We have one for cats, so why not one for dogs.

And first up the star of the silver screen Rin Tin Tin;



Photograph of Rin Tin Tin number 1.

There was an earlier German Shepherd screen star called Strongheart. This is a clip of Strongheart from the 1927 film "The return of Boston Blackie"

Oh, MM is going to love this thread! He'll have to move his Picasso dog over here.

And just to show that I like dogs equally as much as cats

There is a lot of historical dog stuff out there, far more than cats.

A lot of dogs depicted in Roman mosaics on this site, though all seem to involve hunting rather than dogs as purely pets.

http://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/dogs-in-ancient-roman-mosaic-art-alexandria-berlin-gaziantep-herculaneum-istanbul-london-naples-paris-pompeii-rome-sicily-tunis-volubilis/

There is quite a lot ID, what should have been a simple post about Greyfriars Bobby ended up uncovering some disagreement;

The traditional view of Bobby


http://greyfriarsbobby.co.uk/

and the revisionist view
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-14424513

Landseer's Dignity and Impudence

Although better known as a painter of horses, George Stubbs also painted dogs, this one of a water spaniel owned by Charles Anderson-Pelham, 1st Baron Yarborough;

Dogs turn up in rock art very early, this is from pre dynastic Egypt, around 4000-3500 BC.

I'm not aware of any representations of 'domestic' cats as early.

The later Egypptians mumified dogs as well,

The rock painting, looks as though they are hunting an ostrich.

A close-up of ,Boye, the "devil dogge pudel" of the Roundhead propagandists, a white hunting poodle owned by Prince Rupert of the Rhine and killed at Marston Moor in 1644.

Not very clear image, this is the link;

http://www.poodlehistory.org/PARMY.HTM

Re the numerous Roman mosaic 'CAVE CANEM' dogs from Pompeii, Alexandria, Pergamon etc...

One has to include this poor little chap from Pompeii: the plaster cast from the mould left by his body buried in volcanic ash, guarding his master's house to the bitter end (although chained to the wall he really had little choice).

When did the British bulldog first appear, I wonder? He's normally associated with John Bull, of course, but I don't know whether John Arbuthnot, who created John Bull in 1712, actually gave JB a pet dog.

The dogs used to bait bulls were mastiffs, I think, not the bulldogs we know today.

Here you go Temp, the history of the Bulldog

http://www.bulldoginformation.com/english-bulldog-history.html

Can't say I'm all that keen on this sort of breeding though, some breeds have terrible genetic problems because it.

Thanks, ID. I was wondering more about the bulldog as a symbol of "Britishness". Apparently it was the Victorians who started all that - especially the cartoonists John Leech and John Tenniel in "Punch":



Tenniel’s talents, Punch’s influence, and the public mood fostered most other satirical artists to render Bull and Britannia in similar style and form. Both were now identified with Great Britain at the peak of her industrial and imperial might. As long as Britannia continued to rule the waves, these national symbols, along with the Lion and the Bulldog, were rendered as essentially positive images. As warriors for the cause they embodied imperial Great Britain. They were not, however, without their rivals or their critics.

He's a real bruiser.

Temperance wrote:

He's a real bruiser.

He looks like an accordion!

Maybe he's a daschund in a corset? Or perhaps his upholstery stretched in the wash? Or he ran full-tilt into a door (Tom and Jerry style). Whatever, his skin looks longer than his body, poor chap. There again maybe it's just a hand-me-down skin from an older sibling.

Just last week I spoke to some one who had bought a bulldog pup. £2000!

How prescient to choose a national symbol that can often barely waddle and appears to have gone head first into a brick wall.

I'm pleased to see that the wee chap (is it a chap?) has kept his tail.

It is a little difficult trying to sift through all the gumph on dogs on the net and find some proper scientific information on their evolution and domestication.

Here is one fascinating set of articles on the subject, seems that exactly when and where dogs became domesticated or indeed even their descent from the grey wolf (as is commonly believed) is not conclusive and is still hotly debated by the experts.

http://www.archaeology.org/1009/dogs/index.html

Statue of a Molossian dog



and some information about this ancient breed of dog;

http://bulldoginformation.com/molossers-mastiff-breeds-history.html

A link about dogs in warfare;

http://community-2.webtv.net/Hahn-50thAP-K9/K9History/

My dog, who gets fed once a day in the evening, as recommended by the vet, has just drawn my attention to this BBC article (although I think it was the two cats that put him up to it - they've been lobbying for ages to get breakfast as well as dinner):

Dogs' breakfast boosts search performance

But seriously I didn't know all that stuff about dog metabolism and switching from using carbohydrates to ketones as an energy source.

As the quoted Dr Miller says, re wolves and coyotes, (whose wild unpredictable diet forces them to run on ketones a lot of the time): "When hungry they become less able to control their behaviour and this might be why, when hungry, they are so much more dangerous and unpredictable." (as opposed to mostly carbohydrate fed domestic dogs running on glucose).

And it occurs to me that this might well have implications in how dogs were originally tamed and domesticated. Scrap food from a successful human hunt would initially be an attraction to scavanging wild canids, but if they are actually fed or steal meaty scraps, and moreover regularly feed on these leftovers/tossed scraps, then dogs not only become used to humans and see them as a useful source of food but also their metabolism changes to make them become more inquisitive, less instictively wary, and also less impulsively aggressive. And this starts a sort of positive feed-back loop ultimately locking the dogs' metabolism and behaviour in with human behaviour.

Just a though....

This is a list of the 10 most intelligent breeds of dog;

http://www.dogcentral.info/top-10-intelligent-dog-breeds/

it says that the most intelligent dog ever was a Border Collie named Rico who understood over 200 words, however there is another Border Collie, Chaser, who understands over 1,000.

Chaser

And Man Created Dog. A doc on the 40,000 yr relationship between man and dog.

It seems that dogs may have been as important to us as we have been to them. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/humanitys-best-friend-how-dogs-may-have-helped-humans-beat-the-neanderthals/257145/

I sometimes wonder if the contribution of children and their apparently instinctive desire to have young creatures as pets has been overlooked in the process of domestication? I can imagine the child bringing a playful and cuddly wolf cub home and because of the hierarchical nature of canid society, its potential for being trained becoming clear.

Along a similar line to the theory in your article ferval, is this video. Where it is suggested that dogs played an integral role in the domestication of certain animals, namely sheep. That without dogs man would not have been able to successfully keep, herd nor protect sheep from predators, particularly in high pastures.

Dogs - Mine has just cost me 120 quid at the vets. When I got home I went on line to a pet store and found I could have saved nearly £40.00. In future I shall just pay for the consultation and buy the necessary medicants at the super store.

In fact I've found that for minor complaints it is better to ask a pharmacist to recommend something, it always seems to work on my dog.

I agree Alan, there was a gap of a couple of years when our island didn't have a vet and one of our pharmasists filled the position quite adequately dealing with all the minor stuff until a new vet came. Although it was a bit odd walking into to the chemists only to find a dog or cat waiting there for their shots!

PS And the pharmasist only charged the cost of the medication too, and not a consultancy fee on top.

Bamse, the mascot of the Royal Norwegian Navy in WW2;



http://www.bamsemontrose.co.uk/

As the doggie page is a tad neglected compared to the moggie one

Oh Trike, I'd forgotten about that one. I'll see your snoopy and raise you one that would bring tears to a glass eye.

When he wasn't churning out stuff like "The World as Will and Representation" or slagging off Hegel, Schopenhauer was probably brushing out his poodle's ears. He much preferred poodles to humans.

He had several of these dogs, but Atman is probably the most famous. Here is a picture of AS with Atman:



They look a right pair of miseries to me.

Here's another, earlier, picture.

"Never mind all that crap about transcendental ideality, just throw the ball..."

Forget all the transcendental stuff... I just see those photos as further evidence that dog owners tend to look like their dogs!

Oh dear, so what does that say about me?.....

That's *exactly* how I've always pictured you, MM - a little bit theatrical, but great fun - better than that grumpy old poodle, anyway!

And errr... [coughs quietly] ... impressively well endowed ......!?! Don't answer that!

ferval wrote:

Oh Trike, I'd forgotten about that one. I'll see your snoopy and raise you one that would bring tears to a glass eye.

So will this one;




However, it is Halloween, and there is no sentimentality with this dog;

Or this one ....



(a whole website for upside down dogs - I love it!)

And for a really eeeevil dog (tho' maybe that's just because of his dastardly master) we've forgotten this favourite:

And then of course there's also this happy chappy:

Long ago they used to show the 'Freds' (Quimby) at lunchtime in the student union at Strathclyde and Droopy was always the favourite. I wonder if they still do? I don't think I've seen a Droopy cartoon since.

And not forgeting Deputy Dawg



Nor Wallace and Gromit

And Scooby;

Nooooooo, not Scooby, that's my granddaughter's current obsession and I'm sick of it- that and werewolves.

Must have some lycanthropy for Halloween;



is this Ollie before or after a drink?

Just à propos of nothing really but I think this is a much nicer picture of my doggy-dog than the one above (with him asleep on the sofa with legs in the air) .... I took this pic just a few days ago when we were exploring deep down in the gorge at the bottom of the garden....

And if dogs really do tend to look like their owners, then this pic is a much better reflection of me too: handsome, adventurous, resourceful, independent, mature, ... but still with just a hint of cheekyness and a good soupçon of joie de vivre... etc...



Yup - that's my boy!

Now that's a happy dog.

........ a soupçon of joie de vivre, a cold wet nose and an urge to sniff bottoms?

ferval wrote:

........ a soupçon of joie de vivre, a cold wet nose and an urge to sniff bottoms?

Were you referring to me or the dog ?!?