Animal Friends and Helpers [ 143 



to become known as the bulldog, for its special purpose was to 

 fight bulls a ferocious sport that enjoyed great popularity for 

 hundreds of years. The peculiar formation of the bulldog's snout 

 enabled him to breathe easily while biting and gripping a bull. 



The Scottish terrier is another good example of special breed- 

 ing. Its shaggy eyebrows evolved from breeders' efforts to provide 

 these small hunting dogs with protection against dirt as they dug 

 into fox holes and carried out other hunting chores. 



Even dog styles had a practical purpose at the time of their 

 origin. Poodles, used as retrievers, had wool left on their chest 

 to protect them against cold while the flanks were shaved to 

 streamline them for swimming. Ear-cropping became the fashion 

 in the eighteenth century to guard the floppy ears of hunting 

 dogs against being torn in the underbrush. 



Today, in our highly mechanical age, dogs are still being bred 

 and trained for specific purposes, performing tasks which no 

 machines have been able to take over. One of the most interesting 

 ways to study the specialized dog breeds is to read stories about 

 dogs. Fortunately there is an abundance of them that you can 

 read together with your child, who will be delighted with them. 

 Aside from the ageless classics, good adventure tales about dogs 

 are constantly being written. 



THE ST. BERNARD 



In his Book of Famous Dogs, Albert Payson Terhune gives 

 a touching description of Barry, a St. Bernard that rescued as 

 many as forty travelers from death in the snow during the first 

 ten years of his life. 



Until a great tunnel was cut through the Alps in relatively 

 recent times, travelers had to make their way on foot over the 

 snow-clad mountain slopes. Frequently they lost their way or 

 were overtaken by a blizzard. The rescue of such unfortunates 

 presented a baffling problem, especially to the monks of the 

 monastery of St. Bernard situated at the crest of the mountain 

 pass. We can only guess at how much these good men of nearly a 

 thousand years ago understood of * 'natural history," but we do 

 know that they solved the problem effectively. 



What they did was to secure strong, oversized yellowish dogs 



