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CHAPTER LXIII. 



THE SCHWEISS-HUND. 



IN commencing our remarks upon the German breeds of dog, we wish to take the earliest 

 opportunity of informing our readers that, after having taken every opportunity of thoroughly 

 going into the above question, we have decided upon only noticing four varieties in this portion 

 of our work. The Dachshund has already been done ample justice to in former pages, as 

 owing to his popularity in this country we elected to treat of him with the English breeds, and, 

 therefore, we now only propose to mention the Schweiss-hund, the German Mastiff (or Boarhound), 

 the Leonberg, and Berghund (mountain dog). The two latter breeds are unquestionably cross- 

 breeds of modern manufacture, and will, therefore, be only referred to in the briefest possible 

 manner, as they would not in fact deserve notice at all, but for the energetic manner in which 

 they have been pushed forward as distinct varieties in certain interested quarters. 



We will, however, commence our description of the German varieties of dog with the 

 Schweiss-hund, who is, at the time of writing, the ideal hunting dog of Germany par 

 excellence. Our first personal introduction to this breed was at the Hanover dog show of 

 1879, where a very strong class of Schweiss-hunds was exhibited, which enabled us to form a 

 good idea of the points of the breed, and learn something of its merits from the mouths of 

 experienced breeders. We were informed that this hound is chiefly used for the purposes 

 of tracking wounded deer who have succeeded in escaping from the hunters, and we heard 

 some marvellous stories concerning the power of scent possessed by the Schweiss-hund. For 

 instance, M. U. Marais, one of the secretaries of the Hanover show, and himself an ardent 

 sportsman, related to us the following adventure, which on the first blush seems incredible. 

 It appears that he had wounded a stag one afternoon, but owing to the weather being very 

 bad determined not to pursue the beast, and therefore returned home. About noon the next 

 day it however cleared up, and he determined to try and hunt up the wounded animal, as he 

 felt confident it was hard hit. According to custom he laid a Schweiss-hund on the track, 

 and the dog at once took up the scent and led him up to where the stag lay dead. As this 

 was twenty-two hours after he had wounded the stag, and rain had fallen heavily in the interim, 

 the story appears to us little short of miraculous, but we have no reason to doubt the words 

 of M. Marais, as he personally related the story to us when at Hanover. 



The collection of Schweiss-hunds which we saw at Hanover seemed to us to be a remark- 

 ably level lot, and the uniformity of type struck us as being most unusual. The judging 

 was carried' on under the "jury" system to which we have already referred, and appeared to 

 give the highest satisfaction, and the successful competitors were acknowledged to be first- 

 rate specimens of the breed. Under such favourable circumstances we had exceptional 

 opportunities for learning what a Schweiss-hund should be like, and were also fortunate in 

 getting possession of a copy of the " official description," which we purpose giving below. 

 The prevailing colour of the breed is red, and in many instances there is a black saddle, as 

 in the case of the English Bloodhound. In stature the Schweiss-hund is much smaller than 



