Painter Bruno Andreas Liljefors (1860 – 1939) was a
Swedish wildlife painter. This picture is titled "Beagle and Fox," but the beagle seen here does not look too much like the ones we see paraded around today. The modern dog tends to be tri-colored, with a lot of white, especially in front and on their feet. The old red and black beagles, which did not have a scrap of white on them, are too rarely seen today.
5 comments:
Interesting and exquisite. His work is often beautiful. I've always liked his foxes and birds (not so much a cat person,but can appreciate the execution).
L
Having a lot of white does sound like a small advantage for a working beagle, making them easier to spot in the field. I mean, a lot of hunting dogs were made white for that reason (dogo argentino, westie, etc.), so hunters wouldn't shoot their own dogs. So at least in this aspect the beagle may have improved.
Westies have not been a working dog since the day they were created, but I would agree that white makes dogs a bit easier to see in vegetation. Of course, a lot of what we shoot is also white -- the tail of a rabbit or deer, the brush of a fox.
Dachshunds and border terriers typically have little or no white, and many fox hounds have none, ditto for retrievers, Gordon and Irish setters, etc.
There's really not a very strong case to make that white is much of an asset in the field -- sober hunters are simply not shooting their dogs no matter what their color.
I know westies aren't used for it anymore in any significant numbers, I mentioned them because of an anecdote I read somewhere about the man who created the breed deciding to develop white terriers after shooting one of his own dogs. Not sure if this really happened or not, but it's kinda interesting. As I said, I only see it as a small advantage, if that. Here in my country, there is a breed (or maybe more of a landrace) of hunting dog called veadeiro pampeano (meaning something like "Pampas deerhound"), and the whitest dogs are the most valued, and people give this as a reason. May be more of a cultural thing.
Wait a second, are you saying westies were never used for hunting? I could swear I read about them being used for it at first.
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