260 British Dogs. 



CHAPTER X. THE NEWFOUNDLAND. 

 BY CORSINCON. 



WHENEVER I sit down to write about any breed of dog I feel disposed 

 to dash off with " Of all varieties of the dog none has created so much 

 public interest, given rise to such wide and protracted discussion, and 

 brought out such variety and divergence of opinion respecting it as the 

 one under consideration." But a moment's reflection shows me that if I 

 use such words at all, I ought to have them stereotyped as applicable to- 

 nearly all and every breed. 



The Newfoundland has undoubtedly had its full share of public atten- 

 tion, and long before dog shows were in existence, or the finely drawn dis- 

 tinctions respecting " points " called into being, he reigned paramount in 

 the affections of the British public as a companion, ornament, and guard. 



But in those days, as I have said, every man had his own ideal standard 

 of excellence, or borrowed a suitable one from a doggy friend, the suita- 

 bility being ensured by alteration sufficient to make it applicable to his 

 own pet, a process not yet entirely obsolete. 



Many of these large so-called Newfoundland dogs of twenty-five 

 to forty years ago had, undoubtedly, like the "Caesar "that Burns 

 immortalised in his poem of " The Twa Dogs," been 



whalpit some gate far abroad, 

 Whare sailors gang tae fish for cod, 



or were the immediate descendants of such, but they differed materially 

 in colour, coat and in other minor points from each other, and still more 

 from what is now held to be the Newfoundland proper, as he is bred 

 and exhibited in this country. 



I can speak personally to the decided difference between dogs im- 

 ported from Newfoundland into Liverpool some twenty-five and thirty 

 years ago, each believed to be the pure breed of the island by their 

 owners ; that difference, as it exists in a memory naturally tenacious of 

 such things, was more in the sort of coat and the colour than in the other 

 marked characteristics of the breed which they all had in common with 

 the recognised dog of the day. 



The marked difference then existing in this country was also common 



