No Connection with Wales. 81 



household pet, he cannot compare with the modern collie 

 and the fox terrier. 



How this old-fashioned variety came about history affords 

 no record. My idea as to how he was brought into the world 

 without a tail, or at any rate with but a very short one, is 

 given in a preceding chapter, in which it will be seen I hold 

 an opinion different from Dr. Edwardes-Ker, whose remarks 

 on the subject follow in due course, and will no doubt be 

 read with interest, and valued as coming from one of our 

 foremost and most accomplished admirers of the variety. 



Many counties have laid claim to the paternity of the 

 bobtailed sheep dog, either through local admirers, or by 

 writers on canine matters. Wales has been said to possess 

 the most right to the breed, because Mr. R. J. Lloyd Price, 

 of Rhiwlas, near Bala, has occasionally kept a few speci- 

 mens, and because his grandfather had likewise been an 

 admirer of their rough beauty. As a fact, the sort of sheep 

 dog indigenous to the Principality, if it has an indigenous 

 strain at all, is a little mirled, or blue-grey and white, or 

 tortoiseshell, smooth-coated dog, with china or wall eyes. 

 The bob-tails of Mr. Edward Lloyd (Mr. Price's grand- 

 father), originally came from the Southdowns, and so had 

 no hereditary connection with Wales at all. 



Then, running away northwards, Scotland has laid claim 

 to their original possession, and in some districts the strain 

 survives in the "bearded sheep dog," which, however, has 

 not a " bob-tail." Classes for this variety are occasionally 

 met with at the local shows. I believe that the old English 

 sheep dog was at one time pretty equally distributed 

 through various parts of the kingdom, and of late years has 

 been most numerous in those localities where a dog of 

 his description was required. He has been found most 



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