AN ALSATIAN QUALITY.
In the controversy about Alsatian dogs, one point has been generally admitted. Strain is often of equal importance with race. It is only of the more recent discoveries of natural history that certain individual foxes, certain individual hawks, develop what may be called family habits. So it is with dogs. Certain strains of collie, even certain strains of fox terrier, of West Highland and even of Airedale terrier are, as we say, treacherous. They are stranger-haters and, in their regard, savage. In the Alsatians some strains have confessedly been crossed back to the wolf, though it is not certain that the race was directly or within the knowledge of men derived from the wolf. There are, in short, Alsatians and Alsatians. If trouble were taken, the fanciers could probably weed out the treachery, just as they have weeded out crookedness from the fox terrier's legs. However, when all allowance is made, a certain wildness remains to the Alsatian as it remains in the Exmoor pony. Both are attractive, and both at a crisis may be unaccountable.
Previous page
