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THE DROVERS AND THEIR DOGS
By David Hancock

 “…for centuries, at least from the time of the Norman conquest to the establishment of the railways, the most important long-distance travellers were the drovers…they formed great cavalcades that blocked the way for other travellers for hours at a time…if farmers did not want their cattle to join the drove they had to make sure they were safely enclosed…Some parts of the drove-ways were also used to transport pigs, sheep, geese and turkeys, and these animals also had to travel great distances.” Those words from Shirley Toulson’s The Drovers (Shire Publications, 1980) provide an immediate concept of the significance of historic markets and the total reliance on dogs to get the livestock to market. It’s difficult to visualize nowadays six thousand sheep being moved on foot in more or less one huge flock from east of the Pennines to the markets of Norfolk and Smithfield. It’s not easy to think of thousands of cattle, sheep and even geese being shepherded by a small number of dogs from remote rural pastures along established drove-roads to city markets – and the dogs either accompanying the mounted drover homewards or being left to find their own way home. These were very remarkable dogs.

  In his Cynographia Britannica of 1800, Sydenham Edwards writes, of the drover’s dog: “…he appears peculiar to England, being rarely found even in Scotland. He is useful to the farmer or grazier, for watching or driving their cattle, and to the drover and butcher for driving cattle and sheep to slaughter; he is sagacious, fond of employment, and active; if a drove is huddled together so as to retard their progress, he dashes amongst and separates them till they form a line and travel more commodiously; if a sheep is refractory and runs wild, he soon overtakes and seizes him by the foreleg or ear, pulls him to the ground. The bull or ox he forces into obedience by keen bites on the heels or tail, and most dexterously avoids their kicks. He knows his master’s grounds, and is a rigid centinel on duty, never suffering them to break their bounds, or strangers to enter. He shakes the intruding hog by the ear, and obliges him to quit the territories. He bears blows and kicks with much philosophy…” Those picturesque words are a concise summary of the dogs’ purpose, as well as showing their prowess as heelers too.  

 In his The Dog of 1854, Youatt wrote, on the drover’s dog: “He bears considerable resemblance to the Sheepdog and has usually the same prevailing black or brown colour. He possesses all the docility of the Sheepdog, with more courage, and sometimes ferocity.” The drover’s dog would have needed ferocity to keep an endless stream of village curs from attacking the flock, great courage in facing every kind of obstacle and threat en route to the ‘fattening fields’ and the docility to obey every command from the accompanying drover whilst ignoring rustlers, thieves or the wrath of inconvenienced citizens finding their path blocked. Such dogs had to think for themselves, in the modern idiom, ‘think on their feet’. From that background come the gifted sheepdogs of today. 

  In his British Dogs of 1888, Hugh Dalziel wrote: “In all parts of England and Scotland I have seen drovers, and narrowly scanned their dogs, and I have come to the conclusion that no distinct breed can be justly described as the Drover’s Dog, but that the latter, like the poacher’s dog, the Lurcher, may be compounded of many varieties, the drover utilising for his purpose the kind of dog that comes most readily to hand.” These few words on such important dogs indicate the wide gulf between the educated classes and the peasant-shepherd over dogs; the better-off, especially the landed gentry sought style and followed fashion in their gundogs and hounds. The peasant-shepherds needed performance and were content with utility in their dogs. In books on dogs in the 19th century the pastoral dogs were rarely covered in any detail or indeed accuracy.

 In his three-volume work, Dalziel also wrote: “The English Sheepdog, as I recognize him, and as he is seen with the shepherd on the South Downs, on the Salisbury Plains, and on the Welsh, Cumbrian, and Scotch hills and dales, is usually, but not invariably, bob-tailed – either born so, or made so by docking. I have in vain consulted past writers on dogs for any minute description of this animal’s size, build, general appearance, and, in show language, his ‘points’.” From this background, with its lack of familiarity with its subject, it is never easy to research the pastoral breeds, either here or abroad. It is not unusual to read of claims that the Australian breed of Stumpy-tailed Cattle Dog was descended from ‘Smithfields’ taken there with imported sheep in the late 19th century.

 Firstly, the Smithfield Sheepdog was like a leggy Old English Sheepdog, usually sporting a full tail; secondly the naturally bobbed tail or ‘stumpy-tail’ occurs in working sheepdogs, as those on farms on the Black Mountain on the Welsh/Herefordshire border indicate to this day. To claim a false provenance for any modern breed degrades that breed; to restate a false origin demeans the fanciers of that breed; to record for posterity a false compilation for a breed in defiance of historical facts is simply deceitful. I could believe however that the so-called Tasmanian Smithfields could be descended from our Smithfield dog; it is sizable, shaggy and a very competent all-round sheepdog. Perhaps the Tasmanian dog could be used to improve some of the sad examples of the Old English Sheepdog being proudly shown in Britain.  The Smithfield lurcher is highly regarded in the UK.

 The dogs of the drovers were very remarkable animals: amazingly tough, remarkably robust, unbelievably intelligent and arguably more adaptable than any other type of dog. No drover sought to develop a breed; all they desired was a dog that could get their charges to market – over almost any distance. In doing so, however, they managed to produce an all-round pastoral dog, the like of which has never been seen since – for sheer toughness, incredible stamina and a self-reliance that no dog of today could possibly match.  Drovers used their dogs but rarely cared about them – it was common practice for them to get their flocks or herds to distant markets and go home by coach or horse, leaving their dogs to find their own way home, sometimes over a few hundred miles. The homing instinct lives on in many individual dogs, but not one to be tested every year!