麻豆约拍

Anyone who has tuned in to will know that dog breeding is big business. But when did it start?

In Making History, presenters Tom Holland and Iszi Lawrence are joined by Ciara Farrell and Caroline Kisco from the Kennel Club Library to discuss the origins of dog fancying – the breeding and showing of pedigreed dogs – along with the beginnings of the breeds we know and love today. Why does the Jack Russell owe its existence to a milkman and a vicar? Who ‘invented’ the Doberman? And what was the sad fate of the Turnspit dog?

For millennia we’ve had dogs beside us as companions and as working animals, but around the beginning of the Victorian era there was a change in sensibility. People started seeing dogs as animals with agency, that should be treated in a moral way. Where before there had been mostly a working and sporting culture, where dogs were often cruelly treated, a new culture of keeping dogs as pets began to develop.

At the end of the 19th century a German tax collector called Doberman (surprisingly enough) decided he needed a dog to accompany him when he was collecting funds. It wasn’t to frighten people into paying up (although it can’t have hurt) but to guard himself from thieves who might be after the currency he was carrying.

Using a number of different breeds – the Weimaraner, the Pinscher, and an element of German Shepherd – he produced a dog that was fearless but also looked pretty terrifying too.

There’s a breed that – although not fashionable or high-status – was ubiquitous in the kitchens of big houses in this country for centuries. It was called the Turnspit dog and it had possibly the worst canine job of all time.

This long-bodied, short-legged dog went into a little wheel that was mounted on the wall and ran in it like a hamster. This turned a chain, that turned the turnspit, that kept the meat roasting on the great fire.

It used to be that every kitchen had a little troop of these mutts but technology took over from the Turnspit dog and by the 18th century it was already in very low numbers. When the job finally disappeared, the dog died out.

As far as dog breeds go, the Labradoodle is a veritable spring chicken. It was first bred in Australia in the late eighties when a man called Wally had the idea of combining the low-shedding coat of the Poodle with the gentle, hard-working qualities of the Labrador in order to create a guide dog suitable for those with allergies.

The first of these hypoallergenic guide dogs, Suntan, worked with a blind lady in Hawaii for ten years. These days the Labradoodle has taken the world by storm and is now one of the most popular crossbreed dogs on the planet, favoured by the Hollywood rich and famous.