BRITISH DOGS 



CHAPTER I 

 EARLY DOGS 



COEVAL with primeval man apparently existed a type of dog 

 equally primitive, though upon this head even palaeontology 

 does not give us much assistance. None the less, fragments of 

 bone unearthed from some prehistoric cave show us carved thereon 

 some rude resemblances to the Canidce. of those far-off days. At 

 that time, too, as now, we are led to suppose that the dogs were 

 more or less associated with man from the fact that the remains 

 of both have been found together. Then such an animal was a 

 necessity of the time : now it is largely a luxury, yet . far more 

 deserving of the encomium bestowed upon it by Cuvier than it 

 was when he described it as " the completest, the most singular, 

 and the most useful conquest ever made by man." 



Geologically considered, the dog does not belong to a very 

 remote past, despite the fact that, in the opinion of experts, it was 

 contemporaneous with men of the Flint Age, some 30,000 years B.C. 

 Historically considered, it is of course far nearer to our own times, 

 the earliest authentic records not dating back more than five 

 thousand years. Doubtless, then the animal was used by its 

 owner as a means not only of providing food, but also of acting as 

 a defence against the existent wild animals. From that period, 

 therefore, if not from an earlier one, we are justified in assuming 

 that the dog was domesticated, or at least semi-domesticated. 



How the Domestic dog (Cam's familiaris) first originated has 

 puzzled some of the greatest naturalists of our own and other 

 times. It is not proposed here to attempt to cut the Gordian knot 

 with regard to its fons et origo. To do so would be to assume a 

 knowledge and a power that the writer cannot claim. What is 

 intended is, as far as possible, to give the place the dog has occupied 

 in history, and endeavour to connect the past with the present. 



