The Bull Terrier - A Comprehensive Treatise On The History, Management, Breeding, Training, Care, Showing And Judging

By E. S. Montgomery

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Schwarz Press
• Release date: Oct 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781528763271

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THE

BULL TERRIER

A Comprehensive Treatise on the History,

Management, Breeding, Training,

Care, Showing and Judging

BY

E. S. MONTGOMERY

A.B., B.S., M.S., M.D.

ILLUSTRATED

1946

From an oil painting by Edwin Megargee

Champion Heir Apparent to Monty-Ayr owned by Mrs. E. S. Montgomery.

Dedication

When the omnipotent Creator of the universe first fashioned this world and cast it into space; when He chiseled the lofty mountain peak from the bosom of Nature and sent the green-blue stream laughing and dancing from its side; when He made the moon and the stars to shine, lighting the world by night; when He caused the sun to shine by day, warming the very body of the earth and clothed all Nature in a garment of green, He saw there was something lacking. He took his chisel and cut a figure of a dog from a rude block of white granite—then, taking a suggestion from the beauty of the snow, the grace of the fawn, the symmetry of the clouds, and the very bounty of Nature, He combined them all into one and made a Bull Terrier—companion to man.

MRS. E. S. MONTGOMERY

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

PREFACE

PART I

MAN AND HIS DOG

PART II

THE BULL AND TERRIER BREED THROUGH THE YEARS

The Early Foundation of the Bull and Terrier Breed. The Bull and Terrier-like Bulldog. The Fighting Terrier. The Blue Paul. The Staffordshire Terrier. The Early English Bull Terrier. The Miniature Bull Terrier. The Colored Bull Terrier.

PART III

THE BULL TERRIER TODAY

His Beginning. His External Characteristics. His Character and Personality. His Development and Heredity. His Breeding and Care. His Conditioning and Training for Show Ring and Field.

PART IV

THE BULL TERRIER ON EXHIBITION

The Contribution of James Hinks. Kennel Clubs and Their Work in England and America. Breeding Suggestions and Requirements. Downface, by Perry M. Chadwick. Dog Shows—Their Purposes and Value. How to Show Your Bull Terrier. Bull Terrier Kennels, Their Personalities in Dogs and Owners. The Private Life of the Bull Terrier and his Owners. In Reflection. Fanciers’ Opinions and Views. The Bull Terrier in South America.

BULL TERRIER PROSE AND POESY

STANDARDS OF PERFECTION FOR THE BULL TERRIER IN AMERICA AND ENGLAND

CHALLNGE CERTIFICATE WINNERS, 1922 TO DATE

REGENT TROPHY WINNERS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NAME INDEX

SUBJECT INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS

Champion Heir Apparent to Monty-Ayr (from an Oil Painting by Edwin Megargee).

Champion Rhapsody in White

Champion Ruffian Our Teenie

Champion Silver Blaze

Charles G. and Fred Hopton, with Two Bulldogs and a White Bull Terrier in the Year 1890

Champion Bloomsbury King

Champion Brendon Blue Stocking

Miniature Forecast of Monty-Ayr

Buxton Blackout

Welterweight Corinthian

English Champion Lady Winifred

English Champion Bocko’s Brock, Wickselme Brock’s Double, and Wickselme Wallflower

Blue Cross Boy Going Best of Breed at the Big-Top Show Held in Birmingham, July, 1944

Brendan Toreador

Brendon Brigantine

Champion Beltona Brindigal

Anatomical Sketch of a Bull Terrier

Champion Coolyn Dixie Clipper

English and American Champion Raydium Brigadier of Coolyn Hill

Champion Coolyn North Wind

Three Monty-Ayr Puppies

Champion White Queen of Monty-Ayr

Betsy Ross of Coolyn Hill, with Daughters

Woodcote Wonder and Woodcote Pride

Champion Peeble Again

The Silver Litter

English Champion Black Coffee

English Champion Isthmian Centre Forward

Champion Raydium Repulse

Champion Gallalaw Benefactor

Champion Raydium Avenger of Westmeath

Champion Slam of Blighty

Lord Gladiator

English Champion Gardenia

Champion Faultless of Blighty with Dolores Del Rio

William Faversham, Noted English and American Actor with Don Balsamo

William Faversham with English and American Champion Shure Thing

Champion Haymarket Faultless

English and American Champion Allfire Alive

English and American Champion Shure Thing

Canadian and American Champion Coolridge Lilywhite

Champion Buccaneer

Champion Gardenia Tony

English and American Champion Faultless of Blighty

Champion Furore Ferment

Canadian and American Champion Haymarket Dawn

Champion Ferdinand of Ormandy and Champion Another Queen of Brum

English and American Champion Kowhai Lady

Champion Brendon Boomerang

Champion Cylva Becky Sharpe

Champion Pep’s Bad Boy of Nelloyd and Champion Glory of Patch of Nelloyd

English Champions Brendon Barbed Wire and Brendon Gold Standard

English Champion Rhoma

English Champion White Rose Girl

English Champion Gardenia Guardsman

English Champion Bricktops Ace of Aces

Caradoc

Oldlane Iceberg

Oldlane White Hope

Isthmian Home Guard

English Champion Velhurst Vindicator

Champion the Mayor of Little Willows, Shown with Cary Grant

Rosanne Bennett with Champion Brendon Boomerang and Champion Coolyn Chatterbox

King’s Sassy Sue

Champion Duncan Willie of Camaloch

Champion Charlwood Dream Girl and Champion Cappy Ricks II

Blodwen of Voewood

Ishmian Good Shot

Willie, the Late General George S. Patton’s Bullterrier

Champion Ormandy’s Mr. McGuffin and Ormandy’s Mr. McRumpus

Piccadilly Red Diploma

The Regent Trophy

Figures 1-3

Figures 4-5

Figures 6-7

Figures 8-9

FOREWORD

I HAVE JUST finished reading the final proof of Dr. Montgomery’s new book on the Bull Terrier and find it excellent reading. Little did I think when I first met the author at a Westminster Kennel Club show some years ago that twenty years later, he would produce such a monumental work on the Bull Terrier. At our first meeting, Dr. Montgomery, then only a college student, had just finished showing a homebred Pointer to best of breed, and he cornered me at the Bull Terrier benches and poured questions at me about Faultless and his ability as a sire on outcross bitches and on inbred bitches, his capability and stamina in field, and so many others that I was literally snowed under.

In his book, the author has compiled a wealth of material that most of us old uns know nothing about. The greater portion of bullbaiting, dog fighting and early attempts at breeding a fighting terrier" are most interesting and informative reading. The author has presented the history of the Bull Terrier in sequence from its very earliest beginnings until the period of World War II. In so doing, he has been both interesting and enlightening and I am sure that his book will be accepted as an authoritative treatise on the Bull Terrier.

Of the Bull Terrier, little can be said that is not disclosed in this book and I can only add that the Bull Terrier is all that Dr. Montgomery has claimed for it. The Bull Terrier’s devotion, love and loyalty are beyond the understanding of most of us. His gaiety, gentleness, and companionable qualities are extraordinary. He offers the best to his owner and in return deserves love and affection.

When a man who has the knowledge of animals, especially dogs, and the experience with Bull Terriers, and the trained scientific mind of a diagnostician puts his store of information into words to give to those who want a better understanding of the Bull Terrier, the result is a source of enlightenment and pleasure to all and that is exactly what Dr. Montgomery has produced in his book on the Bull Terrier.

It is good that we emeritus breeders can pass the reins to such an energetic and enthusiastic Bull Terrier breeder, exhibitor, judge, and now author, as Dr. Montgomery.

R. H. ELLIOTT

Ottawa, Ontario,

Canada.

PREFACE

DOGS—especially Bull Terriers—are among the most interesting things in the world! That, at least, is the conviction that has directed the twenty years of Bull Terrier breeding and exhibiting that help make up this volume.

Before explaining my reasons for writing this book, let me first apologize for adding my meager volume to the contributions and far more learned compilations which have been edited by Adair Dighton, T. W. Hogarth and others.

In a sense this volume is the outgrowth of personal observations and, taken with an understanding of Bull Terrier lore, provides an intimate commentary on the story of the bull and terrier breed. It is a casebook of the mainsprings of Bull Terrier history which I hope may prove interesting and entertaining to the novice and veteran breeder alike. That, at any rate, has been my aim.

Let me be even more personal; with an abiding interest in the history of the Bull Terrier and the multifarious forces which have helped and hindered the breed, it is only natural that my writing should give dominant attention to the dogs of modern times and the harvest of my own experience.

The writer has aimed to give in a popular manner, a complete survey of the Bull Terriers of the world, especially of England, Canada and America, because it is with these dogs that he is most thoroughly acquainted. While the manner aims to be popular, and while the author hopes to make the book interesting reading, it is his ambition to be everywhere in accord with the latest show data, breeding data, and scientific study of the breed of Bull Terriers. He believes that the beginner, the novice, and even the for specials only class of breeders and exhibitors may find scattered through this volume, new information and new data drawn from the author’s long and systematic observation of dogs in general and Bull Terriers in particular; their peculiarities, their habits, their virtues, their faults; a course pursued in his own home, as an exhibitor, as a judge, and as a lover of all animals.

Some of the plates have been published before but there are many new ones added, and of these, many have been taken from life and as such will be useful to the beginner and to the veteran hand in Bull Terriers and interesting to the general reader. They are not merely pictures of Bull Terriers taken at convenient moments, but rather they are life studies from poses displaying their distinguishing characteristics and involving work beyond conception except to the initiate in animal photography. The cost of the labor alone would be enormous in a work like this, pricing it beyond the reach of the most popular readers, if it were not for the overwhelming cooperation of the Bull Terrier’s friends and breeders.

The beginner, traveling to dog shows near and far, visiting well-known kennels, buying Bull Terriers here and there cannot help but question the number of Bull Terriers now being shown, and even the most passive of these observers cannot refrain from expressing amazement at the array of types of Bull Terriers which go best of breed at the various shows. The reason for this can readily be understood when the student learns to understand human frailty, human differences and the world-old psychology that the dog that goes up is the dog most closely simulating the type of Bull Terrier bred by that particular judge. This is not as it should be because the Bull Terrier should be judged according to the standard of perfection, according to the symmetry, beauty and strength, with the least faults and the most qualifications that make it a good and sound dog, rather than by one outstanding quality which only overshadows but cannot cover many grave faults.

It is with the present day Bull Terrier that the writer begs leave to escort the reader within the portals of his favorite study. That many encounter the breed of Bull Terriers with aversion is fully believed; that many dislike the breed because of its reputation as a street fighter is firmly understood; but it is the writer’s hope that before this book is closed, a persistently reigning and unjust prejudice may be completely shattered by the explosion of a long train of erroneous theories and fallacious ideas about this breed. When Bull Terriers have been disclosed and shown as they truly are, and the beautiful, clean, graceful, and wonderful animals that they really prove to be have been portrayed by one who has lived with and loved the breed beyond the comprehension of most mortals, there will then begin a new era of Bull Terrier lore. It is with a thoroughly sympathetic interest that the author writes this book.

While his love and study has involved dogs, cows, horses and animals in general, his favorite creature in nature has, since early boyhood days, been the Bull Terrier. When he was five years old, the author picked up a cream and white pit bull which had been running in the streets of his home town. He took him home, fed him, and kept him for many months until he had to relinquish the dog to the rightful owner. Many weeks afterward the Bull Terrier came seventy miles to visit, and these visits kept up against the original owner’s wishes, until finally the Bull Terrier was killed by a truck. This truly shows the early beginning of the attachment of the author for the bull and terrier breed.

After the novice has frequented the shows and after he has discovered the type and strain of Bull Terrier that he wants to breed, it then becomes increasingly difficult to establish a good breeding program because: (1) Breeders are reluctant to sell their best specimens and (2) because, regardless of who takes care of the dog, it eventually narrows down to a steady, time-consuming hobby and, if good Bull Terriers are to be bred, it will necessitate additional people to make breeding a serious business. If the breed is to be improved, it follows as the night and day, that Bull Terriers must go in their rightful place in the terrier group and best-in-show wins, and if this is not done, the Bull Terrier will remain the bad-boy of the terrier group. The commonness of some of the Bull Terriers exhibited today is surprising. The lack of breeder-owner champions is increasing and it becomes incumbent upon new breeders of Bull Terriers to begin to adhere strictly to the principles of breeding better Bull Terriers of sound body and even disposition.

I am much indebted to many persons for their many excellent suggestions in the preparation of this manuscript and to some few persons for their careful criticism of the text of this book. To all those who have contributed chapters to the book, and in other ways given me the benefit of their assistance, I take sincere pleasure in returning my thanks.

THE AUTHOR

PART I

MAN AND HIS DOG

THE BULL TERRIER

AS FAR AS WE KNOW, there has never existed any race of mankind which has not in some way exercised dominion over the lower animals to which man is entitled by virtue of his birth. Even among the earliest prehistoric races, there is sufficient evidence to show that although the wild animals which existed in these remote ages were larger, more powerful, more numerous, and in all probability more formidable antagonists than any which are found at the present day; man could not only cope with them but also overcome them. But what animal can claim the honor of being the first companionable associate of man? Certainly not the elephant, for the services which this gigantic beast renders to man belong to a very advanced stage of civilization and would have been of no value to primitive man, who could no more make use of the elephant than of a Diesel engine.

Was it the ox or the goat, or the sheep, or the horse, or the ass, or the dog? I have little hesitation in giving the verdict in favor of the last mentioned animal for the claims of the dog seem to me to be paramount. Let us try to imagine ourselves in the position of primal man. What kind of assistance should we need from the animal world? We have not learned to till the soil; we have not learned to lay up food for the morrow, but we live in an animal stage of existence. We live wholly by the chase and therefore we need the help of some creature which is swifter than ourselves and which will enable us to capture prey which would have otherwise escaped us because our limbs are too slow and our jaws are not furnished with teeth to retain the prey when it is caught. The animal must be so docile that he will give up his captive to the command of his trainer and must be so attached to his owner and prefer his society to his own kind that he will not attempt to escape even when in perfect liberty to do so.

There is only one animal in which all these qualities are combined and that is the dog. Then suppose that this creature of which he is in chase has concealed himself in some unknown hiding place. Man needs an assistant whose sense of smell is so keen that it is independent of eye, who can trace the prey as infallibly by scent as if it were in full view. This capability is possessed by the dog.

This invaluable animal has also several other qualities which might be an asset to man. When man has sufficiently advanced in civilization to accumulate property, his dog will watch over his master’s goods and defend them at the risk of losing his own life. When he learns the value of intercommunication with other tribes, the dog affords means of locomotion and will convey him and his property through and over obstacles which none but the dog can overcome. He also acts as a beast of burden and there are large tracts of the earth’s surface where the dog is the only animal which can carry a load.

Lastly, when the process of civilization has set the dog free from the necessity of acting as a servant of man, it still retains its connection with the superior being and becomes his faithful companion and loving friend. The dog was never conquered. He needed no conquest but voluntarily attached himself to man and is never found except as a companion of man.

Men of science in the olden time took very little interest in knowing whence our useful domestic animals descended. Though most of them were not disposed to consider Noah’s Ark as the cradle of all the species, they did not delve much deeper into this interesting problem. We may even say that the study of the races of the domestic animals extends back at the most, a century. It is true that men like Belon (1554), Kampfer (1712), Guldenstadt (1776), and Pallas (1776), as well as Ehrenberg, Reichenbach, and others, tried to throw some light upon the question, which however, was not cleared up until 1884. About that year very interesting excavations were made of prehistoric lake cities in Switzerland, which brought to light remains of animals, chiefly dogs, older than any hitherto known and recognized. Then, and especially after the publication of the masterpieces of Darwin on domestic animals and plants, scientific men like Yeiteless, Rutimeyer and Naumann, concerned themselves seriously about the unknown ancestors of the domestic dog. Those ancestors had left no other inheritance than a few bones and broken skulls; but these remains, such as they were, were minutely examined. The Austrian professor, L. H. Yeiteless, was so enthusiastic in his work along this line that he even dedicated one of the skulls, found near Olmutz, to the memory of his mother who had died in 1869, skull of canis matris optimae.

Nevertheless, in spite of minute researches, no certainty has yet been attained as to the origin of the domestic dog. We can still make only suppositions, and these attribute the paternity of the race, in the first instance, to the jackal and a species of Indian wolf. We cannot therefore know with certainty what animal species it was that, in its primitive state, first felt itself attracted to man; but it is certain that individual self-interest, both in man and beast, played a chief part in that treaty of friendship. The fires where they could warm themselves, the mounds of slaughtered game, must have brought the wild canine animals near to man. The bones of dogs found in the oldest human caves of the Stone Age prove that man sought and attracted the dog to feed upon him. Therefore it seems that there was self-interest on both sides. But this selfishness was destined to have fortunate results, for interests in common soon bear fruit. In the first place, the supreme question for both was how to procure food; next, how to be able to defend themselves in their painful struggle for existence. These two natural necessities made closer contact desirable, and primitive man was intelligent enough to see in the dog a skillful hunter and a brave defender. The dog, on his side, must have found great advantages in the neighborhood of man. Through the thick veil that covers the primitive epoch of our planet we early see the man and dog forming companionship, while the other animals, domesticated later, keep themselves at a distance, fierce, distrustful and unapproachable.

Dogs have always been held in great esteem, especially in Europe and America. It is true that in civilized countries men no longer shave their heads on the death of a favorite dog as was the ancient custom in Egyptian families, but admiration is never lacking. Xenophon called the dog an invention of the gods. Among the Greeks, his compatriots, hunting was an art practiced with the greatest skill and their poets praised in verse the excellent qualities of hunting dogs. Homer, father of Greek literature, devotes many lines to those animals. Mythology represents them as powerful and miraculous. The Romans employed them as fighters in the arena, and to a lesser degree in the chase; and by the great quantity of dog flesh which they offered in sacrifice to the gods, we see in what high esteem they held the animal. The Romans, moreover gave dogs a good, though severe, education; and once a year they whipped them soundly because they did not bark at the attack on the Capitol, when the geese showed greater vigilance. In the Low Countries, later, rigorous severity was shown against heedless or criminal dogs. It was thus that the dog Provetie, belonging to Jans van der Poel, was condemned by the aldermen of the city of Leyden to be hanged by the public executioner in the market place, where it was customary to punish criminals. His possessions were confiscated with all the solemnity befitting such punishment. After this event the inhabitants of Leyden were long nicknamed hangers of dogs. Little did they think that in 1574 during the siege of their city, that they would learn by sad experience that it was better to eat dogs than to hang them.

The predilection that princes and celebrated persons have shown for these animals proves the esteem in which they were held. Henri II now and then wore round his neck a basket in which were young puppies, so Sully relates in his memoirs. Frederick the Great allowed his Greyhounds the utmost liberty, both indoors and out at his chateau of Sans Souci. One of these famous hounds, named Biche, was taken prisoner at the battle of Soor (1745) and was only restored to her master after long and ceremonious negotiation. James II of England cried out to his sailors, when the ship in which he sailed was in sore peril, Save my dogs and Marlborough!!

In our day Queen Victoria was a great lover of pure-blooded dogs, a fondness for which she inherited from her mother, the Duchess of Kent, who throughout her life took the utmost care of her kennels. We should know better what Richard Wagner thought of these animals if he had lived to finish his book, History of My Dogs. It is well-known that the master of Bayreuth loved dogs and owned several highly bred species, among them Newfoundlands and St. Bernards. A friend of his relates that he one day compelled a street urchin to sell him for a thaler an old half-blind dog which the boy was about to drown. The dog bit his rescuer, but Wagner, instead of punishing him, found him an asylum. Dickens, in his account of My Father as I Recall Him, describes with much sympathy and affection the dogs in his paternal home. Zola’s pets, especially Pin, must often have consoled him in the days of his painful struggle. Pin’s full name was Chevalier Hector Pin-Pin de Coq-Hardi but Zola called him friend and comrade.

It seems quite possible that dogs now and then may even malign each other in their lànguage but as longs as their speech remains incomprehensible to us, so do their chief characteristics remain hidden.

Their fidelity is proverbial. Hundreds of instances could be given in which dogs will not quit the dead bodies of their masters, but seek—positively seek—death upon their graves. As for their vigilance we could cite not hundreds, but thousands of cases in which they have prevented great evils, and many more will remain forever unknown.

On January 27, 1897, the little daughter of a shepherd, in the province of the Loire, was sitting at the edge of a forest when a wild boar rushed out in front of her. She tried to run away, but fell; the animal wounded her in the back and was about to strike again, but as she fell she called to the dog which was not far off: Help! Help! Bas Rouge! The brave dog, understanding the danger, sprang upon the boar, which was far stronger than himself and caught the ear, not letting it go till the child had time to get up and run away; he then abandoned the unequal contest and the boar, severely bitten, took to the woods.

Everyone knows how the little dog of Prince William I of Orange saved his master from an attempt on his life by barking, in order to awaken him, the memory of which is immortalized in the statue of William the Silent at the Hague.

Another of the dog’s good qualities is that he forgets very quickly any wrong that has been done him, if the doer is a friend. If, on the contrary, he is an enemy, he is never safe in the vicinity of the animal he has prejudiced against him. Dogs never fail to recognize their friends. Is it by sight, smell, hearing, or some intuitive perception of good will? It is probably