A reader by the name of Mauro pasted a line from Edward William Lewis Davies' book A Memoir of the Rev. John Russell and his Out-of-door Life into the comments section of the post entitled "Harriet Ritvo on the Nonsense History of Pit Bulls":.
I'm note sure what point Mauro was making, but let me pull out the full quote out, and give it context.
For starters, who was Edward William Lewis Davies?
Davies was one of the many "sporting vicars" of the Victorian period. Like John Henry Walsh, Davies wrote about many things. For example, he authored two travel books, one on Algiers (1859), and one on wolf hunting in Brittany (1875), as well as a book on sea-fish (1887). He cranked out two novels, Paul Pendril (1866) and Frank Raleigh of Watercombe (1877) which were serialized in Baily's Magazine. He wrote a 200-page poem entitled Dartmoor Days. He contributed to a book entitled Hunting whose main contributor was the Duke of Beauford. And, of course, he wrote A Memoir of the Rev. John Russell and his Out-of-door Life, of which a picture of my own copy illustrates this post.
"I seldom or ever see a real fox-terrier nowadays," said Russell recently to a friend who was inspecting a dog show containing a hundred and fifty entries under that denomination; "they have so intermingled strange blood with the real article, that, if he were not informed, it would puzzle Professor Bell himself to discover what race the so-called fox-terrier belongs to."
"And pray, how is it managed?" inquired the friend, eager to profit by Russell's long experience in such matters. "I can well remember Rubie's and Tom French's Dartmoor terriers, and have myself owned some of that sort worth their weight in gold. True terriers they were, but certainly differing as much from the present show dogs as the wild eglantine differs from a garden rose."
"The process," replied Russell, "is simply as follows: they begin with a smooth bitch terrier; then, to obtain a finer skin, an Italian greyhound is selected for her mate. But as the ears of the produce are an eyesore to the connoisseur, a beagle is resorted to, and then little is seen of that unsightly defect in the next generation. Lastly, to complete the mixture, the bulldog is now called on to give the necessary courage ; and the composite animals, thus elaborated, become, after due selection, the sires and dams of the modern fox-terriers. This version of their origin," continued he, "I received from a man well qualified to speak on the subject."
The bulldog blood thus infused imparts courage, it is true, to the so-called terrier; he is matchless at killing any number of rats in a given time; will fight any dog of his weight in a Westminster pit; draw a badger heavier than himself out of his long box; and turn up a tom-cat possessed even of ten lives, before poor pussy can utter a wail. But the ferocity of that blood is in reality ill suited — nay, is fatal — to fox-hunting purposes; for a terrier
that goes to ground and fastens on his fox, as one so bred will do, is far more likely to spoil sport than promote it; he goes in to kill, not to bolt, the object of his attack.
Besides, such animals, if more than one slip into a fox-earth, are too apt to forget the game, and fight each other, the death of one being occasionally the result of such encounters.
You will note that Russell (through Davies) is not saying how you make a working terrier, but how you make a show-ring PRETENDER that is unsuitable for work.
And what is wrong with the resulting blood?
Why it is that the addition of the bulldog blood to create fight.
The result is a terrier that is "ill suited -- nay, is fatal -- to fox hunting purposes."
Exactly.
There was no terrier in the ancient pit fighting dogs, as terriers were not yet invented, and any bulldog blood introduced to terriers stems from the era of DOG SHOWS when dog dealers were feverishly working to create new breeds to sell to the gullible.
And was John Russell one of those gullibles? He was not.
Russell judged one dog show as an old man, said the dogs he saw in the ring bore little relation to true working fox terriers, never judged a show again, and refused to register his own dogs with the pretender crowd.
Add working terrier blood to bull dogs in order to put fighting fire in pit dogs? There's a fantasy proposed by someone who has never dug a fox!
1 comment:
Clear and concise from the mouth of The Man himself... I had to put down my little dog Max recently- hardest thing I've gone though almost ever. To your point- Max was what I used to call The Best Jack Russell! He never bolted a fox or badger- just some rats- but he lived to go in disgusting holes and bark and worry whatever poor creatures were in there. He had a soft mouth- he was not the killer like my other JRT who has quite a body count- rather he literally was hard-wired to squirm into small holes, culverts etc. and bark and fuss and dig. He would do it for hours if I let him. Maybe a bit large for your taste at 17 pounds but he did have a spannable chest. He also had the biggest teeth proportionally of any dog I've ever seen- 1" canines on a 17 pound dog. He really was a great Jack Russell Terrier- his death has affected me more than the death of my own father. People think my surviving JRT is the quintessential JRT- he's a killer of small animals and dog aggressive- but it was Max who was the real deal. The code ruled him- indoors he was a quiet lap dog but outdoors he would have made the parson proud...
Post a Comment