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Herding Dogs:Their Origins & Development in Britain


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1987 Faber and Faber

 

I suppose many of you will have read this one due to it having been around for so long. I finally found a copy on e-bay for a reasonable price.

 

Interesting reading, especially about the period she describes - a lot of history there. Some good pictures and a chapter each for many breeds/types.

 

There's a chapter on the process of "recognition" of the Border Collie by the Kennel Club. Ms. Combe is an apologist for the breed ring. She says working folk will always breed for working traits, breed people will breed for appearance traits and obedience/pet/agility people will breed for the traits they desire - "and never the twain shall meet."

 

I enjoyed the book, though I can't say I see eye to eye with the author on a number of topics.

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From Wikipedia:

"At least two dogs are known to have participated in the settling of Plymouth. In Mourt's Relation Edward Winslow writes that a female mastiff and a small springer spaniel came ashore on the first explorations of what is now Provincetown. There may have been other animals on the Mayflower, but only these two dogs had been mentioned."

She was on about shepherds keeping mastiffs to guard their flocks. Perhaps she got a bit confused... <_<

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Were their sheep on the mayflower? I thought it was only Prespertyrians. Sorry I cannot spell Prespertyrian.

 

 

 

Sorry

 

 

 

I mean it in a kind way, I don't wish to offend their decendants.

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I don't know about sheep on the Mayflower. It wouldn't surprise me. The Spanish certainly seeded them along with cattle.

 

The earliest dog lawsuit in this country that I've run across was filed either by or against Miles Standish for sheep destroyed by a dog and thereby starts centuries of reasons why U.S. sheep raisers either abhorred dogs or quit the sheep business.

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Now there is a reliable source of facts.....

 

"Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit."

 

;)

Well, now, I won't say that Wikipedia is always right. It isn't. But then again, I don't think that the so-called experts are always right either. I've caught out people with all the right alphabet soup after their names, and lost count of the number of stereo repair people, mechanics, plumbers, etc. who have pooh-poohed my diagnosis of a problem, only to find that the diagnosis I proposed was the right one (once after a TV repair person told me it couldn't possibly be the on/off switch on my TV that was the problem. 2 years later the problem was found, and it was... wait for it... a relay in the on/off switch.)

 

All of which does nothing to prove the "veracity rate" of Wikipedia, but then again, I've got a lot of bang-on info from Wikipedia that was very helpful.

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  • 2 years later...

Geonni,

 

Iris wasn't confused at all. "In fact, the only animals known with certainty to have come on the Mayflower were two dogs, an English mastiff and an English spaniel, who are mentioned on a couple of occasions in the Pilgrims' journals." :

 

http://mayflowerhistory.com/livestock

 

and

 

"Pilgrim accounts mention that two dogs (a spaniel and a mastiff) were brought on the 1620 Mayflower voyage. A reference in a 1623 letter leads Museum historians to believe that there were probably goats, pigs and chickens on Mayflower as well." :

 

http://www.plimoth.org/what-see-do/rare-breeds-animals/nye-barn-faqs

 

You can also check out the primary sources.

 

All the best,

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Dear Doggy Historians,

 

I met Iris Combe when she came over. Since she, like Ethel Conrad, was a royalist they got along splendidly despite their differences about dog shows.

 

The earliest accounts I've found of sheepdogs in North America describe Spanish livestock guarding dogs. Perhaps some scottish immigrants brought "herding" sheepdogs with them. The scottish woman (Flora McDonald?) who sheltered Charlie when he was on the run came to America and became a loyalist (north Carolina, as I recall). The earliest descriptions of "herding" sheepdogs I've found are T. Jefferson's (alas) French dogs, perhaps similar to the modern Briard and - again, perhaps - involved in the ancestry of the very American English Shepherd.

 

I trust Penny to correct me.

 

Donald McCaig

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Well, now, I won't say that Wikipedia is always right. It isn't. But then again, I don't think that the so-called experts are always right either. I've caught out people with all the right alphabet soup after their names, and lost count of the number of stereo repair people, mechanics, plumbers, etc. who have pooh-poohed my diagnosis of a problem, only to find that the diagnosis I proposed was the right one (once after a TV repair person told me it couldn't possibly be the on/off switch on my TV that was the problem. 2 years later the problem was found, and it was... wait for it... a relay in the on/off switch.)

 

All of which does nothing to prove the "veracity rate" of Wikipedia, but then again, I've got a lot of bang-on info from Wikipedia that was very helpful.

 

 

I agree with you. I think you can get a feel for what is likely to be accurate and what is likely to be seriously biased or incorrect.

 

If in doubt, double check elsewhere but in general I have often found it helpful. I don't think its reputation is deserved.

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