Old "Cockie." 47 



fairly and squarely beat him. Some judges might put him 

 back, but they would be his vanquishers and not those of 

 his own tribe opposed to him. As a fact, at the Carlisle 

 show in question, he was the only dog that had been 

 winning prizes this side the border that the judges noticed, 

 and they were farmers and agriculturists who had never 

 seen Cockie before, and made their awards from his 

 appearance of a likelihood for work more than from his 

 beauty alone. The dog could receive no higher testimonial 

 than this, and those Carlisle farmers pronounced him by 

 far the best collie dog they had ever seen. 



Cockie was a brown sable and white in colour, the 

 brown shading considerably mixed with darker coloured 

 hair. His legs and feet were of the best, so was his 

 coat, though, perhaps, modern admirers of the woolly 

 jacket would take exception to the hardness, denseness, and 

 slight waviness in Cockie's. He had a strong back, well 

 muscled loins, nice stern, well carried, and his head and 

 expression were perfect ; so were his ears small and 

 well carried, though in the photograph from which the 

 engraving at the commencement of this volume was 

 made, the ears are thrown back into the hair on the 

 neck. This is the type of collie that should be produced 

 now. He was good all round, without exaggeration in 

 any particular feature. Cockie only became the property 

 of Mr. Johnson when past his best, and was kept by that 

 gentlemen as a sensible companion, and no dog was more 

 so ; but the poor old fellow developed an obesity in his 

 later days which quite spoiled his shape, and resulted in a 

 loss of coat and general form much to be deplored. How- 

 ever, he left some good sons and daughters behind him when 

 he died in August, 1882, in the possession of Mr. J. Bissell, 



