Bulldog Attacks His Own Image

Rutherford, N. J., March 14. –
Ernest Bennings owns a bulldog that has more combativeness than brains, for it attacked its own image in a mirror.

Bennings and the dog passed a house at Rutherford from which a family was moving; various pieces of furniture were on the sidewalk, a mirror of heavy glass leaned against the wall.

Seeing the dog in the looking glass the bulldog growled and showed his teeth. Of course the dog in the looking glass answered the defiance by showing its fanges.

The bulldog instantly sprang at its reflection only to butt his head and rebound. Picking itself up tho the dog dashed at the mirror again with such force as to smash it.

The jagged glass cut the dog's head severely, infuriated, smarting with pain, it ran behind the mirror and here and there among the furniture, searching for its shadowy adversary.

A number of persons halted to watch it. Just then a girl came along leading a pet dog. The bulldog sprang at the pet and bit it badly before Bennings could drag it away.



The Evening News March 14, 1907

thanks to vintage for sending me this "stupid pit tricks"!

Bulldog Is Dreadnaught Of the Canine Type Constructed By Nature In A Belligerent Mood

By GEORGE FITCH



The bulldog is dreadnaught of the canine tribe. He was constructed by nature in a belligerent mood, and is admirably fitted for anarchy and rebellion.

The bulldog is not as large as the mastiff, which is something for which to be thankful. He has a round, tapering body, a foreshortened tail, front legs shaped like two sides of a lyre and a chest which is so broad that you have to get around on one side to see the rest of him. The most distinguishing feature of the bulldog is his head. This is round, finished off at the top with small round ears, and for the rest is composed almost entirely of jaw.

The bulldog's jaw is capacious, and is very substantially made, so as to enable him to grab an automobile by the hind wheel and shake the engine out of it if necessary. Both upper and lower jaws are profusely decorated with a menacing and unsociable look which prevents strangers from picking him up and taking him home to play with.

Nature heartlessly gave the bulldog only the rudiments of a nose which looks as if it had been kicked by a mule. It has defective flues and gives the owner a painful exhaust. The bulldog has a retreating forehead, which is only natural, however. No one can blame the blame the forehead from wanting to get away from that face.

Tenacity and determination are the keynotes of the bulldog's nature, and these have made him famous. His jaws have a timelock attachment, and when they cannot be opened until the full of the moon. A United States senator holding onto his vested interests is a vacillating and fickle creature compared with the bulldog which has closed his face upon some hostile object. Many a marauder who has attempted to rob a farmhouse equipped with a pink-eyed bulldog is now mournfully engaged in trying to wear the creature off of his person with very poor success.

Because of their faithful and well-directed ferocity, bulldogs are greatly beloved by their owners exclusively. Moreover, they are highly prized for their ugliness, just as impressionist pictures are. An abnormally bow-legged bulldog with a five gallon chest and a face which looks like an old rubber shoe in a fit, will frequently bring $1,000 to his designer.

In spite of their appearance and their talents, bulldogs are affectionate and kind with those to whom they have been properly introduced. For this reason we should strive at all times to enlarge our social acquaintances with bulldogs, especially when traveling in a strange country.

Saturday, January 15, 1916

dreadnought |ˈdredˌnôt| (also dreadnaught )
noun
1 historical a type of battleship introduced in the early 20th century, larger and faster than its predecessors and equipped entirely with large-caliber guns.

Vintage Thoughts on Bulldogs

The Bulldog is remarkable for the undaunted and savage pertinacity with which he will provoke and continue a combat with other animals, and when once he has fixed his bite, it is not without extreme difficulty that he can be disengaged from his antagonist. He is oftentimes fierce and cruel, and seems to possess very little of the generosity and disposition so remarkable and so celebrated in dog species. He frequently makes his attack without giving the least previous warning, and often without that discrimination of persons or animals which we observe in most other dogs.
Memoirs of British Quadrupeds, Rev. W. Bingley, 1809.


The Bulldog. A Monograph, third edition, Edgar Farman

"Canine Castle"

1846 illustration from "Punch"

The Bulldog, devoted solely to the most barbarous and infamous purposes, the real blackguard of his species, has no claim upon utility, humanity, or common sense, and the total extinction of the breed is a desirable consummation.—
"BRITISH FIELD SPORTS," 1818.

The Bulldog. A Monograph, third edition, Edgar Farman

1936 most popular pooches

America's Dog - cartoonstock

Dogography by Francis Butler 1856

The life and adventures of the celebrated dog Tiger, comprising a variety of amusing and instructive examples, illustrative of the happy effects of the appropriate training and education of dogs, by Francis Butler.

This is a quirky little book, a biography of a dog named Tiger and written from Tiger's point of view. Tiger's father is described as a "40 lb white as snow, pure bred bull-dog", an undefeated champion pit fighter. His mother is described as a "perfect specimen of a Scotch terrier". Tiger is described as looking like his father. In the 100 pages of Tiger's life, he kills, dogs, cats, snakes, monkeys, muskrats, hogs, beavers, rats and wolves. Tiger even attempted to drown a poodle that he was competing with. It is unclear if this story is based on a real dog or if Tiger was owned by Butler.

Here are a few excerpts from the book.

CHAPTER XXIII
TIGER'S ACQUAINTENCE WITH THE NEWFOUNDLAND DOG ROSWELL - HYDROPHOBIA - TIGER'S COGITATIONS p54

These attacks had engendered in me a certain mistrust of the whole fraternity, so that with all strangers I assumed a dignified, distant, self-confident demeanor, which seldom failed to impose respect even from the most refractory. But a word from my master was enough: cat, dog, badger, bull, or bear, all were one to me. At his command I seized my antagonist, regardless of danger, thoughtless of my own safety, and bent on destruction. He, and he alone, could restrain my fury, and even then did I reluctantly obey his commends, such was the violence of my excited temper. I was born so, and to conquer it has been the main study of my life, though I succeeded only to a certain extent; but without education I might have lived a perfect hyena, lacerating friend and foe, seeking for blood, a scourge to the flock and the pest of society.

CHAPTER XLVI
TIGER GIVES A WONDERFUL ACCOUNT OF HIS PUPIL "NERO" P103

The noble Nero was more akin to my father's blood, though, to the best of my knowledge, not related to either of us. To a stranger his outward appearance was repulsive to the extreme, though in form and symmetrical proportions none had ever excelled him. His mother was born in Dublin, his father in Warwick, England, while he first saw the light within the immediate sound of the New Jersey bull-frogs, catydids, tree-toads, and musketos. His parents were both of as pure bull-stock as the Old Country could furnish, of well-tried pluck and immeasurable daring. Alas! I am sorry to avow it, these were the only qualities of which they could boast, or rather of which they had no reason to be proud. These were the unimproved gifts of nature, which, if duly restrained and well directed, might have rendered them matchless guardians and faithful companions. None dared to boast of their friendship, while all dreaded them as enemies. Uncertain in their affections, undiscriminating in their antipathies, their names were honored alone by dog fighters and bullies. His father was a smooth coated brindle bull-dog, with the most horrid looking phiz that was ever exhibited to the public: large staring eyes, high forehead, short nose, and projecting under jaw, displaying in full his weapons of assault and defence, accompanied by a daring grin, which debarred all visitors from courting his acquaintance. Of his valor he bore undoubted marks. Two of his ribs were stove in by a bull, one of his legs was broken by a bear, while he indented scalp bore evident traces of hard fought battles, in one which his right ear was gnawed off, close to the skull. Certainly there was nothing prepossessing in his appearance, except his dread naught, dare devil expression; and as he was thoroughly tutored in the sublime art of seizing, lacerating and destroying, his life was devoted to the unlimited exercise of his ungovernable passions. His mother was of a similar class: about his equal in size and, and displaying equal purity of blood. She was the property of an Irishman, who prided himself in her ferocity even more than in his own. He had every reason to glory in it, as she was as ferocious as a hyena; so much so, that the near-dwellers, who greatly feared lest she might break loose and slake her fury on some innocent object, decided one day, during the absence of her master, on ridding themselves of her dreaded attacks. Thus terminated the career of the mother of one of the best of quadrupeds that ever was trained by dog or man.

Francis Butler (1810-1874), author, veterinarian, and possibly the first "dog whisperer"