CHAPTER: XXIV 
Tae Bos-TatLep SHEEP Dos Loe 
HERE i is no eee whatever that the ee as dog 
il: was, known’ throughout England till quite a. recent ‘date, 
and we have’ shown in the preceding chapter that the old 
English sheep. dog was the sthooth, small mastiff or common 
SSE! 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: ee as the typical English 
‘sheep dog. I mean the blue, grizzled, in hea gee lanibes) surly, 
-small-eared, small-eyed, leggy, : ‘bob-tailed' dog... 
Plenty of quotations canbe made from old ka in, which ih 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 lie 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. ee i! 
"We were talking with Mr. Charles H. Mason a few days’ aboh one 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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