DOGS USED FOR SrORT. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE DOMESTIC DOG. 



THERE appears to be a wide, difference of opinion among 

 naturalists as to the stock from wliich our dogs of the 

 present day came. Some have it the wolf, others the jackal, or 

 fox, while not a few claim that the dhole, or wild dog of India, is 

 tlie source from which sprang all the varieties. In our opinion it 

 cannot be declared with any degree of certainty what the parent 

 stock was. Certain it is that to no one animal can the paternity 

 of these useful races be credited, as they are so widely different in 

 form, color and other characteristics, and man could never have 

 developed and brought together such vast differences, opposite 

 natures and shapes as can daily be seen in domestic dogs, unless 

 the original species were in possession of the rudiments. Neither 

 could food, climate, or any. contrivance whatever so completely 

 alter the nature, decrease the scenting powers, render the coat 

 short, long, or curly, lengthen or shorten the limbs, unless sepa- 

 rate types had furnished the material. 



Ancient bas-relief and monumental delineations picture the 

 dog as distinct in its characteristics thousands of years ago as at 

 the present day, and fossil remains have been repeatedly discov- 

 ered so little resembling either the wolf, jackal, or fox, and so dif- 

 ferent in type, as to be classified with the spaniel, terrier, hound, 

 bull dog, turnspit, pointer and pug ; and as these, or a part of 

 them, we know to be made dogs, or in other words hybrids, the 

 species must have been fully as numerous then as at the present 

 time. 



There are numerous species of wild dogs differing from one 

 another almost as much as our own domestic animals of to-day. 

 Granting that the spaniel, grey-hound, and terrier, sprung- origin- 



