CHAPTER I 
\ 
FEarty History oF THE Doc 
=I] IEORIES as to the origin of the dog have been plentiful, and 
| as unsatisfactory as plentiful. We have got little further in 
that direction than was the case a hundred years ago, when 
but little was known regarding the history of the world 
beyond what was stated in the Bible and could be found 
in Greek or Roman, or still more modern, literature. Since then 
we have travelled back to full seven thousand years ago, and as far back as we 
find the dog represented by drawings, sculpture, or carvings, we find him a dis- 
tinct animal. Why the dog should not be given as much credit for originality 
as any other animal is almost remarkable; but some people have it that 
he is but a wolf, a prairie-wolf, or a jackal domesticated, and when it comes 
to the varieties of the dog, we have the most marvellous assumptions. 
There was not a dog living, according to writers of the eighteenth century, 
that was not a cross between two other varieties, or even impossible crosses, 
such as the mastiff being from a cross with the hyena, while some other 
breed had a dash of the Bengal leopard. ‘The former assertion was made 
by such eminent naturalists as Pallas and Burchell, and even Lowe 
stated in his modern “Domestic Animals of Great Britain” that it was 
very possible. The wild dogs of India were said to be a cross between 
the wolf and the tiger, and other equally ridiculous statements were made. 
That the dog and wolf will cross, and that a cross between the fox and 
dog has been repeatedly claimed, are well-known facts, but these are mules 
and will breed only with the parent stock, whereas, no matter how widely 
different are the varieties of dog crossed, the progeny is fruitful inter se. 
At Wilton House, England, there is an epitaph, as follows: “Here lies 
Lupa, whose grandmother was a wolf, whose father and grandfather were 
dogs, and whose mother was half wolf and half dog. She died on the 16th 
of October, 1782, aged twelve years.” That is the record of an experiment 
conducted by Lord Clanbrassil and Lord Pembroke. Others have experi- 
mented in the same way, but it is the interbreeding of the progeny that is 
the impossible and proves them to be mules. 
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