Photograph by C. Reid, Wishaw. 



THE NEW 



BOOK OF THE DOG. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

 I. 



GENERAL HISTORY OF THE DOG. 



" Then said he to Tobias, Prepare thyself for the journey, and God send you a good 

 journey. And when his son had prepared all things for the journey, his father said, Go 

 thou with this man, and God, which dwelleth in Heaven, prosper your journey, and 

 the angel of God keep you company. So they went forth both, and the young man's dog 

 with them." TOBIT v. 16. 



I. The Dog in Prehistoric Times. In the 

 Academy at Brussels there is a delightful 

 picture by Breughel representing the Gar- 

 den of Eden, in which the artist has intro- 

 duced a rough Skye-terrier lying con- 

 tentedly curled at the feet of Adam and 

 Eve. This is a stretch of the probabilities ; 

 no dog of a recognisable breed lived at a 

 time so remote. There is, however, no 

 incongruity in the idea that in the very 

 earliest period of man's habitation of this 

 world he made a friend and companion of 

 some sort of aboriginal representative of 

 our modern dog, and that in return for its 

 aid in protecting him from wilder animals, 

 and perhaps in guarding his sheep and 



goats, he gave it a share of his food, a corner 

 in his dwelling, and grew to trust it and 

 care for it. 



There is ample evidence to prove the 

 existence of a semi-domestic dog in pre- 

 historic times. Probably the animal was 

 originally little else than an unusually 

 gentle jackal, or an ailing wolf driven by 

 its companions from the wild marauding 

 pack to seek shelter in alien surroundings. 

 One can well conceive the possibility of 

 the partnership beginning in the circum- 

 stance of some helpless whelps being brought 

 home by the early hunters and being after- 

 ward tended and reared by the women and 

 children. The present-day savage of New 



