Dogs of the Shepherds E-Book

David Hancock

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Dogs of the Shepherds is a book for all those who admire the most valuable of all the working dogs, the pastoral breeds: sheepdogs, cattle dogs and flock protection dogs, the indispensable farmer's servants and companion dogs for thousands of proud dog-owners across the globe. Painstakingly researched and packed with information, this book is not a manual covering training, grooming, nutrition and dog care; it is very much a reflective review of the pastoral dogs' contribution to the working and companion dog scene. It is a searching examination of their past, their performance and their prospects in an increasingly urban society. Essential reading for all those with an interest in these handsome and quite admirable dogs, and lavishly illustrated throughout.

Leseprobe

DOGS

OF THE SHEPHERDS

A Review of the Pastoral Breeds

DAVID HANCOCK

THE CROWOOD PRESS

Previous Books by the AuthorDogs As Companions – 1981Old Working Dogs – 1984 (reprinted 1998 and 2011)The Heritage of the Dog – 1990The Bullmastiff – A Breeder’s Guide Vol 1 – 1996The Bullmastiff – A Breeder’s Guide Vol 2 – 1997Old Farm Dogs – 1999The Mastiffs – The Big Game Hunters – 2006 (six editions)The Bullmastiff – A Breeder’s Guide – 2006 (one volume hardback edition)The World of the Lurcher – 2010Sporting Terriers – Their Form, Their Function & Their Future – 2011Sighthounds – Their Form, Their Function & Their Future – 2012Gundogs – Their Past, Their Performance and Their Prospects – 2013Hounds – Hunting by Scent – 2014

First published in 2014 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2014

© David Hancock 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 84797 809 7

Page 1: Highland shepherd’s boy with Collies, c.1870.Page 2: The Good Shepherd by Richard Ansdell, 1870.Page 3: The dog of the flock – working Collie of 1858.Page 4: The shepherd’s dog.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Pastoral Protectors

Chapter 2: The Herding Breeds

Chapter 3: The Working Format

Chapter 4: Valuing the Dogs

Conclusion: The Future of the Pastoral Dog

The Anatomy of the Dog

Glossary of Terms

Bibliography

Index

White-headed, white-fronted prize-winning trials working sheepdog.

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the shepherds of the world. For centuries, in every type of terrain and climate, they have devotedly not only tended their flocks and herds but bred and developed a whole range of quite remarkable dogs, able to fend off all manner of wild beasts and human threats, then herd or drive vulnerable livestock from old pasture to new pasture and often to distant markets. From the high-altitude grazing grounds of the Himalayas and the windswept steppes of Eurasia, to the hot dry pastures of East and South Africa northwards to the wet hill farms of Wales, Scotland and the Lake District and the flat, sometimes recently drained fields of the Low Countries, shepherds have used talented dogs to aid them. These dogs have varied from the giant flock guardians to the diminutive heelers, but have one thing in common: the management of livestock for man. Compared to sporting dogs, little has been written of such dogs and even less about their masters. Shepherds have sometimes been philosophical but rarely literate; there is comparatively very little on record about them or their dogs. This book is a tribute to the shepherds who used, bred and developed the quite admirable breeds of dog that still remain with us. We have a duty to perpetuate their impressive work by breeding the pastoral dogs of today to their criteria: sound, robust, functional and yet so often extremely handsome. It is worth remembering that on just one day, 24 January 1794, nineteen shepherds and forty-five sheepdogs perished in a severe storm in the south of Scotland. We owe the shepherds of our islands and the world a deep debt of gratitude – for their work and, especially, for their dogs.

Shepherd of 1875. COL. JOSEPH GALE, MUSEUM OF RURAL LIFE.

Shepherd of the Transylvanian Alps with his Romanian Sheepdog.

Portuguese Shepherd with his Rafeiro do Alentejo.

The Highland Flock by Thomas Sidney Cooper, 1887.

PREFACE

The group in which the sheepdogs are included is characterised by a high order of intelligence. In order that their duties may be performed creditably they must be sensible, tractable and hardy. Besides learning readily the lessons that are taught them at an early age, they must acquire certain powers of initiative that are shown sometimes in a form so remarkable as to make one wonder if psychologists are justified in denying the faculty of reasoning to dogs.

Arthur Croxton Smith, About our Dogs

The value of shepherds to the human race over many centuries is indisputable. The value of their dogs to the shepherds has long been accepted as immense and unmatchable. In remote areas where sheep are grazed the worth of such dogs is still immeasurable. In western urbanised countries, the types of dogs that once were known only to shepherds have become developed as distinct breeds and have earned widespread popularity away from the pastures as companion dogs. The competitive exhibiting of these dogs has predictably changed their appearance, as cosmetic appeal inevitably outscored working skills no longer exercised. The challenge today is to protect such admirable dogs from human excess, think much more of their best interests and respect their heritage. Shepherds have used dogs for well over two thousand years. Man has conducted dog shows for less than two hundred. We would be very foolish to ignore the hard lessons learned by shepherds over many centuries and think we know better. The dogs of the shepherds deserve to be perpetuated in their own mould, not to a transient template produced by the all too often self-indulgent breeders of today. These are precious and important breeds of dog.

In 1908 there were just six pastoral breeds on the Kennel Club’s list of recognized pedigree dog breeds: Collies Rough and Smooth, Old English Sheepdogs, Shetland Sheepdogs and Welsh Corgis, plus the ‘Alsatian Wolf Dog’. In 2013, there were thirty-one – the biggest number of breeds in any of the KC’s Groups – although perversely the KC places pastoral breeds like the Hovawart, the Beauceron, the Bouvier des Flandres and the Swiss mountain dogs in their Working Group. It is worth a glance at these ‘dogs of the shepherds’ to see their widespread use across the globe, showing the immense value of such dogs to man: the Anatolian Shepherd Dog and the Kangal Dog (from Turkey); the two Australian breeds – their Cattle Dog and their Shepherd Dog; the Bearded, Border, Rough and Smooth Collies, the Old English and Shetland Sheepdogs, the Lancashire Heeler and the two Welsh Corgi breeds, all from Britain; the four breeds of Belgian Shepherd Dog; the Briard from France and the Catalan Sheepdog from Spain, with the two Pyrenean breeds – Mountain Dog and Sheepdog – and the Maremma Sheepdog of Italy coming from adjacent countries; the three Hungarian breeds: Kuvasz, Komondor and Puli; the Estrela Mountain Dog from Portugal; and finally those from much further north, the Polish Lowland Sheepdog, the Norwegian Buhund, the Finnish Lapphund, the Samoyed, and the Swedish Vallhund.

Early show Collie.

Early show Bobtail.

Most of these originated overseas, but, because of its wide-ranging capabilities, our native breed – the Border Collie – for long never even considered as a pedigree dog, attracted over 2,000 new registrations, making it our most favoured native pastoral breed. The German Shepherd Dog, however, totalled over 8,000, as our love affair with breeds from overseas showed itself again. Far too many of our native pastoral breeds are under threat of extinction in this century, with breeds like the Smooth Collie, the Cardigan Corgi and the Lancashire Heeler each only attracting around 100 new annual registrations each year.

Shepherd and his Sheepdog on Salisbury Plain, 1864.

Never listed by the KC were the Smithfield Sheepdog (a leggy, shaggy-coated drover’s dog), the Blue Shag of Dorset (a mainly blue-grey bobtailed sheepdog), the Cotswold Beardie (often black and white and possibly a variant of the Bobtail), the rough-haired Lakeland Sheepdog, the Welsh Hillman (the longer-legged uplands sheepdog of Wales), the Old Welsh Grey (the bearded sheepdog of Wales), the Welsh Black and Tan Sheepdog (the shorter-coated ‘valleys’ sheepdog of South Wales), the Galway Sheepdog of Southern Ireland (a big tricolour dog resembling the Bernese Mountain Dog) and the Glenwherry Collie of Antrim (a mainly merle or marbled type, often wall-eyed), each one a distinct type, however little known outside their favoured areas. Every year, the use of pastoral dogs declines a little further, as modern pressures alter our agricultural methods and the urban sprawl continues. But every year it seems a new use is found for that talented breed the Border Collie, as its sheer versatility and wide range of skills find employment. It is now the case that many pastoral breeds are, more often than not, unlikely to be utilized in the pastures and far more likely to be employed as service dogs, with the military, the police and search and rescue organizations. They are still valued; they can still do things that humans cannot.

The lost pastoral breeds of the British Isles are illustrated below.

Smithfield Sheepdog with shepherd.

The Welsh Hillman.

Blue Shag with shepherd.

Cotswold Shepherd with local Beardie.

Welsh Grey Sheepdog with Welsh Drover.

The old Welsh Black and Tan Sheepdog.

Lakeland Shepherd with rough-haired Collies, c.1890.

Glenwherry Collie of Antrim with distinctive ‘wall-eyes’.

Unrecognized Foreign Breeds

The international kennel club, the Federation Cynologique Internationale (FCI) lists quite a number of pastoral breeds in their Group 1 that are not recognized by our KC: the Picardy Sheepdog, the South Russian Sheepdog, the Croatian Sheepdog, the Dutch Shepherd, the Mallorquin Sheepdog, the Portuguese Sheepdog, the Kelpie, the Schapendoes, the Hungarian Mudi and Pumi but puts the flock-guarding breeds like the Anatolian Shepherd Dog, the Pyrenean Mountain Dog, the Caucasian Sheepdog, the Estrela Mountain Dog and the Hovawart into a separate Group, 2. This does not help the allocation of judges from England to their shows or the reverse; judges need to appreciate role, the function that led to the design of the breed. Herding dogs need a very different anatomy from the mountain dogs or flock protectors and the rating of such physical points deserves specialist knowledge and judgement.

The FCI also recognizes foreign breeds in this Group quite unknown in Britain: the Cao de Castro Laboreiro and Rafeiro do Alentejo from Portugal, the Karst and Sar Planinac from the former Yugoslavia and the Central Asian Sheepdog. As, especially in countries that emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, more native pastoral breeds are ratified, this process will continue. Breeds such as Romania’s Mioritic Shepherd, the Bucovina Shepherd, the Carpathian Shepherd and the jet black, appropriately named Raven Dog have been presented at the country’s shows for the first time. In Western Europe too, native breeds are becoming recognized as the canine heritage of each nation is at last being valued by the show fraternity; in Spain, for example, at the 2013 Madrid show, the Garafiano Sheepdog (from the Canary Islands) was paraded, then three other native breeds, the Carea Leones, the Carea Manchego and the Euskal Artzain Txakurra were introduced to the curious onlookers in the main ring programme. In this book, I aim to cover many of these, but because their function was the same as the pastoral breeds already recognized, their physical form is remarkably similar to the better-known herders and flock guardians.

Galway Sheepdog – quite similar to Bernese Mountain Dog.

Unlikely to survive a lack of recognition and failing interest in the pastures are the brindle Cypro Kukur or Kumaon Mastiff of northern India, the Cane Garouf or Italian Alpine Mastiff or Patua, and the Corsican native livestock protection dog, the Cursinu, resembling the Karst. The little Croatian heeler the Medi is now being promoted, the Portuguese (Azores) version of our Old English Sheepdog: the Barbado da Terceira, the huge Cao de Gado Transmontano of North Portugal, quite similar to the registered Rafeiro da Alentejo, and the Chodsky Pes, a Czech herding dog rather like a smaller Tervueren, are all attracting interest at long last. Meanwhile, as ever, zealous individuals are at work, promoting newly developed breeds like the Panda Shepherd in Canada, a GSD with a very specific coat colour; the King Shepherd and Shiloh Shepherd in America – ‘improved’ GSDs; the Swiss Shepherd – an all-white GSD that is gaining support in Switzerland; with the Welsh Mountain Dog being promoted in the Principality. It is noticeable that in several countries the GSD is being ‘improved’ by dissatisfied fanciers of the show GSD in the 1990s style of that dog. The recently developed Eastern European Shepherd, an attractive, more traditional GSD-variant, soon became Russia’s most popular breed.

In this book, I aim to make a case for the origin and function of all pastoral types, ancient and modern, to be respected, not in the pursuit of historical accuracy, important as that is, but because they can only be bred both soundly and honestly if their past development and traditional form is honoured. Their original lowly rural breeders have left these magnificent canine servants to us and we have a duty of care towards these impressive and quite admirable breeds of dog. There is less research material on the dogs of the shepherds than, say, on sporting dogs such as gundogs and hounds. Both the latter types were owned and patronized by the wealthy and better-educated, the former usually by illiterate agricultural workers. This increases my resolve to do them justice after centuries of neglect. My personal affection for this type of dog rests on the thirty-odd years of loyal yet stimulating companionship that I was given by my own working sheepdogs, perhaps better described as unregistered Border Collies; they taught me an enormous amount about dogs – and quite a lot about myself.

The sheepdog is so completely absorbed in what seems the sole business and employment of his life, that he does not bestow a look, or indulge a wish beyond the constant protection of the trust reposed in him, and to execute the commands of his master; which he is always anxious to receive, and in fact is invariably looking for by every solicitous attention it is possible to conceive. Inured to all weathers, fatigue and hunger, he is the least voracious of the species, subsists on little…the sagacity, fidelity, and comprehensive penetration of this kind of dog is equal to any other, but that there is a thoughtful or expressive gravity annexed to this particular race, as if they were absolutely conscious of their own utility in business of importance, and of the value of the stock so confidently committed to their care.

The Sportsman’s Cabinet, 1803

The Eastern European Shepherd Dog.

Working Sheepdog intent on stalk.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author is grateful to the staff at Sotheby’s Picture Library, Christie’s Images Ltd., Bonhams, Getty Images, Arthur Ackermann Ltd, David Messum Galleries, Richard Green & Co., Rountree Fine Art, The Bridgeman Art Library, The Nature Picture Library, The National Art Library, The Wallace Collection, R. Cox & Co., Lane Fine Art, The Mary Evans Picture Library, The Lady Lever Art Gallery – Port Sunlight, The Kennel Club, The American Kennel Club, The National Trust, The Royal Collection – Photographic Services, the Art Director/ Graphics Department of Dogs in Canada magazine and private collectors (especially the late Mevr AH (Ploon) de Raad of Zijderveld, Holland, who gave free use of her extensive photographic archive of sporting paintings), for their gracious and generous permissions to reproduce some of the illustrations used in this book.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

A number of the illustrations in this book lack pictorial quality but are included because uniquely they either contribute historically to or best exemplify the meaning of the text. Old depictions do not always lend themselves to reproduction in today’s higher quality print and publishing format. Those that are included have significance beyond their graphic limitations and I ask for the reader’s understanding over this.

Where quotes are used, they are used verbatim, despite any vagaries in spelling, irregular use of capital letters or departures from contemporary grammar. For me, it is important that their exact form, as presented by the author originally, is displayed, as this can help to capture the mood of those times.

Old English Sheepdogs of 1812.

INTRODUCTION

The Emergence of the Pastoral Dogs

In his informative A History of Domesticated Animals (1963), the distinguished zoologist Frederick Zeuner wrote:

In the Bronze Age a moderately large dog is frequently found which, in many respects, is like some of the primitive breeds of sheepdog still to be found in parts of Europe. The modern collies, Alsatians and others with elongated skulls are products of very recent systematic breeding… In view of the palaeontological material now available, this means that the sheepdog group can be traced back to the Bronze Age… Its frequent occurrence in Bronze Age sites may be connected with the increasing importance of sheep-breeding in the economy of Bronze Age Europe. Thus the forerunners of the modern sheepdogs can so far be traced back to the Bronze Age only.

Evidence of far earlier use of pastoral dogs, not surprisingly, can be found in the artefacts of Ancient Egypt, as these two images demonstrate.

No Breed Identity

It is unwise for enthusiastic breed historians to link contemporary breeds with depictions of dogs on ancient artefacts. As Juliet Clutton-Brock wrote in her Domesticated Animals from Early Times (1981):

The majority of the remains of the earliest domestic dogs have been retrieved from archaeological sites in western Asia, although small numbers have also been found in North and South America, northwest Europe (England and Denmark), Russia and Japan. They are nowhere very common until the Neolithic period when livestock animals are of course also represented… The dogs of these early periods, before the invention or widespread use of agriculture, were already quite variable in size and they probably also varied in their pelage, length of ears and tail, and shape of facial region … it is not acceptable to divide these dog remains into separate categories or subspecies, let alone into breeds.