Ch. Myall, a British show dingo.
W.D. Drury writes about the show dingoes in British Dogs: Their Points, Selection And Show Preparation (1903) :
Of the Dingos that have been exhibited, Captain Burton a frequent winner about sixteen years since, was unquestionably one of the best. Like many wild animals in confinement, this dog would continue to walk round in a circle for hours together; it was for this reason that he was exhibited loose in an iron cage, as if chained up the chain soon became twisted. In later years Myall has successfully represented the breed on the show-bench. Previous to either of these dogs Lupus was a frequent winner under different judges. The high carriage of tail was a fault in this dog apparent to any one; in addition to this the writer, who owned Lupus for some years, always considered that there was something about the dog not altogether characteristic of the breed, although it would have been very difficult to define exactly what this was. He had no suspicion at the time that the dog, although bred in this country, was not a pure-bred Dingo, as was represented to be the case when he became possessed of it. It was not until some time after the dog had been given away and he was exhibited by his new owner that the writer noticed for the first time one or two small black spots at the root of the tongue. This clearly showed that there was Chinese or Chow-Chow blood in the dog, which readily accounted for the high carriage of tail, as well as for other faults not so easily discernible.
I should note that black spots on the tongue do not always denote chow ancestry. I have known a few pure goldens to have this trait.
Dingoes are not recognized as a purebred. The ANKC does not have a dingo standard, although it did at one time.
It sounds perverse that anyone would want to show a dingo. This is a creature that is the result of natural selection, not the result of selective breeding. Showing such an animal gives dishonor to its nature, denying its due respect as part of Australia’s native fauna.
Althugh dingoes are feral domestic dogs, they have been living free of human selective breeding for perhaps 4,000 years.
Instead of ch0w-chow, I think it is more likely that Myall was an alpine dingo, which have evolved a thicker coat to live in the colder places on the continent, such as the Snowy Mountains.
Yes, if you are going to show a Dingo at a conformation dog show, why not show Wolves as well? Why not Coyotes too? It might teach the conformation showers what REAL function is, though! When I heard that the Australian Kennel Club began recognizing Dingoes, and how that would help “preserve” them(since they are being crossbred out of existence in the wild by the infusion of other feral dog genes), I couldn’t help but despair–yeah, like conformation folks have “preserved” so many other breeds! And if Dingoes are not being selected by Mother Nature, then they’ll stop being Dingoes, unfortunetely. I DO wonder exactly what silly types of exagerration and breed origin stories that would arise from showing Dingoes! They could certainly claim to be the most ancient “breed”! Unless of course, they allow for the showing of wolves eventually!
Well, Czechoslovakian wolfdogs and Saarloos wolfhond are shown…
And from what I’ve heard, they are already experiencing inbreeding problems! At least they could outcross again to wolves to fix that, but then that’s politically incorrect now, isn’t it?