56o The Dog Book 



Yarrow was bred to Couchez, a dog brought from Italy, and reputed 

 to be Alpine. He was a dark brindle with black head and a narrow blaze, 

 and had the reputation of being unbeatable as a fighting dog. He was 31 

 inches at the shoulders (probably taped to the withers) and weighed 130 

 pounds. From Couchez came Lukey's Bruce I. Yarrow was also bred to 

 a pedigreeless brindle dog of George White's, and from that mating came 

 Lukey's Nell. The rest of Lukey's stock he got from Thompson, but be- 

 fore moving on to his strain we ask what foundation there is for considering 

 Lukey's dogs English mastiffs ? Yet Stonehenge always wrote that it was 

 to Mr. Lukey's the breeders of 1870 owed the English mastiff. 



The first Thompson connected with the breed was Commissioner 

 Thompson of St. Ann's, near Halifax, who about 1800 had three bitches; 

 a black named Sail, 27 inches tall, and a black and white named Trusty, 

 from which came a dog called Lion (sent to Nostal Priory) to which we 

 shall refer a little later. Another of his bitches was named Rose, a fawn and 

 white standing 27 inches, according to old timers who described her to Mr. 

 Wynn. Mating Rose to Robinson's Bold, a fawn dog, of the Bold Hall 

 strain, he got HoldswortH's Lion. 



Another old breeder of mastiffs for use by keepers was John Crabtree, who, 

 while making his rounds as gamekeeper, found a long and low brindle mas- 

 tiff bitch in a trap. The presumption is she came from Lancashire, and 

 Crabtree always said she had bulldog blood in her. He named her Duchess 

 and bred her to Holdsworth's Lion. A bitch puppy of hers he gave to a 

 Mrs. Brewer and he afterwards bred this puppy. Bet, to a dog that is some- 

 what frequently named in old pedigrees Waterton's Tiger, owned by Water- 

 ton the naturalist. This dog came from Ireland and was a cropped and 

 short-tailed red-fawn Great Dane, said to have been 34 inches at the shoul- 

 der. One of the bitches from this litter was Mrs. Scott's Tiny, which was 

 bred to Gibson's Nero, a brother to Mrs. Brewer's Bet; and John Crabtree 

 kept one of the dog puppies which afterwards became known as Sir George 

 Armitage's Old Tiger (he afterwards had another Tiger — see tabulated ped- 

 igree of Turk). Another of this Waterton's Tiger litter was a bitch called 

 Venus which was owned by Henry Crabtree, brother of John, and she was 

 bred to the Nostal Priory dog, Lion, out of Commissioner Thompson's 

 Trusty. From this mating came Sir George Armitage's Duchess, also 

 called Venus, who was bred to his Old Tiger, and one of her puppies, named 

 Dorah was the prime factor in forming the J. W. Thompson strain, he getting 



