CHAPTER XV. 



THE DANDIE DINMONT. 



THE celebrity which this excellent Terrier well maintains he owes to Sir Walter Scott ; the 

 unenviable notoriety he has had undeservedly to submit to he owes to some of his injudicious 

 friends. 



Had the fact been frankly accepted that whatever he may now be he had no existence 

 before the present century and, like most, if not all, of our recognised breeds of the present 

 day, sprang from mongrelism, or the produce of two different breeds, as we now use that 

 word we should have heard less nonsense about the absolute purity of some specimens that 

 have been so much written up. The fact is that not a single dog living can, without a break 

 in his pedigree, be traced back to the dogs owned by Davidson, although we have no doubt 

 and, indeed, there is a strong chain of evidence in favour of the supposition that several 

 strains in particular, and we may say the majority of those shown now-a-days, inherit a large 

 percentage of the blood of the original Charlieshope Terriers. Sir Walter Scott, in his inimit- 

 able delineations of Scottish character, sketched to the life the burly Liddesdale yeoman, 

 under the nom de guerre of Dandie Dinmont ; and the rough, uncouth, but warm-hearted and 

 generous farmer and sportsman, with his game little Terrier, are now, and will be whilst the 

 English language is read, familiar to all who appreciate the genius of Scott. When " Guy 

 Mannering * was published, and read with such avidity by our fathers, Dandie Dinmont 

 and his pepper-and-mustard Terriers became public favourites, a strong desire to possess one 

 of the breed of dogs that had so suddenly been made famous was very general, and in 

 consequence specimens were widely distributed. No doubt those sent out by Mr. Davidson 

 himself (the original of Scott's Dandie Dinmont) were genuine ; but as time wore on the 

 demand increased, receiving an immense impetus from the establishment of dog shows some 

 eighteen years ago, these having thus raised the popularity of dogs in general ; and this demand 

 has had to be supplied principally from the pastoral dales whence the breed first sprung, and 

 where it had been kept up with more or less of purity, although with no pretensions, so far 

 as we can find, of recorded pedigrees. 



Indeed, it appears a reasonable supposition that, so long as a dog was known to have 

 some of the blood of the original Tarr and Pepper, the sole progenitors of the breed, and 

 accorded in form, character, and aptitude for their special work with the dogs of Davidson, 

 which must have been personally known to many of them, our friends of sporting proclivities 

 across the Border would not inquire too curiously into pedigree. Probably they were warned off 

 in some cases by a dread, not without cause, that they might suffer, like the Barber of Seville, 

 for their " impertinent curiosity," by finding that their dogs had a somewhat different paternity 

 from what they would have desired. 



We do not thus express ourselves in disparagement of a dog for whose genuine good 

 qualities we entertain an enthusiastic admiration. But from a desire to look the facts of the 

 case in the face, and, admitting most heartily not only that there is "something in blood," 



