"WE ARE SEVEN" 



TEAM OF SIX WEEKS OLD GREAT DANES 

 BRED BY MR. J. L CHING, ENFIELD. 



BY LORD DE GRACE VENDETTA OF REDGRAVE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

 THE GREAT DANE, OR GERMAN BOARHOUND. 



BY E. B. JOACHIM. 



" He who alone there was deemed best of all, 

 The war dog of the Danefolk, well worthy of men." 



HEL-RIDE OF BRYNHILD. 



THE HON. W. B. WROTTES LEY'S 



THYRA OF SEISDON. 



BY CH. LORIS THYLIA. 



r I ^HE origin of 

 the Great 

 Dane, like 

 that of a great 

 many other varie- 

 ties of dogs, is so 

 obscure that all 

 researches have 

 only resulted in 

 speculative theo- 

 ries, but the un- 

 doubted an- 

 tiquity of this 



dog is proved by the fact that repre- 

 sentatives of a breed sufficiently similar to 

 be considered his ancestors are found on 

 some of the oldest Egyptian monuments. 

 How the Great Dane came by his present 

 name is also uncertain. If Denmark was 

 the country from which these dogs spread 

 over the Continent, and were on that 

 account called Great Danes, they must 

 have greatly deteriorated in their father- 

 land, because what is now known as the 

 Dansk Hound (Danish Dog) is at the 



best only a sorry caricature of the Great 

 Dane. 



A few years ago a controversy arose on the 

 breed's proper designation, when the Ger- 

 mans claimed for it the title " Deutsche 

 Dogge." Germany had several varieties 

 of big dogs, such as the Hatzriide, Sau- 

 fanger, Ulmer Dogge, and Rottweiler 

 Metzerghund ; but contemporaneously with 

 these there existed, as in other countries in 

 Europe, another very big breed, but much 

 nobler and more thoroughbred, known as 

 the Great Dane. When after the war of 

 1870 national feeling was pulsating very 

 strongly in the veins of re-united Germany, 

 the German cynologists were on the look- 

 out for a national dog, and for that purpose 

 the Great Dane was re-christened " Deutsche 

 Dogge," and elected as the champion of 

 German Dogdom. For a long time all 

 these breeds had, no doubt, been indis- 

 criminately crossed, and a proof of this may 

 be found in the fact that the powerful 

 influence in dog breeding of " black and 

 tan," which is the colour of the Rottweiler 



