84 The Collie or Sheep Dog. 



destroyed when very young, not by cutting off, but by 

 extracting the bone, an inhuman practice technically called 

 ' stringing/ generally performed by pulling out that part 

 with the teeth. After this, the fleshy part of the tail 

 contracts to a mere tubercle, and is wholly concealed 

 among the shaggy hair of the animal. Dogs treated in 

 this manner are said to endure much more exertion 

 with less fatigue than those in which the tail is entire ; 

 and whether this be the fact or not, the degree of 

 fatigue these dogs can undergo is truly astonishing. 

 Nor is their sagacity less wonderful, for they can divide the 

 drove into any sections that may be required, drive one 

 section one way and another another way, whatever may be 

 the number ; and after the sections are once parcelled off 

 to purchasers, they can bring back again with the most 

 unerring certainty any individual which has left its sections, 

 and joined another. These offices are generally performed 

 by barking and by manoeuvring alone, without touching 

 the sheep with the mouth ; or, if that operation be neces- 

 sary, the dogs merely lay hold of the sheep, and force them 

 into the intended direction by holding the wool, without 

 biting the skin, or even separating that portion of the wool 

 by which they take hold." 



Here is a character which may be born by any other 

 variety of sheep dog, and " stringing " the puppy to give 

 it strength is merely a vulgar opinion, which obtains in 

 ignorant circles equally to the terrier and the spaniel. 

 "Aye," said a fellow to me one day, u your terriers are 

 always rare strong-backed 'uns, because you cut their tails 

 properly." I did it for fancy, not to strengthen the dog in 

 any particular, which it certainly does not. Other writers 

 have said that the " bob-tailed " sheep dog will run over 



