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NATIONAL TREASURES
By David Hancock

   The editorial in The Kennel Gazette of September 1893 was entitled "Alien Dogs" and was headed by Smart's lines of 1722:

 "An English dog can't take an airing

  But foreign scoundrels must be staring.

  I'd have your French dogs and your Spanish,

  And all your Dutch and all your Danish,

  By which our species is confounded,

  Be hanged, be poisoned and be drowned;

  No mercy on the race suspected,

  Greyhounds from Italy excepted."

The writer then went on to state, wholly illogically: "It may, therefore, be inferred that I do not cry out against the introduction of foreign dogs, it will rather please me to see England become the world's market for the canine race...Where would our shows be without the foreign element; we have not English breeds enough to fill the benches of a village exhibition." This decidedly mixed message may be prophetic; with the change in entry regulations, we could become "the world's market for the canine race". The global market blurs national boundaries as never before and the timeless trading in dogs, with or without papers, is likely to exploit Britain's location. If this happens, we will need to keep three concerns in mind: the welfare of the dogs, the genetic value of dogs being traded and the craving for the exotic. God spare us from Sudanese Sand Dogs, Bassim Fishing Dogs and Balinese Mountain Dogs! Not much wrong with the dogs but everything wrong with the fickle importers who soon grow tired of them. Dogs have long needed protection from man's fickleness.

    Pride in our native breeds does not, in me, produce any resentment or opposition to foreign breeds; I am all for an individual's freedom to own the breed that appeals to him or her. We have developed so many breeds from overseas, breeds neglected or even ignored in their country of origin. Is the Basenji a Congolese breed or one developed here? Was the Bloodhound made into an internationally known breed by the Belgians, from the St Hubert Hound, or us? Who developed the Chow Chow into a breed? Would the Pug have survived without Dutch and British patronage? Did the rabbit dog of the Maltese islands become known as the Pharaoh Hound because of promotion from Malta? Did the Afghans make the Afghan Hound known to the world? I think not.

  At Crufts each year more than half the breeds exhibited originated abroad; perhaps around 150,000 dogs from breeds originating abroad are registered with the KC annually, roughly 12,000 a month. In the month of January 1889, 26 dogs of "foreign" ancestry were registered by the KC. These embraced: 8 Skipperkes (pedigrees unknown), 3 Samoyedes (pedigrees unknown), 1 Swedish Elkhound (pedigree unknown), 1 Virginian Foxhound and 1 so-called South African dog (pedigree unknown). I wonder how these dogs achieved their breed titles in the registration lists, on what grounds and with how much validity. It is good to see overseas countries claiming their breeds in their breed titles. The Belgian, Dutch and German Shepherd Dogs make our collie breeds understated. The Greenland and Iceland Dogs immediately reveal their origins. Our Pointer, Mastiff, Bulldog and Bull Terrier all lack a national adjective, unlike our Setter, Springer and Toy Terrier. I always think of the Deerhound as the Scottish Deerhound, perhaps in the mould of the Irish Wolfhound. In the light of the Dalmatian's controversial birthplace and knowing the tendentious nature of so much canine history, I would never be surprised to hear of a new Irish sled-dog breed created by a Sam O'Yed!  

 Having a nation named in the breed title does help, as the Lapphund and Spitz breeds demonstrate. The word spitz indicates a type of dog, just as pointer, mastiff and bulldog do. Breeds need to be given precise names, as the German Pointers, the French and Majorcan Bulldogs and the Neapolitan Mastiff demonstrate. Did the breed title of Elkhound originally refer to the Norwegian Grey, the Norwegian Black or the Swedish dog? This may not matter now but it will when Crufts attracts entries from overseas. The Tibetan breeds may have got their adjectives right but hardly their nouns; the Tibetan Spaniel is no gundog and should have 'Toy' in its breed title, the Tibetan Terrier not an earth-dog and the Tibetan Mastiff no mastiff but a flock guardian, linked to the Owtcharkas. Such woeful misnaming undermines the validity of kennel club lists and the allocation of such breeds to distinct groups.

 I groan when I read of the Bedlington Terrier being described as coming from Holland, as some lazier dog writers seem to. They will have read of Holland's Bedlingtons, but that means Taprell Holland's kennel not Holland the country. The Americans already have a breed they call the English Shepherd, a handsome black and tan, tricolour or sable and white herding breed. We once had a Black and Tan Sheepdog but didn't bother to conserve it. This was the case too with our water spaniel; the Americans persevered with theirs and retain their breed of American Water Spaniel. We have the Foxhound; the Americans call it the English Foxhound. Why can't we claim it as ours? It's world famous.

    When our cartoonists are poking fun at the French or the Germans they depict them as Poodles or Dachshunds; this despite the fact that the word Poodle comes from the German Pudel, which has a common origin with our word puddle. The French call the Poodle the Caniche and the Dachshund the Basset Allemand ou Teckel; in their target countries our cartoonists miss their mark. I suspect that the Great Dane became the Deutsche Dogge as a result of rising German nationalism around 1870. But I would dispute the correctness of the breed title in English anyway. The Broholmer is the real great Danish dog. Now I see that the Dalmatian is considered to be a Yugoslavian (possibly updated to Croatian) breed by the FCI; its new host country will now dictate its Breed Standard. The Romans ruled what is now Dalmatia without ever mentioning such distinctive dogs. But they did mention the dogs of the Illyrians and Pannonians, and, indeed every other dog of that area worthy of comment. An Adriatic coastal home for the breed has escaped every historian recording information on dogs that I am aware of. I am not at all convinced by the claims of the writer Boris Spoljakic, in his "Breeds from Croatia" published in 1993. Would any country or province creating such remarkably coated dogs not have quickly prized them, perpetuated them and claimed them?

   A Serbian poet, Jurij Dalmatin (1546-1589), wrote to a Bohemian duchess to thank her for the dogs she sent him, with these words: "The interest in my Turkish dogs grows in all Serbia...these dogs are so popular that they call them by my name - Dalmatin. This new name is already more and more ingrained..." Serbia is some way from Dalmatia and the Turks made use of dogs from all over their extensive empire. I believe that the breed was well known long before the 16th century in the Balkans. I wonder if Mr Dalmatin's interest in the breed wasn't because of its early medieval name of dama-chien or deer-dog. If so his interest in a breed of dog with a name so like his is perfectly understandable.

     I can understand too the outrage felt in both Brazil and Argentina, when their national breeds, the Fila Brasileiro and the Dogo Argentino, were proscribed in the import regulations attached to the foolish Dangerous Dogs Act. In Japan, the Tosa is officially listed as a "National Treasure"; here it is listed as a national menace in the DDA itself. When I see these breeds at foreign shows, behaving immaculately with other dogs, presenting no threat to spectators and often handled by ladies, I feel nothing but contempt for the Home Office and their adviser on breeds of dog, the Kennel Club. Dog lovers in Britain have been remarkably supine in their toleration of this ill-conceived and unwisely implemented piece of legislation. The slogan Breed Not Deed is apt but has never been the theme of a reworked DDA, a sad and unworthy omission.

  My sincere hope for the 21st century is that those who work their dogs or favour the sporting breeds will break away from the show world. A new kennel club could so easily be formed, rather as the Americans formed their United Kennel Club as an alternative to the American Kennel Club. This new British kennel club would be able to register restored breeds, with a new distinguishing title, from the KC-registered breeds that have drifted away from their classic traditional mould. In this way, a more active Bulldog, with a muzzle, would be called the English Bulldog. There is such a breed already registered in North America called the Olde Englishe Bulldogge. A Bull Terrier, lacking the egg-shaped head, and called the English Bull Terrier, should appear and have appeal for those disliking fad breed points introduced by misguided fanciers and then regularised.

 The English Mastiff could then be favoured and be built in the historically correct form, a form that disappeared when Alpine Mastiff, Great Dane and Bloodhound crosses changed this magnificent breed. It is shaming that the Japanese Tosa and the Mastiff of Broholm Castle are more like our original Mastiff than the Mastiff of the show rings. I could see the Yorkshire Terrier of today being renamed the Yorkshire Silky and a working Yorkshire Terrier (Tyke) emerging. The English White Terrier could be re-created and perhaps the old broken-coated black and tan terrier too. The black Patterdale Terrier already exists and the Plummer Terrier is proving its worth.

 The Sporting Lucas Terrier is now established and will become increasingly appreciated by those not wanting an over-coated dog or built-in upright shoulders. I wrote the Breed Standard for this breed and it has now been accepted by the breed club. I once wrote Breed Standards for the Working Springer and the Working Labrador, that were vigorously debated in the sporting press. Functional breeds deserve that function to be at the heart of their blueprint. I see more and more what are called Irish Staffies, leggier and more athletic than the show ring Staffordshire Bull Terrier. In recent years I have come across more and more dog fanciers who are fed up with pure-bred KC-registered dogs which lack robustness of health and live short lives.

   It would be so pleasing to see the title "English Terrier" in our lists, alongside the Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Brazilian and German (Hunt) Terriers. We have created so many fine terrier breeds but lack a national sporting terrier by title. The German Hunt Terrier is an interesting case. Sixty years ago, when working in Germany, I was told by an elderly forstmeisster that his grandfather had imported some black and tan terriers from an English hunt. It is therefore unsurprising to find these contemporary German dogs resembling the working terriers depicted in old prints and paintings of English sporting scenes. It is worth noting that the Germans called these dogs by a national title and not Luneburg Terriers or some other more local name.

   Of course, patriotism can so often go 'over the top', as this hyper-patriotic burst from the prolific Piece Egan in 1820 demonstrates: 

                         "...What creature that, so fierce and bold,

                          That springs and scorns to leave his hold?

                          It is the bulldog, matchless, brave,

                          Like Britons on the swelling Wave."

It shows the jingoistic connection made by such flag-waving writers between Britons and their Bulldogs, both in the 19th century and beyond. Britons today may not wish to be so passionately devoted to the British Bulldog after the breed's mangling in the show rings for over two centuries. Again, in different times, in his "Watchdogs: their training and Management" of 1924, Lt Col EH Richardson, who was Commandant of the British War Dog School in the Great War, expressed rather firm views on breeds from overseas. He wrote, without any evidence but from his experience in a narrow field: "I do not propose to discuss any of the foreign breeds. There are individual specimens among them, no doubt, which prove useful inmates of the family, but the fact remains that they are aliens, and as in the human family, so in the dog - the national and racial characteristics of each country are invariably reflected...there are no dogs in the world which can compare with the British in reliability and courage." He patronised the Airedale as a service dog but few today would put them in the same league as, say, the Malinois of Belgium. But wrapping a national breed in the nation's mantle is ill-conceived; we have every right to be proud of the breeds we created but not of the state we have left many of them in.

 The Colonel would probably be arrested by the 'virtue-signallers' for making such irrational comments today; he was far too much a man of his time. He is likely to be turning in his grave however if he gains knowledge of the annual registrations of foreign breeds in Britain today. And, whilst I would like us to do more to safeguard the future of those native breeds slowly disappearing from the scene, I never view breeds as the property of the country that claims them. So many breeds were developed in a country other than that of their origin or first association. Are Labradors and Newfoundlands really Canadian breeds? Is the St Bernard truly Swiss or the Bloodhound Belgian? What matters far more than any national claims to any breed of dog is the state of that breed  - not the state it may have come from!