Over on Twitter, YesBiscuit snipped this bit from the April 11, 1889 edition of Forest and Stream, edited by the great George Bird Grinell.
Is this the first coining of the term "Boston Terrier"? Perhaps.
The Boston Terrier was formally “introduced” at the Westminster Dog Show in Madison Square Garden in 1895.
As I have noted in the past, the classic recipe for inventing a breed is:
- Name a place or country (remote or obscure is best)
- Add a claim of odd or specialized work, preferably one no longer common.
- Add the name of royalty, a famous person or group, or perhaps a war or battle.
- Dress it up with detail, preferably claiming ancient provenance
Examples include: the Congo Terrier, the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, the Scarlett Point Terrier, the Management Shepherd, the Neapolitan Mastiff, the Bactrian Terrier, the Coton de Tulear, the Carter Pocket Terrier, the Genesee Valley Beaver Dog, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, the Skye Terrier, the Kill Devil Terrier, the North American Pocket Lurcher, the Dandie Dinmont, the Lundehund, the Soul Retriever, the Tibetan Spaniel, and the Darwin Retriever, to name just a few.
And what's the recipe for ruining a breed? Simple: Take the just-invented breed name very seriously, write a narrow standard (preferably one with demands for extreme exaggeration), and close the registry with a breed pool of less than 100 not-closely related dogs.
Was that done with the Boston Terrier? You bet!
No comments:
Post a Comment