6 The Dog Book 



terrier by crossing the bulldog and the terrier, and then selecting your type, 

 but you cannot make the bulldog type from a greyhound and spaniel. 

 Strange to say, Darwin apparently disputes the possibility of making a 

 Boston terrier, for he says, "to obtain a race intermediate between two 

 distinct races would be very difficult," adding that Sir John Sebright, 

 who produced the Sebright bantams, experimented with this object and 

 failed. Darwin had a similar result with pigeons, and it would really 

 seem that the same natural law does not apply alike to birds and dogs. 

 Darwin crossed a barb and white fantail, both tested to breed true, and 

 had a mixed lot as a result; then he crossed a spot and a barb with a like 

 result, and breeding from these two cross matings produced a pigeon with 

 the colour and markings of the wild blue rock. Sebright bred back to an 

 approach to the jungle fowl. What a similar process would yield in dogs 

 is problematical. It is very true that in breeding from a first cross in 

 dogs there would be no controlling the result. The puppies might throw 

 back to either grandparents or bear a resemblance in part to the first cross. 

 But here is where man comes in. The experimenter has an idea of what 

 he wants to produce by this crossing and selects from the progeny what 

 most closely approaches his ideal, and by doing this for a few generations 

 begins the establishing of type. 



Youatt tells us of two sheep-breeders who started with pure Bakewell 

 blood and made no outside introductions, yet in a few years, each working 

 to an ideal, they had flocks entirely different from each other in type. 

 If Mr. Barnard, who was one of the original producers of Boston terriers, 

 had gone on breeding, without any knowledge of what the more modern 

 terrier wants are in this breed, his Bostons would be entirely different 

 from what we have now. His idea was the bulldog type, without the pro- 

 truding lower jaw. The fancy went in its standard for a dog of the terrier 

 type in having a closer front and standing on its legs, not between them as 

 the bulldog does. 



Noting as we have during a pretty long connection with dogs the changes 

 in type, the following of fashion, and the vast improvement following care 

 in selection and care of the dogs themselves, we can see nothing impossible 

 in the absolute statement that starting with a sport or monstrosity, as 

 Darwin calls a radical difference from racial type, and cultivating it as a 

 fancy, varieties are established. Then we must bear in mind that by 

 thus continually seeking to alter and modify dogs in appearance we are 



