Antique dogs

April 9.  And according to the crazy calendar, it is something called National Cherish an Antique Day.  I joked that it's a day to cherish my human.  My brilliant sense of humor was met with an icy glare.

My human likes antiques. And while her antique collecting tastes have changed over the years, there is still something that she cannot pass up.  Antique and vintage DOG stuff.  She has old dog books, dog bowls, lots of old dog photos, prints and paintings and all sorts of dog figurines.  So in honor of this "holiday" let's take a look at her "oldest" dog thing.  It's a series of pages from the 1793 Encyclopedia Britannica.  Who KNEW encyclopedias were around that long ago? They were actually first published in Edinburgh Scotland between 1768 and 1771!  They were around until 2012 - when the age of digital took over and they stopped printing volumes.

So here are the three pages:

Lots of modern breeds look QUITE different than the dogs we see here.  Although some DO look close to their early ancestors....

The Dalmation

The Greyhound

The lion dog (which I am thinking might be the Lowchen) and the pug

The bulldog

Then there is the King Charles dog - which actually doesn't look a whole lot like a Cavalier...

 
But the big problem -  there was no PON OR Picard listed.  I am guessing we probably both came from the Shepherds dog - which if you SQUINT from 16 feet away could look almost Picard like. But let's face it - it doesn't look anything like  PON...

Although the Great Water dog LOOKS kind of PON like, I'm thinking that's one of the sporting breeds like the Portuguese Water dog - or MAYBE even the Newfoundland.

 So we looked at all of the breeds, but none really fit.  And we then spotted a little dog in the corner that ALMOST looks PON-like.  And the name would fit. It's called a Shock dog.  How perfect is THAT?  We all know the behavior of the PONs in THIS household is FREQUENTLY shocking.  So that MUST be it.   It's our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather,   Zap.  That's what I'll call him. 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this peek into history - and I hope you have a great old day!