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Read this last night


lurcherboy
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For long dog bods only.

 

William Taplin, writing in 1804 of the lurcher, tells us that: '' The dog passing under this denomination is supposed to have originally produced from a cross between the sheperd's dog and the greyhound, which, from breeding in-and-in with the latter has so refined upon the first change that very little of the sheperd's dog seems to be retained in the stock, its patience docility and fidelity excepted. The lurcher, if thus bred without any further collateral crosses, is about three-fourths the height and size of the full-grown greyhound and of a yellowish or sandy-red colour, rough and wirey-haired with ears erect but drooping a little at the point; of great speed, courage and sagacity and fidelity; by which pedigree and appearence they are neither more nor less than a plonker greyhound, with some additional qualifications but without their beauty. These dogs, little calculated for the sports of the great, are seldom seen or known in the metropolis or its environs: but on the contrary are the established favourites of the holders of small farms, with many of whom they officiate in the capacity of the sheperds's dog, though they have speed and cunning enough to turn up a rabbit, or occasionally (when opportunity offers) to trip up a leveret, half or three-quarters grown, without the owner possessing either licence or certificate............Prevented by nature from every chance of dependent society with the great, he calmy resigns himself to the fate so evidently prepared for him and so truly consonant with the predominant propensities of his disposition. Hence we find him almost invariably in the possession of, and in constant association with, poachers of the most unprincipled and abandoned description; for whose services of nocturnal depredation of various kinds they seem in every way inherentlyqualified.............They equal, if not exceed any other dog in sagacity..........Some of the best bred lurchers are but little inferior in speed to many well-formed greyhounds; rabbits they kill to a certainty if they are any distance from home, and when a rabbit is started not far from a warren the dog invariably runs for the burrow; in doing which he seldom fails in his attempt but generally secures his prey. His qualifications, natural and acquired, go still somewhat further; in nocturnal excursions he progressively becomes proficient and will easily and readily pull down a fallow deer so soon as the signal is given for pursuit; which done, he will explore the way to his master and conduct him to the game subdued, wherever he may have left it. To the success of poaching they are in every way instrumental and, more particularly, in the incredible destruction of hares; for when the nets are fixed at the gates and the wires at the meuses, they are despatched by a single word of command to scour the field, paddock or plantation, which, by their running mute is effected so silently that a harvest is soon obtained in a plentiful county with little fear of detection.''

 

 

 

 

Ring any bells mate :lol:

 

 

 

 

LB

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