CHAPTER V 



Buying a Dog 



OW to buy a dog is as difficult a question to answer offhand as 

 to tell a person what dog will satisfy him. With the general 

 custom in America of worshipping the fetish of pedigree 

 in animals — while holding that the man must be guaged 

 by his individual merits — it is difficult to get any person 

 to consider the purchase of any dog that has not a number of champions 

 in his pedigree. If he has that, you can dispose of the veriest scrub that 

 ever lived. Pedigree has a value, but you must know the history of the 

 dogs of the day and the most prominent of the past generation or two to 

 enable a proper conclusion to be drawn. From a pedigree it is possible for 

 one of the initiated to form an opinion as to what might be expected of the 

 dog in certain characteristics and which of these characteristics he might 

 perpetuate. It has but little to do with the future excellence of the puppy 

 beyond the fact that a dog of good breeding has a better chance of being 

 good-looking than one bred from scrubs. 



To understand this it is necessary to state that there are few breeders of 

 prominence who do not lay stress upon some particular point in confor- 

 mation. With one it is head, with another it is "front," another must have 

 a good coat, and so on. An expert fox-terrier judge would make but little 

 mistake at an English show in picking out the Redmond, Vicary or Powell 

 entry, all of which is in keeping with what Youatt tells us about the two 

 sheep-breeders who purchased some pure Bakewell ewes and rams, and 

 although there was not a drop of outside blood introduced into the flocks, 

 they became entirely different in type within a few years, each breeder 

 making his selections along a line of his own. 



Then again we find every now and then a sire that is particularly 

 good in giving to his progeny some much wanted characteristic, such as 

 the ability of the late Finsbury Pilot among collies to give heavy coats, 

 while the sparse-coated collie Ormskirk Galopin was noted for heads. And 

 it is along this line we find the value of pedigree, for an inbred Galopin 



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