i8 THE OLD ENGLISH SHEEP DOG 



The colour scheme is blue and white, the former 

 predominating. A blaze of pure white lies on skull and 

 muzzle, collar, chest, and fore-paws, but the remainder 

 of head and body is of so wondrous a tint of blue 

 that Nature seems to have overlaid her work with a thin 

 veneer of hoar-frost in the moonlight. 



Small wonder that my friend the artist deemed me 

 too exacting! 



Now as to height. At the shoulder I make my ideal 

 exactly twenty-four inches and a half, which is two 

 inches and a half more than the minimum set down in 

 the Club standard. But so truly proportioned is the dog 

 that very few experts would believe him to stand so high 

 without the evidence of a spirit-level across his withers. 

 The breadth of skull and limb, the heavy, shaggy coat, 

 the spring of ribs, the stoutness of loin, and the massive 

 muscular quarters, all detract from any suspicion of 

 legginess or length of back. Despite his inches, he has a 

 peculiarly cobby and active appearance. At the highest 

 point of the quarters he measures nearly an inch more, 

 and from the spot where the back of the neck meets 

 the top of the shoulder the measurement is twenty-four 

 inches and a half again to the extreme tip of his bob- 

 tail. That is where the sturdy squareness of his frame 

 comes in. 



Lead him out upon the grass now, unhook his chain, 

 and let him go loose. He gallops like a racehorse, hind 

 legs well under him active and lithe beyond suspicion, 



