CHAPTER XXIV 



The Bob-Tailed Sheep Dog 



HERE is no evidence whatever that the bob-tailed sheep dog 

 w^as known throughout England till quite a recent date, 

 and we have shown in the preceding chapter that the old 

 English sheep dog was the smooth, small mastiff or common 

 dog of the farm. If there had been any knowledge regard- 

 ing dogs of this shaggy kind the presumption is that in Mr. Aubrey Hop- 

 wood's recent book on the breed it would have been forthcoming. That 

 author begins with the statement that its origin lies buried in the mists 

 of antiquity, whereas the dog has no antiquity. Not a single writer mentions 

 it until we get to "Idstone" in 1872, and then as a dog found in a restricted 

 part of England. He says he remembered it in Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, 

 Berkshire, Hants, Dorset "and other counties." This is his description: 

 "There is one class of sheep dog which I always regard as the typical English 

 sheep dog. I mean the blue, grizzled, rough-haired, large-limbed, surly, 

 small-eared, small-eyed, leggy, bob-tailed dog." 



Plenty of quotations can be made from old books in which the sheep 

 dog is described, but the smooth dog's description is the only one that 

 can be found. Mr. Hopwood twits Stonehenge for his description of the 

 sheep dog, but if Mr. Hopwood had lived in Stonehenge's day he would 

 have agreed with him, for that mongrel thing he described was all anyone 

 knew of the breed about London. A wretched, miserable, bedraggled- 

 coated dog, tagging after a drover armed with his gad. In the north of 

 England he was absolutely unknown till quite recently. 



We were talking with Mr. Charles H. Mason a few days ago, and he 

 asked us what we were going to say about the bob-tails. We frankly 

 acknowledged that there was no finding any old history. "Well, I'll 

 tell you something. I never see a bob-tail but what I think of a dog I 

 saw about thirty to thirty-five years ago, that an old-timer had. Black 

 and coated just like a bob-tail, had no tail at all, and moved exactly like 



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