GAMLA FÄRSKA NYHETER 2): The Million Dollar Dogs

The San Fransisco Call, 11 november 1900:

The fashionable color is now sable and white. Apart from fashion, there is no question about its being the most striking and beautiful color for a collie. Handsome as the black and white or the tri-colored dogs are, there is something about the sable and white that makes the dog look absolutely regal. Almost all of the better dogs in the Cragston kennels are of this color, and it predominates so much generally nowadays that last year’s show in New York was made up almost exclusively of dogs with this marking.
The word “sable” when applied to the collie’s markings does not mean black. It means red. And the nearer the sable of a collie’s coat approaches the color of the fox the better is the breeder pleased. A fine dog with perfect coat of this color, with his wolf-like face and lithe movements, certainly looks more like some superb wild creature of the highest type than like a domesticated dog.
The collie, as he has become known in the United States, is a dog far different from his progenitor, the working sheep dog of Scotland and the north of England. He has been bred too “fine” for many generations to withstand the weather and the hard work which are the lot of the shepherd’s dog. Exposure like that to which the working collie is subjected night after night and day after day would carry the pure bred type off with pneumonia in twenty-four hours. In order to maintain ruggedness in their dogs the shepherds cross the collie every few generations with other breeds. This produces a dog with much more bone and chest, and without the perfect beauty of the collie as we know him. Black and white are the predominating colors of the working collie. The head is shorter and the face is blunt as compared with the fine fox-like mask of the show dog.
Size and bone have been a predominant feature of the collies that have been exhibited recently in the United States. But in England there is a fad just now for dwarf collies, and delightful little creatures they are. They have all the typical collie points. Indeed, it is demanded that they be pluperfect. They must be fully as fine in coat and their shape and limb must be exactly as good as they are in large collies, but they are not much larger than a spaniel. Dwarf collies may turn out to be a fad even more expensive than the ordinary dog, for if it is hard to breed a perfect large collie it is still more difficult to breed a perfect dwarf. Few have been seen as yet on this side, but it is said that there will be an importation in time for the next dog show. One was bred in New Jersey and now is owned in Brooklyn, which is said to be a perfect type.
/…/
The defects most to be avoided are a domed skull high-peaked occipital bone’ heavy, pendulous ears; full, round eyes; heavy feathered legs and short tail.
As an example of a collie head, that of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Ormskirk Galopin may be cited. His head is 11 1/2 inches long, very fine and tapering in the muzzle, and is considered typical.

The million dollar dogs! Ni ser dem överst, stambokens pelare. De är, minsann, redan finavlade i så många generationer att de skulle tvärdö i lunginflammation om de utsattes för ett endaste dygn av de grova bonnhunnarnas liv. Bonnhunnarna är förresten inte renrasiga, de är korsade just för att förbli grovhuggna. De är inte riktiga collies: de är inte äkta. Sedan kommer uppräkningen av vad som skiljer bonnhunnarna från de finavlade - svartvit färg, inte den kungliga sobla och vita som de bättre hundarna i bankirens kennel har och nästan alla på Stora Utställningen; bonnhundar känns också igen på kortare huvud och trubbigare ansikte. (Längst ner avslutar journalisten för säkerhets skull med en upprepning av det som är viktigast att undvika - och det är väl ungefär samma sak som de arbetande hundarnas utseende.)
Ännu finare och dyrare kan den nya dvärgcollien visa sig bli - för den är t o m svårare än collie att avla "superperfekt". Och hur är då ett riktigt korrekt, äkta och superbeundransvärt colliehuvud beskaffat?
Jo, det ser ut som på miljonärens hund. Förstås.

Den där journalisten gjorde ett hundraprocentigt jobb. Att i en enda artikel fånga in allt struntprat, alla ogrundade påståenden, all namesdropping och allt snobberi som funnits med i den här versionen av hundavel från början och fram till nu är baske mig beundransvärt!

Bodil Carlsson

(Även dessa foton från det historiska bildgalleri som vi länkar till.)