394 BRITISH DOGS 



another matter, but the object-lesson he will have learned will do 

 him no harm. 



Champion Boomerang, who has been dead some years, was a 

 son of King Orry, and was owned by a well-known North-country 

 fancier, Mr. Luke Crabtree. Champion Rodney Stone, who is 

 at the moment of writing living, expatriated from his country, in 

 America, was bred by Mr. Walter JefTeries, of London, by whom the 

 dog was sold for the record price of ;i,ooo. Katapult (Fig. 91), 

 late the property of Mr. George Murrell, was a son of Boomerang, 

 but he never achieved anything like the success on the show-bench 

 associated with his sire, though he himself sired another dog that 

 gained many championship honours Champion Prince Albert, now 

 in the possession of Mr. Crabtree. 



There are some eight or ten " strains " of Bulldogs, each strain 

 having for its founder some well-known dog, not necessarily a big 

 prize winner, but rather one who has achieved fame through his 

 progeny. The best known and most frequently met with of 

 these strains are the Aston Lion, the Bedgebury Lion, the 

 Don Salano, the King Orry, the Donax, and the Stockwell, all 

 of which take their names from the dogs that founded them. 

 There were many other strains, but these have become merged in 

 the present-day ones named, as in time the breeding together of 

 some of the above strains will in turn produce fresh ones. 



Though to the average man a Bulldog is merely a Bulldog, 

 the experienced fancier can detect certain characteristics which 

 enable him to tell, almost at a glance, the strain from which the 

 dog is bred. Some of these strains are far more characteristic 

 than others. The King Orry bred dog, for instance, is generally 

 unmistakable, if he is a good specimen of his breed, so too is the 

 Aston Lion bred dog. The former is usually very strong in head 

 properties, and possesses good ears ; the latter excels in body 

 properties, his ears are rather inclined to be heavy, and in turn- 

 up or under-jaw he is very uncertain. Thus it behoves the owner 

 of a bitch he is wishful to breed from first to determine in which 

 points she is weakest, and then to select for her a mate possessing 

 good points to counteract her bad ones, and not only that, but 

 to endeavour to find a dog that not only possesses them himself, 

 but is bred from a strain noted for strength in these particular 

 points. As an illustration : for a bitch deficient in most of the 

 head qualities and possessing bad ears, a good-headed dog with 

 good ears must be chosen, and if he is of the King Orry strain 

 that is to say, if the name King Orry appears once or even twice 

 or three times in his pedigree the puppies, or at any rate a large 

 proportion of them, will be born with good ears, inherited from their 

 sire and from their ancestors on the sire's side. 



Haphazard breeding very rarely proves successful. It is a mistake 



