This Dalmatian’s name was Perry, and he belonged to someone named J. Dickman Brown. He was featured in the entry for his breed in Harry Woodworth Huntington’s My Dog and I (1897).
This Dalmatian’s ticking is quite different from the classic type, but we still don’t know the exact genetics of how it differs from classical ticking.
This dog appears to be very similar to a classically ticked dog, such as this Braque du Bourbonnais or Wootton’s “Grey spotted hound,” which was clearly a pointer of some sort.
In the Huntington’s text about the Dalmatian, he recognizes that the dog looks like a pointer of some sort but then gives the standard saw about how Dalmatians came from Timbuktu or Outer Mongolia, which are only slightly more fantastic places than what Huntington actually says or that all breed experts, including the FCI, seem to parrot. As I noted earlier this week, it is much more likely that the Dalmatian is actually a British invention from the eighteenth century that was derived from aberrant pointers or pointer crosses.
This particular dog is quite robustly built. Indeed, he’s a touch portly. Modern Dals are built on more gracile lines. This more robust form might suggest that these dogs were crossed with bulldogs or the heavier English setter of eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
In my opinion, that photo had some touch-ups after the fact. Perhaps the poor quality of the image required it. But for some reason, many artists in that time seemed incapable of accurately portraying a Dalmatian’s spots, so they ended up with that weird result.
I think the dog had bad “belton” type freckling, which they retouched. Some of those spots don’t look real, especially on the back. But the ones on the head sure look real.
That Dalmatian cross has very similar spots to this dog.
Dal/Bulldog cross.
This picture has a retouched look to it, but then some GSP’s look splotchy, too. Could be the retoucher saw that “Grey Spotted Hound” and copied that.
But I am confused who defines what is “classic” or “archetype” and when do we use the terms?
Classic is more like what one finds on English setters.
I don’t believe it was only thru the pointer which the Dalmatian came from. Think its ancestors were as well hounds. I have never red anything about a pointing or setting Dalmatian in the history of cynology. In Croatia there was indeed an old hunting, harlequin – coloured dog which then practically died out when the Enlish greyhound arrived there.
http://books.google.com/books?id=9_EDbatFH9MC&lpg=PA266&dq=pointing%20dalmatian&pg=PA266#v=onepage&q&f=false
It’s actually pretty common for Dalmatians to point.
Well he says that even the spitz “point”. i said in the history of these dogs I haven’t found any record of a pointing Dalmatian or even its use in houndish hunt.
Walsh, Drury, Dalziel and others, they mention nothing about.
Yes they do.
Your native spitz is called a bark pointer in English.
That feature doesn’t come from the pointer. Even terriers point.
It is canish, wolvish behavior.
Retrievers point, too. They should, because there are setting dogs’ blood in them.
The real pointing ability and tendency is deeply genetical. I don’t think Dalmatians share those genes more than an average terrier. Or spaniels, in the most positive view.
There are two types of pointing: Natural and trained.
And all natural pointing is is natural stalking behavior that gets exaggerated through training.
The Dals I’ve seen do it have had no training.
Real pointers are only natural. They do it already as a puppy and would stand till they start to shake.
You say Dalmatians do this?
You say it happens often, but I think it is quite rare.
It maybe these eastern pointer types that are ancestors of the Dals. Some of them were “just” hounds.
http://books.google.com/books?id=AzphAAAAIAAJ&dq=point%20dalmatian%20birds&pg=PA543#v=onepage&q&f=false
“The Native country” is England.
I’ve seen one that would point. He didn’t hold it for very long, but he would point.
I’ve seen that. I’ve thought the “native country” must mean Northern – Italy or so.
The harlequin – colour seem to originate from that direction. Many breed of dogs were grey in the west, while there beautifully spotted dogs in the east.
Have you seen the 1500s paintings and the spotted dogs in another Croatian church (San Marco, I recall)?
That huge painting up in the wall is really so upstanding, that any tourist, who visited the church, was surely impressed about the dogs. And the reason is, there are lots of those spotted dogs in that fresco, lots.
It is outstanding piece, and a serious document.
That may be but it’s not proof that those dogs are Dalmatians.
Tourists that saw those dogs named them “Dalmatians”. So they were actually the first Dalmatians.
I bet someone shipped them to England. Britts just did that, always, they collected ev’ry exotic piece.
I’m not sure, but I MAY have seen them at the Grossvernor Prints – the Dal -family of the 1810 (tho’ they are actually hounds).
I don’t know why the call them Dalmatians.
But I can’t find any that are exactly like the dogs we call Dalmatians today or ere even like them that aren’t from England in the eighteenth century or later.
I think some people did call Harlequin Danes Dalmatians at one point or maybe some aberrant sight hound was called a Dalmatian.
But the dog we have today isn’t merle or Harlequin. It is ticked.
Dalmatians don’t act like hounds. They act more like bird dogs that can guard.
Their native country is supposed to be Croatia.
There is actually no evidence of any dogs from that region that can’t be called Istrian hounds or something very similar to them. The Balkans do have a history of scenthounds, one of which kind of looks like Dalmatian.
But having been around a Dalmatian and large scenthounds, I can tell you that the Dalmatian is closer to the gun dog temperament than the hound dog.
Great Danes and Dalmatians have nothing to do with each other. It’s Bewick and few other “dog writers” of yore who conflated them.
Dalmatians act more like pointers than any other breed I’ve seen, including the HPR’s from which they both descend.
Actually there are lots of evidence that the Danish Dogs (small pointer and bigger mastiff) were Dalmatians too, and that they may have something to do wiht the breed.
Can u find Philip Reinangle’s A Dalmatian running in a stable yard from early 1800s?
That’s just another.
No.
0.
Try again.
I’ve read those accounts. They are in a lot of books. No pics.
Just someone in England or France talking about it.
There is 0 connection between Danes and Dalmatians.
I’ve looked into all of this.
There is surely connection.
Must note I’m speakin bout history, not genetics or so.
Bewick’s Dalmatians from 1790s is a hound, looks the same as the Great Danish dog from the same area.
Plus,
I have an very early 1800s print, with a pair of Dalmatians and their pups. Those dogs look like spotted greyhounds! But in the old text below the pic itself, we can read that they were Dalmatians of the time.
No.
There isn’t.
None.
0.
I know which one you’re talking about. They actually look like merle greyhounds. I don’t think the painter had even seen one to be honest with you. They reminded me of Brian Plummer’s black merle lurcher.
The merle thing tells us why there is no connection.
These people often had no clue what they were talking about, even if their books wound up being published and translated over and over.
A ticked dog is not the same as a harlequin dog. No amount of arguing or quoting old books form people who didn’t understand that simple fact changes this reality.
BTW, that paining the merle greyhounds that are said to be Dalmatians– I’ve seen it. It’s on Pietoro’s photobucket.
I don’t think those are Dalmatians. I think someone just fudged the image of a harlequin great dane, which originally did look more like a greyhound, and then reduced the size, which is what all of those old books say they were– but they obviously aren’t.
Hello!
Dals were not a standard – bred at that time – so there many types and starting lines.
In the long run, some lines won.
Just like “Newfoundlands” of the time.
Yes. I’ve seen that one. The dog looks like a ticked dog, but 1800’s and in England is proof for my thesis.
Clearly a ticked dog that looks like a Braque du Bourbonnais type pointer (with a tail).
I’ve been around three Dals. Two of them, a bitch and a male, very dominaiting and sometimes suprisingly acting. The other almost killed a terrier.
The third, a neat bitch, is like a collie or a Toller. I don’t get the pointer feeling out of her very much. Maybe because pointers and their character is too familiar to me.
She has no interest in hunting. She just waits for the owner’s word in everything. She has no strong character. Her eyes are not like pointers eyes. Not at all.
Pointers are happy and friendly with strangers. They are childish.
Dals are not.
Remeber, Dals used guard the chariots, so they could not jump up to kiss a stranger’s face.
I have asked all those three owners about the pointing. No pointing.
I haven’t found a single video of a pointing / herding / hunting Dal.
I must be just unlucky.
This is a Dalmatian?
I have some Oceanfront property I’d like to sell you. It’s in Arizona.
Why did you go to Egypt?? This is European item.
Because that’s where they start out claiming their origins. I’ve heard that one so many times.
Every supposed Dalmatian that isn’t from eighteenth century England that I’ve found is either some kind of merle sight-hound or spotted sight hound or a Harlequin Great Dane (another misnamed breed) that is called a Dalmatian for some reasons.
Danes were mastiffs that were used more or less the same way the Irish used their big sight hounds. Danes are not endurance dogs. No dog over 70 pounds is an endurance runner. There are endurance Arctic dogs that can do endurance but they don’t run at high speeds. Malamutes and Qimmiq are never used in sled dog races in the US or Canada for that reason.
It’s actually quite cruel to run a large dog over a very long distance. They can’t get rid of heat as efficiently as smaller dogs and will die very quickly.
A Danish Dog alias coach dog (“alias Great Dane”)
http://www.classicnatureprints.com/pr.Buffon%20Animals/d.danois.html
This is an endurance dog.
A heavy pointer is not an endurance dog either. Bad to the joints too.
A (grey) houndish type is much better. Actually those North Italian braccos were very lightly build, compared to today’s.
Do you know how many times I’ve seen that pic and how many times I’ve seen that written?
Do you seriously think Great Danes have a lot endurance?
Do Sumo Wrestlers?
Do u see that the Danish Dog IN THE PAST was a bit different from todays?
The huge doggy-dog of today is something we can totally hop over here.
I only point to the Old Danish Dog,
which were also used as coach dogs.
You know, there were two types of the Danish Dog, the smaller and the bigger. It’s probable that these limits were not stoned. If someone wanted to add strenght and looks, he’d take a bigger dog.
As we know, the British modified that continental “breed”. They made it lighter and stylier by adding windhund and the pattern more regular by adding bulldog and pointer.
Check out the reasons behind Bergmann’s rule, and see why you can’t run Great Danes or any huge dogs like that.
It’s very simple: People made that stuff up.
Buffon was full of crap in so many areas.
He thought all dogs were derived from French shepherd dogs. He thought that European animals “degenerated” after generations of being bred in the Americas. (It’s called the theory of American Degeneracy. We are degenerates, but not for that reason.).
Buffon was a buffoon. No one takes him seriously anymore. He was just an early biologist whose ideas have been proven wrong so many times.
You say nothing about the drawings.
They work better. They are OK.
I found it: http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/possible_dalmatian_florence.jpg
These are hardly Dalmatians!
Are these pictures as possible Dals a joke? These are particolored dogs. Aren’t Dal spots a form of ticking?
No. There’s actually a website that has all the Dalmatians on it– goes back to Eypt with what appears to be a harlequin basenji-type dog.
http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/dalmatian-dogs-from-dalmatia/
The only one that stumped me was the Dalmatian Dog and Boy. But if you look at the spots, it’s a harlequin dog of some sort. My guess is that someone called an early Harlequin Dane a “Dalmatian” for some reason.
Don’t read the comments, your head will explode. “Dalmatians”:
With fringed tails.
These people are embarrassing.
G-sus.
Any dog with spots in a cave painting somewhere is a Dalmatian, obviously.
I find it amazing how many different breeds are claimed to have originated in ancient Egypt — from Dalmatians to Dachshunds!
This is supposed to be a Dalmatian: http://i61.servimg.com/u/f61/13/71/03/69/possib14.jpg
Um. No. It’s merle (harlequin).
And it’s huge!
When sorting out the long history of this breed, one hypothese is Dalmatia has something to do with it. It is not plain b-shit. As you claim.
This is Old croatia “hrt”, as in the Santa Maria church:
It is plain bullshit.
I don’t know what kind of dog that is. It looks like a prick-eared sight hound.
It is not b-shit. The Italian and Croatian dogs have very much the same origin, which can be seen. They were rather small.
In Italy, there are even today small, light bracco – type, a landrace. Very similar to this.
Yeah.
Braccos are pointers that are derived from something like a heavy scent hound.
They are probably related to the old pointers, which are likely very similar to the dogs that gave us both English pointers and Dalmatians.
Croatia is interesting, but its native dogs are scenthounds and a herding dog that is very similar to the Mudi of Hungary.
Some Mudik are merle– are you going to call those Dalmatians, too?
Ah – you say it is so simple.
So Retrieverman tells it: Dals are pure pointers. Old pointers, but you say pointers, still.
How is that any different from a pohjanpystykorva with short-hair?
It is a really primitive type.
These features still show in the dogs in that direction.
It’s not a Dalmatian!
That dog is only evidence the the Croatians had and still have a prick-eared parti-colored sight hound.
Not Dalmatians.
Are you or not?
I’m trying to show you that there is lots of evidence that there were Dalmatian dogs before the breed Dalmatian was fixed.
And these dogs form the history of the breed – and you must understand not only and always in the genetic sense.
Bridget,
Your evidence is crap. It’s the same old Dalmatian crap that I tried to debunk in this post.
When you are that locked, it’s really useless to discuss with you.
But you keep changing minds, too.
BTW, bulldog is another very, very probable cross.
So you see, it is not out of the pointer only.
That thesis was where I started this.
Oh in that other post on the Grey-spotted hound, I say very clearly that bulldog, greyhound, or foxhound are possible outcrosses the main pointers that founded the Dalmatian.
Just because the Dalmatians had *dogs* does not mean those dogs are the basis for modern Dalmatians.
Example: Many, many, many, many (in many breeds) people claim the dogs in Egyptian art as whatever their breed is. I have *very* old breeds, and even I don’t do that; there is NO genetic evidence that the dogs are related. Considering that dogs were trade goods, and also subject to deadly, communicable diseases like distemper and rabies, dogs existing in an unbroken line for thousands of years *anywhere* but an island is a reach and a half.
And just because you can find what look to be something like harlequin Great Danes that are being called Dalmatians does not mean that what we are calling Dalmatians are the same thing– because our Dalmatians aren’t merles!
Those old books are rife with errors sometimes, anyways. Anything that was written by someone that did not have first hand experience can be suspect.
Since u seem to have bad hearing I have to shout.
AM TALKING HISTORY OF DALS, NOT “OUR DALS”,
ie the present main genotypes.
But the post is on the Modern Dalmatian, not Great Danes or sighthounds that someone says is a Dalmatian, often centuries after the painting or sculpture was made….
The modern dog acts more or less like a bird dog that can do some guading– kind of like the old Weimaraners or Chesapeake Bay retrievers.
No – but if you write a book about Dals, should you just say that south – eastern connection and primitive spotted dogs from Dalmatia were nonsense?
I bet you had to handle that.
Why are Labradors called Labs?
Would yiu say it is nonsense and that the foreign ministry Lord Malmesbury didn’t have any sense of geography?
Labs are called Labs– I think– because they mistook the Cao de Castro Laboreiro word for Labrador. The dogs have some Cao in them.
I haven’t ever said that. I don’t know who has.
I am done with this discussion. Any further comments on this post from you will be deleted.
You do have your own blog. You can write about it there.
Your evidence for Dalmatians is very poor. It’s a very good example of why I wrote these posts. Many Dalmatian “hisotrians” say things, but they don’t think about them critically at all. Some these dogs so obviously aren’t Dalmatians that it’s an embarrassment that anyone would claim them to be so.
They are not always prick – eared.
And their type was a bit “loose”, like any landrace’s.
I have a better picture of the church dogs, in colour. there seem to 20 dogs or something.
That can be the start to the talking about “the Dalmatian”. I mean, the name and its meaning as “black n white spotted dog”.
Are all black and white dogs from Croatia Dalmatians?
These are an interesting landrace, but, um, they aren’t ticked or harlequin.
So how are they germane to this discussion?
I think a beagle can be called a harlequin.
I’ve never heard of one. But there is a Russian harlequin hound and then there is the Dunker from Norway, which are merles.
And have nothing to do with Dalmatians.
http://www.southstreetdalmatians.com/the_dal.htm
THAT is bullshit.
“Cao de Castro Laboreiro”.
You really think the dog had that name in those long distant days?
It is just that Laboreiro / Labradore / Lavadore / etc is so common term or word.
There is Labrador even in the South – UK.
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Labrador-Retrievers/dp/product-description/B000H7I6JS
I am not the originator of that theory on the Cao.
It fits.
The place called Labrador is actually a mistranslation of a Portuguese term that lavrador, which is like a duke. One Portuguese explorer was given that land we now call Labrador, and his name was put on the map over his land. Carographers misunderstood it all.
Heard that 10 x 10 times.
There’s the farmer-duke, but where’s the Cao?
Don’t see that.
The Cao -dog structure and type is quite common in the world. It is the shepherd type with a long waist and long legs.
The resembleness of the look and names is just an coincidental.
And there are many other non-relative look-a-likes in the dog world beside this.
I know there is the Iberian connection, but we can’t talk about the Cao as the reason for Lab’s name.
The connection is the brindle color, which still exists in retrievers. And the fact that the two earliest off-shoots of the St. john’s water dog are good guard dogs–curly and chessie. And that the recent genetic evidence puts the retrievers with the mountain dogs, along with the Newfoundland.
Cao just means dog.
Castro Laboreiro is the town, and it’s had that name for centuries.
But I have strong evidence that people called b & w spotted or harlequin dogs as Dalmatians in the mid 1700s.
They would be wrong…
And because they were wrong, they couldn’t possibly be talking about the same dogs.
Here’s a better pic of the Croatian fresco.
The dogs kill wolves and try to protect lambs:
I’d say they are quite spotty.
If a tourist saw this, he would remember these kinda dogs as “Dalmatian Dogs”.
I have a realistic story. You have only b-shit on this.
Okay. A Dalmatian is any black and white dog that has ever existed.
Border collies don’t exist anymore. They are just Dalmatians!
U say that.
I did not.
I’m sorry, I was wrong,
that fresco I showed you is in North Italy – not in Croatia!
It’s the Spanish Chapel in Florence. But still it’s impressing, with plenty of “the dogs of God”, which look quite peculiar.
The fresco originates from 1420.
In colour:
Well, well, isn’t it quite far fetched to determine any dog’s ‘true’ phenotype – or origins for that matter – on grounds of old paintings…
Artists do have their own views, don’t they. ;)
It’s not that far-fetched at all.
Particulary when having been around several Dalmatians, I can say that they behave more like a pointer or HPR (even if they don’t point) than Great Danes or anything else.