INTRODUCTION TO THE 18TH & 19TH CENTURIES

Above, a sheepdog with his flock,
a gorgeous 19th century illustration,
artist unknown. (Thanks to Niki Sawyer.)

Left, an 18th century engraving of a working sheepdog going over the backs of the sheep. Artist unknown.

The 18th and 19th centuries are the richest feeding ground for those interested in the history of the shepherd's dog. For one thing, taxonomy, the science of classification, flourished; and for another, naturalism, the observation of nature to gain knowledge, thrived and caught on among ordinary people. There was a genuine hunger for knowledge and a striving to satisfy that hunger. We have many notable examples of the shepherd's dog in literature and art on this website, but, as we don't have room for full pages on every artist or author, or on every work, some will only be mentioned here, others might have a paragraph or more devoted to them on this page if it's warrented. Those that appear in links do have their own web pages on this site.

Myriad natural histories were written in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Comte de Buffon's Natural History in 36 volumes was written between 1749 and 1788. In 1790, Thomas Bewick's History of Quadrupeds was published. Around 1800 Sydenham Edwards' Cynographica Britannica, an encyclopedia of British dog breeds, was published. The Rev. W. Bingley's Memoirs of British Quadrupeds came out in 1809. William Youatt wrote The Dog in 1845.

Right, the following three illustrations are James Hamilton Fennell's Natural History of British and Foreign Quadrupeds (Joseph Thomas, London, 1841).

One natural history that seems a cut above the rest is A Natrual History of British and Foreign Quadrupeds, Containing Many Modern Discoveries, Original Observations, and Numerous Anecdotes by James Hamilton Fennell. In the 18th Century, it was common to give non-fiction books long, descriptive titles. Fennell's Natural History may have been as derivative as most others were, but not so obviously so, and he expresses disdain for Buffon in his preface, and for good reason. Buffon came up with (dare I say hairbrained?) theories that could not be substantiated scientifically, and lesser writers than Fennell happily repeated them. Fennell also has a longer chapter devoted to the shepherd's dog than other natural histories of the day, including some descriptive anecdotes that unfortunately we don't have room for here. About the "Shepherd's Dog or Colley," Fennell wrote:

He is of all dogs the most intelligent and faithful, and at the same time the most useful. In the wild and mountainous parts of Scotland and Wales...we shall find him left in care of hundreds of sheep, and displaying the greatest activity, vigilance, and courage in minding his charge.

Some of these dogs possess the faculty of discovering by the smell any sheep which may have had the misfortune to be overblown by the snow, in which scores of them are frequently buried to a depth of several feet in a very few hours after the snow has commenced. When the dog is used for this purpose he is called a sheep-setter, or sheep-finder.

The duties of the sheep-dog, when attending a flock on the road, demand his constant watchfulness and exertion. One minute he is barking with all his might to urge on the main body--now he is bounding forward to restrain stragglers--now circling the flock,--and now again returning to his master's side, to receive his look of approbation or his further commands.

A good sheep-dog possesses the sense of sight so perfectly, that he can readily discover a strange sheep among a very large flock under his care. When there is an intruder among the flock, the drover has only to give the word to his dog, and the sagacious animal dashes forward over the several fleecy backs, singles out the runaway without the least hesitation, and seizing him by the loose skin of the neck, bears him to the ground, and holds him fast until assistance arrives.

Fennell, like Bewick, divides shepherd's dogs into three categories or types: the Shepherd's Dog or Colley; the English Sheep-Dog or Southern Sheep-Dog; and the Cur or Drover's Dog. "The English sheep-dog," he says, "is larger and less shaggy than the colley." Of the English or Southern sheep-dog, Fennel wrote:

This breed seems to have originated in a cross of the colley with the mastiff. While the former is the Scottish and Welsh sheep-dog, the present animal is the original or true English one, although the colley is now in general use on the extensive downs of Wiltshire, and in some other parts of this country."

While it appears that Fennell must be describing the Old English Sheepdog here or one of the similar types used on the English Downs, his illustrations belie this assumption, and he appears to be actually speaking of a smooth-collie-type. Separating the shepherd's dog into three distict breeds and assuming crosses with other breeds only tends to confuse things.

Elzear Blaze's History of the Dog in 8 volumes, published in Paris in 1843, made this interesting observation:

When...manifest surperiority is combined with good nature, the dog will sometimes take only a playful vengeance. Colonel Hamilton Smith witnessed a curious scene between a cur and a shepherd's dog, in which the former had bitten a sheep, and the latter to punish him dragged him by his ear to a puddle, where he kept dabbling him in the mud.

Right, an 18th century illustration of a shepherd, artist unknown. The shepherd is playing on a curved pipe or horn. With him is his dog, which seems almost like an afterthought, it is so relatively small. In the background are his charges, sheep and cattle. The shepherd has a stick as well (on the ground near his right foot, but it's more like a walking stick, with a knob on the top instead of a crook.

In 1866, George R. Jesse wrote a book with the very ambitious title of Researches into the History of the British Dog from Ancient Laws, Charters, and Historical Records with Original Anecdotes and Illustrations of the Nature and Attributes of the Dog from the Poets and Prose Writers of Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Times. Jesse was an avid early animal welfare advocate and anti-vivisectionist. He wrote many books and articles championing the rights of "lower animals" including "Legislation for Songbirds" and "Worming for Canine Rabies" (he was vigorously opposed to muzzling dogs for rabies), and Researches into the History of the British Dog was hailed as "...the first comprehensive book on the history of the individual breeds of dog". It was not, however, a breed book as such, as Jesse used literature to illustrate history. The shepherd's dog is represented by a poem by John Wolcott (a.k.a., Peter Pindar, 1738-1819), called "The Old Shepherd's Dog" and by quoting Bewick. Katharaine M. Rogers points out that:

The nineteenth-century public had an insatiable appetite for anecdotes illustrating the moral and intellectual virtues of dogs. George R. Jesse filled the pages of his scholarly Researches...with anecdotes illustrating its faithfulness, sagacity, love, vigilance, and compassion. (First Friend: A History of Dogs and Humans by Katharaine M. Rogers, 2005, Macmillan.)

As the Honorary Secretary of the Society for the Total Abolition and Utter Suppression of Vivisection, Jesse was part of a committee (which included Charles Darwin) that convinced the British Government to put forth a bill to regulate the performance of painful experiments on animals, which became law in 1876.

Left, "The Shepherd's Dog", an illustration from the Manual of British Rural Sports by Stonehenge, a wood engraving by "Messrs. Dalziel and Hodgkin from drawings by Wells, Harvey, and Hind."

John Henry Walsh (1810-1888), a sports writer and editor of The Field, who used the pseudonym of "Stonehenge", wrote Dogs of the British Isles in 1867, which included a chapter on Sheep and Drovers' Dogs. His Manual of British Rural Sports (1859, Routledge, Warnes, & Routledge, London) also had a section on the Shepherd's and Drover's Dogs. He obviously had a very poor opinion of them, for they weren't sporting dogs, afterall, and he seemed to feel that they and their equally disreputable owners were poaching game that rightfully belonged to the sportsman:

Right, "Waiting for Master" by Edward Robert Smythe (1810-1899).

The Shepherd's and Drover's dogs are very closely allied, and though not used by the sportsman, yet they are often vexationsly in the way, being employed by poachers to an extent which is scarccely to be wondered at when we consider in whose hands they are constantly kept. These dogs are wonderfully sagacious, and though they have a fine and sharp muzzle, yet they can rival most spaniels in their power of working-out a delicate scent...Their power of endurance is also wonderful, and they will guard a flock of sheep by constantly galloping round them for many hours together. Many singular tales are told of their rocovering lost lambs or sheep, or even whole flocks, when they have been overtaken by snow storms; but it is as game-poachers that they here come under consideration. [!]

The most useful and sagacious of all is the Scotch colly, well represented in the ...engraving. He is more hairy, and with a sharper and more fox-like nose than the English sheep-dog or than the drover's dog...It is, however, now generally admitted that the Scotch dog bears the palm in all respects; but still alloyed by a provoking tendency to poach, both in destroying eggs and young leverets, and in afterwards helping to seize game of all kinds and ages.

Left, a shepherd's dog from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1797.

The Rev. J. G. Wood, a very prolific author of natural histories, had published The Illustrated Natural History in 1865, Natural History Picture Book for Children in 1891, Illustrated Natural History for Young People in 1882, among other books. The popular Chambers's English Readers for children, edited by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, and published by William & Robert Chambers in 1878 observed that "The sheep-dog or collie looks after the sheep, and is best friend of the shepherd."

In fact, William and Robert Chambers published numerous encyclopedic books, some of which have at least paragraphs on the shepherd's dog. Their Chambers's Informatin for the People, Volume I (1884), for example, under the heading "Sheep" gives this sage advice:

The tendency which most sheep have to ramble, renders it necessary for them to be attended by a shepherd and his dog. The duties of a shepherd are irksome, and require to be performed by a man of firm resolution, good temper, and discretion. To keep the flock within bounds may be troublesome, but much may be done in the way of prevention; and, at all events, the sheep must not be harassed and chased as if they were so many wild beasts. Being naturally of a timid and gentle nature, the sheep ought to be treated with gentleness. Lazy shepherds who do not exercise a judicious foresight in keeping the flock to its ground, try to remedy the evil by hounding or driving the dog after the stragglers, besides giving no small toll to their own limbs in running. We are desirous to lay it down as a rule, which however, is well known to all good shepherds, that there should be only a rare and cautious use of the dog. Much also depends on the dog being of the proper breed, and well trained to his duty. A good dog gives little tongue; he is seldom heard to bark; his great knack consists in getting speedily and quietly round the further extremity of the flock, and then driving them slowly before him in the direction which his master has pointed out...Under-bred dogs bark at and fly upon the poor animals chasing them hither and thither without purpose. All such dogs should be destroyed. A first-rate shepherd's dog is invaluable to the store-farmer, and no reasonable price should be grudged to obtain one.

Right, "Shepherd's Dog" from the American Cyclopaedia, artist unknown.

America was not neglected by natural history authors of the period. In 1848 the American Agriculturist (Vol. VII, No. III, March 1848) published an article on The Shepherd's Dog. The American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge, edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana (Vol. VI, D. Appleton & Co., London and NY) came out in 1874. Of the shepherd's dog it said:

At the head of the list of the domestic canines of temperate Europe stands the shepherd's dog...its appearance is rather unpromising; its shaggy hair is generally varied black and gray, the ears are short and erect, and the tail is bushy and curved; having been trained from time immemorial to the care of flocks, its peculiar faculties seem to be instinctive, and its sagacity, fidelity, and courage are not excelled by any species of dog; the height is not quite 2 ft., but the form is very muscular. This breed is confined to temperate and southern Europe. The true shepherd's dog attends the flocks, keeps them together, and protects them from violence. A variety called the drover's dog, somewhat larger and more rugged, is of great assistance in driving sheep and cattle to market.

The Shepherd's Dog from Dogs, Their Origin and Varieties by H. D. Richardson, James McGlashan (publisher), Dublin, 1847.

Another American-published work, Glimpses of the Animate World, Or, Science and Literature of Natural History for School and Home, compiled and arranged by James Johonnoot (Appleton & Co., New York, 1888) had a chapter called "Our Canine Servants" which noted "The shepherd's dog will not desert his charge even to get food to save him from starvation." Most of the later natural histories, no matter where they were published, were fairly derivative of earlier works like Buffon and Bewick. All were liberally illustrated, the earlier ones with engravings, the later ones with photographs, and the illustrations seem eerily similar as well.

Although we have few works of poetry or narrative prose from that very fertile period that refer to the shepherd's dog, we fortunately have some notable exceptions in Robert Burns and James Hogg; and literary giants like Wordsworth (1770-1850), Thackery (1811-1863), and Hardy (1840-1928) at least mention the shepherd's dog. In Far From the Madding Crowd (1874), Hardy's protagonist, Gabriel Oak, looses his entire flock, and consequently his livelihood. For Oak, being a simple shepherd with nothing to his name, such a loss is a tragedy:

Right, "Help, the Railway Dog" from Our Railways, Their Origin, Development, Incident, and Romance, Volume II by John Pendleton, Cassell and Company Ltd. London, 1896. Help was described as a "fine Scotch collie" and his job was to raise money for the orphans of railway men who were killed on duty.

Gabriel had two dogs. George, the elder...had originally belonged to a shepherd of inferior morals and dreadful temper, and the result was that George knew the exact degrees of condemnation signified by cursing and swearing...Long experience had so precisely taught the animal the difference between such exclamations as "Come in!" and "D____ ye, come in!" that he knew to a hair's breadth the rate of trotting back from the ewes' tails that each call involved, if a staggerer with the sheep-crook was to be escaped. Though old, he was clever and trustworthy still.

The young dog, George's son, might possibly have been the image of his mother, for there was not much resemblance between him and George. He was learning the sheep-keeping business, so as to follow on at the flock when the othe should die, but had got no further than the rudiments as yet--still finding an insuperable difficulty in distinguishing between doing a thing well enough and doing it too well. So earnest and yet so wrong-headed was this young dog...that if sent behind the flock to help them on...he would have chased them across the whole country with the greatest pleasure if not called off...

. . . One night, when Farmer Oak had returned to his house, believing there would be no further necessity for his attendance on the down, he called as usual to the dogs...Only one responded--old George; the other could not be found...Just before dawn [Oak] was assisted in waking by the abnormal reverberation of...the sheepbell[s]...The experienced ear of Oak knew the sound he now heard to be caused by the running of the flock with great velocity. . . . On the extreme summit...he saw the younger dog standing against the sky...A horrible conviction darted thrugh Oak. With a sensation of bodily faintness he advanced: at one point the rails were broken through, and there he saw the footprints of his ewes...Oak looked over the precipice. The ewes lay dead and dying at its foot--a heap of two hundred carcases, representing in their condition just now at least two hundred more.

As far as could be learnt it appeared that the poor young dog, still under the impression that he was kept for running after the sheep...had...collected all the ewes into a corner, driven the timid creatures through the hedge, across the upper field, and by main force of worrying had given them momentum enough to break down a portion of the rotten railing, and so hurled them over the edge

George's son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot.

Left, "the shepherd's dog" by English artist Samuel Howitt (1765-1822), is an illustrations for Memoirs of British Quadrupeds by the Rev. W. Bingley (1809).

The first half of the 20th century found writers still being influenced by taxonomy and naturalism when W.H. Hudson wrote A Shepherd's Life: Impressions of the South Wiltshire Down in 1910, Adelaide Gossett published her Shepherds of Britain in 1911, and Shepherds of Sussex by Barclay Wills was published in 1938; so these writers must also be included here as well.

At the same time that naturism was flourishing in literature, genre art (art that depicts scenes or events from everyday life) was also growing in popularity, and it is through artists and illustrators like David Wilkie, Edwin landseer, Richard Ansdell, Myles Birket Foster, Albrecht Schenck, Harrison Weir, Edwin Douglas, Heywood Hardy, Joseph Farquharson, and Beatrix Potter, that we have a clearer picture of the role that the shepherd's dog played in pastoral life, but also in ordinary life, in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th century Britain.

Copyright 2008 by Carole L. Presberg

THESE ARE THE WEB PAGES WE MAINTAIN

These web pages are copyright 2008 and maintained by webmeistress Carole Presberg and webwizard David Presberg.

shepdog@gis.net.