5o8 



CHAPTER LIX. 



LARGER NON-SPORTING AND ITILITV BREEDS. 



•" Evidotllv If traveller in many coiiniries, and a close observer of men and things,' said Mr. 

 Pickwick. 



"'I should like to have seen that poem.' .said Mr. Snodgrass. 

 "' I should like to have seen that dog,' said Mr. Winkle." 



The Dogue de Bordeaux.— As early as 

 the fourteenth century Gaston Phcebus, 

 Comte de Foix, described the great French 

 Molossus, or Alant, doubtless the ancestor 

 of the modern Dogue de Bordeaux, and 

 in the distinction he drew between the 

 Alant Gentil and the Alant de Boucherie 

 may be recognised the difference we draw they are schooled to savagery, and, 'tis said. 



Pickwick P.\pers. 



arc tremendous brutes, and usually as 

 savage as they are strong. Some of the 

 more docile kind may at times be met with 

 in Paris, where they are bred by wineshop 

 keepers, who, for obvious reasons, do not 

 encourage them to ferocity ; but in the 

 Midi, where they are kept for contest, 



to-day between the huge fighting dog of 

 the South of France and the smaller kind 

 with shorter muzzle known as the Boule- 

 doguc du Midi, wlucli is practically the 

 same as the Spanish BuUdog. Even then, 

 stress was laid upon 

 the points we now 

 ask f o r in t h e 

 French Dogue — the 

 wrinkles, the light, 

 small eye, the liver- 

 coloured nose, the 

 absence of dark 

 shadings on the 

 face, and the red 

 mask which is so 

 much preferred to 

 the black, with 

 its frequent accom- 

 paniment of fawn 

 body colour, indi- 

 cating Mastiff blood. 

 Formerly bred for 

 encounters in the 

 arena, the immense 

 dogs of Bordeaux 

 are still occasionally 

 pitted against each 

 other, or against 

 the bull, the bear, 

 or the ass. They 



are even given hot blood to drink that they 



may become fierce. 



The Bordeaux dogue has not often been 



seen on this side of the Channel, but in 



1895 efforts were made by two or three 

 well-known Bulldog 

 men to establish 

 the breed in Eng- 

 land. In that year 

 'Slv. John Proctor, 

 of Antwerp, who 

 had judged them at 

 the Bordeaux show, 

 published in the 

 Stockkeeper an ac- 

 count of his expe- 

 riences with the 

 fighting dogs of the 

 South of France, 

 and Mr. Sam 

 Woodiwiss and Mr. 

 H. C. Brooke 

 started almost 

 simultaneously for 

 France in quest of 

 specimens. Mr. 

 Woodiwiss pur- 

 chased the dog who 

 had won first prize 

 at Bordeaux, a 

 warrior renowned 



C BROOKES DOGUE DE BORDEAUX 

 DRAGONNE. 



