the results, and probably save great disappointment.
When rearing puppies give them soft food, such as well-boiled rice and milk, as soon as they will lap, and, shortly afterwards, scraped lean meat. Newfoundland puppies require plenty of meat to induce proper growth. The puppies should increase in weight at the rate of 3 lbs. a week, and this necessitates plenty of flesh, bone and muscle-forming food, plenty of meat, both raw and cooked. Milk is also good, but it requires to be strengthened with Plasmon, or casein. The secret of growing full-sized dogs with plenty of bone and substance is to get a good start from birth, good feeding, warm, dry quarters, and freedom for the puppies to move about and exercise themselves as they wish. Forced exercise may make them go wrong on their legs. Medicine should not be required except for worms, and the puppies should be physicked for these soon after they are weaned, and again when three or four months old, or before that if they are not thriving. If free from worms, Newfoundland puppies will be found quite hardy, and, under proper conditions of food and quarters, they are easy to rear.
CHAPTER VI
THE GREAT DANE
The origin of the Great Dane, like that of many other varieties of dogs, is so obscure that all researches have only resulted in speculative theories, but the undoubted antiquity of this dog is proved by the fact that representatives of a breed sufficiently similar to be considered his ancestors are found on some of the oldest Egyptian monuments.
A few years ago a controversy arose on the breed's proper designation, when the Germans claimed for it the title "Deutsche Dogge." Germany had several varieties of big dogs, such as the Hatzrude, Saufanger, Ulmer Dogge, and Rottweiler Metzgerhund; but contemporaneously with these there existed, as in other countries in Europe, another very big breed, but much nobler and more thoroughbred, known as the Great Dane. When after the war of 1870 national feeling was pulsating very strongly in the veins of reunited Germany, the German cynologists were on the lookout for a national dog, and for that purpose the Great Dane was re-christened "Deutsche Dogge," and elected as the champion of German Dogdom. For a long time all these breeds had, no doubt, been indiscriminately crossed.