Robert Leighton

Persons unfamiliar with the sporting properties of this long-bodied breed are apt to refer smilingly to the Dachshund as “the dog that is sold by the yard,” and few even of those who know him give credit to the debonair little fellow for the grim work which he is intended to perform in doing battle with the vicious badger in its lair. Dachshund means “badger dog,” and it is a title fairly and squarely earned in his native Germany.

There can hardly have been a time since the period of the Norman Conquest when the small earth dogs which we now call terriers were not known in these islands and used by sporting men as assistants in the chase, and by husbandmen for the killing of obnoxious vermin. The two little dogs shown in the Bayeux tapestry running with the hounds in advance of King Harold's hawking party were probably meant for terriers. Dame Juliana Berners in the fifteenth century did not neglect to include the “Teroures” in her catalogue of sporting dogs, and a hundred years later Dr.

In the fourth chapter of Macaulay's History of England we read of King Charles II. that “he might be seen before the dew was off the grass in St. James's Park, striding among the trees playing with his Spaniels and flinging corn to his ducks, and these exhibitions endeared him to the common people, who always like to see the great unbend.”

The Schipperke may fitly be described as the Paul Pry of canine society. His insatiate inquisitiveness induces him to poke his nose into everything; every strange object excites his curiosity, and he will, if possible, look behind it; the slightest noise arouses his attention, and he wants to investigate its cause. There is no end to his liveliness, but he moves about with almost catlike agility without upsetting any objects in a room, and when he hops he has a curious way of catching up his hind legs.