Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 April 1886 — Historic Dogs. [ARTICLE]

Historic Dogs.

At a time when dogs, especially metropolitan dogs, are somewhat under a cloud, says a writer in All the Year Round, it may be well to recall some of the claims of our old friend to respect and esteem. Every one remembers the dog of Ulysses, who died in greeting his master, just returned from his long wanderings, and the story shows the consideration in which the dog was held in the heroic ages of Greece. The old Persians, too, held the dog in high esteem; to the Magianshe was a sacred animal, the representative and Iriend of Ormuzd the Beneficent, and the great satraps were distinguished by their trains of hunting dogs, as was the King himself, and Xerxes set out for the conquest of Greece by a great body guard of faithful dogs. Those most highly prized by the Persians came from India, so-called, probably, from the Bactrian regions, where the dog is still held in high repute. Captain Woods tells us that the old-fashioned Uzbeg would think it no insult to be asked to sell his wife, but would resent an offer for his dog as an unpardonable affront, wh le among the border tribes of Turkestan the epithet of the dogseller is one of the profoundest contempt. Indeed, the birthplace of nations is probably the original home of the dog, and when out Arvan ancestors began to migrate westward from their ancient seats with their flocks and herds they brought with them, no doubt, their fierce and faithful dogs, who have left their descendants of to-day—the English mastiff, the Pyrenean sheep dog, the Albanian wolfhound. Ancient laws, too, record the estimation in which the dog was held: “A herd dog that goes for the sheep in the morning and follows them home at night is worth the best ox,” say the ancient laws of Wales. The best herd dogs of the present day perhaps are the Breton sheep dogs —rough, shaggy uncouth—with an aspect as if they had a little of the blood of bruin in their veins, but highly valued by their possessors, who are not to be tempted into parting with them by anything under the price of the best ox; and the Breton dog is one of the most sagacious of his kind, watching and tending his flocks with an almost incredible zeal and devotion. The man who fell out of his bunk on ship-board explained that his black eye was a berth-mark. The first river you come to in Scotland they will tell you is the Forth.