380 The Dog Book 
a bob-tail. That dog was claimed to be a Russian poodle.” We asked 
if he had seen any bob-tails or knew them at that time, and he said that up 
Yorkshire way there was not such a thing, and it was not till some years 
after that he saw any at the shows. 
Mr. Hopwood in his history of the breed gives a reproduction of a 
Gainsborough portrait of the Duke of Buccleuch, 1771, and says the dog 
with the Duke is a bob-tail. Nothing of the kind; it is a large, rough 
Scotch terrier with all the look of a Dandie. The dog is no taller than an 
Irish terrier, for we put one alongside a tall man in just the pose in the 
picture, and the top of his clean head was as high as the head of the Duke’s 
dog, shaggy coat and all. That throws us back on the hackneyed Reinagle 
picture of the “Shepherd’s Dog,” issued at the beginning of the last century. 
This was a portrait, and although the description is brief it is worth giving: 
“The soft, mild and inoffensive countenance, indicative of true breed in this 
species, together with the lopped ear, small nose, and prominent under jaw, 
are admirably portrayed.” It is stated to be a portrait from the life, and 
the writer of the article quoted from says that he remembers seeing a valu- 
able sheep dog of Sir Lawrence Palk’s at Haldon, Devon, which was similar 
in figure and countenance. Reinagle’s picture was first published in 1803, 
but the article we quote from is in the “Sportsman’s Repository” of 1831. 
Youatt some twenty years later represented the sheep dog as being a snipy- 
nosed, clean-headed but coarse-coated dog, most decidedly not undershot, 
and with a stump tail. The dog is running, and shows high hindquarters. 
There is one thing about the Reinagle picture which does not appear 
to have attracted attention, and that is the Scottish scenery. The man 
sitting in the middle distance may not have kilts, but he has a Scotch bonnet 
andacrook. Of course it may have been a mere fancy of the artist to put an 
English sheep dog in a Scotch or Highland scene, but it might have been 
one of the strain from which we have the bearded collie in Scotland. 
As to Mr. Hopwood’s third illustration, that of the dog sitting with 
his back toward us, there can be no question as to that being the right 
article. This is from a painting by Sidney Cooper, about 1835, and there 
is no dispute as to the dog being known at that time. “Idstone” proves 
that beyond any question, amply supporting the quotations made from the 
“Sportsman’s Repository,” but the tenor of the evidence is that it was a 
South country dog confined mainly to the section running from Oxfordshire 
to Devonshire. 
