Vita’s reflections on various dogs, included in the rare volume Faces, are full of humor, affection, and history, both of dog lore and Vita’s personal experiences. Her unmistakably negative reaction to the sullen and unappealing Saluki that was given to her by Gertrude Bell in Persia (an event that she recounts at length in the pages of her Passenger to Teheran) is not allowed to influence her reaction here on these ultra-thin, ultra-chic, ultra-sensitive dogs.
Vita is at her most endearing when describing one of her cocker spaniels who gave birth at the same time as one of her cats and borrowed a few kittens to nurse along with the rest of the cocker litter; the Cocker was amused, the cat not a whit. Vita’s sense of humor and play is given its full rein in these descriptions. These one-page pieces are among her most delightful productions.
FACES
The Saluki or Gazelle-Hound
The Saluki is an Arab; in fact, saluk in Arabic means hound, and it is further suggested, with some plausibility, that the breed originated in the town or district of Saluk. Possibly the oldest breed in the world, their portrait appears in mural paintings in Egyptian tombs, notably in the tomb of Rechmara 1400 B.C. This and the fact that they were also known in Persia and China, despite the reluctance of the Arabs to part with their dogs, implies that they were greatly valued for their swiftness and endurance in hunting and formed an acceptable present to the princes of those distant lands. “Oh my Huntsman,” writes a Persian poet in 800 A.D., “bring me my dogs brought by the Kings of Saluk,” and remarked further that a Saluki ran so fast that his feet and his head seemed joined in his collar, which is scarcely surprising when we reflect that they were used in the pursuit of gazelle, antelope, and hare. If the cheetah is the swiftest animal on earth, the Saluki must run it very close.
They enjoyed also the honour of being modelled by Benvenuto Cellini for Cosimo de Medici.
These most romantic of dogs were practically unknown in England before the end of the nineteenth century. A Mr. Allen, in the 1880s, had exhibited one Jierma, whose unusual grace aroused much excitement and caused her to be mistakenly described as a Persian greyhound. But it was not until after 1895, when the Hon. Florence Amherst was presented with two puppies bred by sheikhs of a Bedouin tribe, that the breed became established here and caught the popular imagination to such an extent that some exhibitors added an Eastern glamour to the proceedings by appearing in full native dress.
Salukis resemble their native desert in colouring, as any traveller familiar with the desert under varying lights will agree. They may be a plain pale tan, or grizzled, or golden, or cream, or even white as some of the sand-dunes. The lovely creature in the photograph displays the silky ears, and undoubtedly possesses also “feathers” of the same texture down the back of the legs and on the curly tail. There are also smooth-coated Salukis with no feathers, to my mind less attractive.
I once had a Saluki, presented to me in Baghdad straight out of the desert by Miss Gertrude Bell, without exception the dullest dog I ever owned. Salukis are reputed to be very gentle and faithful; this one, Zurcha, meaning the yellow one, was gentle enough because she was completely spiritless, and as for fidelity she was faithful only to the best arm-chair. I took her up from Baghdad into Persia, where nothing would induce her to come out for a walk—perhaps because I omitted to provide a gazelle. In the end I followed the historical tradition and gave her to a Persian prince, who subsequently lost her somewhere in Moscow. I was unlucky, of course, in the only Saluki I ever owned, and these remarks must not be taken as an aspersion upon an incomparably elegant and ancient race.
The Cocker Spaniel
It is not surprising that this silky little creature should be so popular, for it combines sporting instincts in the field with domestic affection in the house, and as a puppy is irresistible. It would seem also that, the sporting instincts denied their scope, it can accommodate itself with the utmost resignation to an uneventful existence. No dog ever led a duller or more sedentary life than Miss Elizabeth Barrett’s Flusb, whose ears so closely resembled his mistress’s curls.
And yet the very name cocker was specially applied to a spaniel small enough to penetrate the thick undergrowth where woodcock crouched concealed, and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I was used to drive game and birds into nets. They are active little dogs, with nothing namby-pamby about them, in spite of a loving nature amounting to sentimentality. Their colour, according to taste, may be red, golden, tan, blue roan, black, or black and white, so there is plenty of variety to choose from.
It is thought that the spaniel originated in Spain, and in the beginning of their recorded history, which goes back to 1387, they were all generically known as spaniels. It was not until 1790 that they began to be divided into separate varieties. After that we get so many types that the amateur may be forgiven for a failure to disentangle them. There is the English Springer, the Clumber, the Sussex, the Welsh Springer, the Irish Water and the Field Spaniel, which is really a larger version of the Cocker. The main difference seems to lie in the size and weight; the Field may weigh anything from 35 lb. to 50 lb., the little Cocker should not exceed 28.
The solemn face in the illustration gives no idea of the cheerful disposition of one that is nicknamed the Merry Cocker. I believe also that they have a sense of humour; some dogs have. I once owned a golden cocker bitch and a cream Persian cat; the spaniel had puppies and the cat kittens at the same time, puppies and kittens being of exactly the same colour. The spaniel used to steal the kittens and deposit them amongst her own offspring, suckling them all indiscriminately, and I would swear that the little dog grinned up at me whenever I went to sort them out. I should add that the cat in her turn stole the puppies, but I was never able to discern the slightest trace of amusement on her face.
The Great Dane
Unlike the Dalmatian, the Great Dane may well come from the country which gives him his name, though he has also been claimed by Germany. This hugely alarming dog, like many large men, usually has the kindliest disposition; I feel sure he enjoyed carrying a lamp in his mouth ahead of benighted travellers, by his mere presence assuring them of their safety, as he was taught to do in the eighteenth century. He could also be sent back five or six miles to retrieve a forgotten parcel. These were among the services he was pleased to render.
It seems scarcely necessary to say that he should be wisely handled from puppyhood, for an undisciplined or irritable Great Dane is a terrifying thought. Even an amiable one, anxious to please, provides some elements of peril. Too exuberant a display of affection will easily land you on the floor, and there is also the tail to be considered. It is long, and as hard as a piece of wood, and unlike a piece of wood it wags. Now this tail may get damaged if the dog is confined in too small a kennel, and so generally is this danger recognised that dog-shops supply a special tail-protector. In my admittedly limited experience of the breed, I have noticed that danger from the tail is as much to be taken into account as danger to the tail. One happy swoop across a low table, and off go all the tea-cups.
Dear Brutus! the only Great Dane I ever intimately knew. How remorseful he was whenever his enormous clumsiness had led him into transgression. He seemed to say he knew he had done wrong, but how could he help it? His owner, the poet Dorothy Wellesley, forgave him all his trespasses:
My great marbled hound [she wrote]
Leaps at them [the rooks] as they fly.
The one in the illustration is a harlequin, which means that he may have a walleye and a pink nose. This truly noble dog, this great marbled hound, ought to be seen in his entirety. He stands 30 inches tall, and weighs at the minimum 120 lb., or nearly ten stone. He has been with us for some two hundred years, possibly three hundred, when dogs were used for pulling carts, even as they are used today in Belgium and Holland. So muscular a dog as the Dane, almost the size of a Shetland pony, would have been well-adapted to cart-harness. Why not use him today, to pull the mowing machine?
Considering his size, it is rather surprising to find that he registers over 500 a year in the Kennel Club list.
The Mongrel
Alas, we can honour him with no history, no pedigree. He must speak for himself, with those great wistful eyes, as appealing as a lost child. Fortunately for him he is well able to do so. I have owned, or been owned by, several mongrels in my time, and never have I known dogs more capable of falling on their feet. Some of them have been pi-dogs1; one made her way into my house in Constantinople, and, too savage to be ejected, gave birth to a litter of puppies on the drawing-room sofa; another dreadful little object collected me in the bazaars of Teheran, followed me home, and took complete possession. The faces of the Persian servants when I made them give him a bath, badly needed, were worth seeing.
Then there was Micky, who had a dash of Irish terrier in him. I think Micky must be the only dog who has openly walked ashore off a battle-ship on to English soil without being intercepted and clapped into quarantine. I had left him behind in Turkey, when, unable to return myself owing to the outbreak of war, the Ambassador who detested dogs but to whom I remain eternally grateful brought him home to me on a string. Micky it was, too, who, falling through a skylight when he ought by all the rules to have been killed, contrived to land on a bed—though that was perhaps due to good luck rather than to good management.
The worst of mongrels is that they are apt to be so very plain. Micky himself was no beauty. Good breeding tells. One has noticed the extreme ungainliness of dogs lying about the streets of foreign villages, and has been thankful that the proportion of these mistakes is not so high in Britain. But for sheer urchin wit and resourcefulness the mongrel can be hard to beat, only unfortunately when tempted to acquire an irresistible puppy one is seldom aware of its lineage, immediate or remote, and thus cannot estimate what characteristics it is likely to develop in later life. Will it have a bit of the sheep-dog in it, and proudly but inconveniently bring one a flock of sheep belonging to somebody else? Will it have a bit of terrier, and have to be dragged backwards by the tail out of a rabbit-hole? Or will it be merely a small scavenger, preferring unspeakable filth to the nice bowl we painstakingly provide? One must take one’s chance, and in most cases one’s life is no longer likely to be one’s own.
The Collie
There are, roughly speaking, five types of collie: the rough and the smooth, which are large; the Welsh and the Border, which are small; and the Shetland or Sheltie, which is smallest of all. The smooth-coated collie has never been so popular as the rough; some shepherds may have found short coats more convenient in wet weather, but the rough is incomparably the more beautiful animal, with its silky coat, the frill, the gentle expression, the graceful build, the intelligence in those watchful eyes.
His honest, sonsie, bawsent face
Aye got him friends in ilka place.
There is also the bearded collie, whose portrait is facing.…
All collies are extremely sensitive, which may account for their reputation for a treacherous temper. If offended or frightened, they retaliate. The reverse of the medal is their excessive devotion. Who has not shed a tear for Owd Bob in fiction, or over the recent real-life story of the dog who stayed for three months by the dead body of his shepherd, lost on the snow-bound moors?
Ideally the collie should be a working dog; he should follow his natural profession. Thwarted of this, his hereditary instinct is still predominant, sometimes in amusing ways. My own Border collie, because as a puppy he was never employed in herding sheep, still tries to herd the clumps of daffodils in the orchard, running round them in circles and snapping with exasperation when he cannot get them to move. More regrettably, he also tries to herd people into groups, and is not above giving a nip to the human ankle as he would nip at the fetlock of a recalcitrant sheep. When one thinks of the almost incredible sagacity displayed at the sheepdog trials, it seems wasteful to turn such marvellous material into a mere pet.
These little cattle-herders, apart from their peculiar aptitude for driving sheep through hurdles where sheep don’t want to go, have many pretty and endearing ways. I have never known any other dog who would sit hanging his head, in expectation of a scolding. Puzzling and idiosyncratic companions, I have come to the conclusion that they are a bit fey. It must be due to the Celtic strain in them.
How much one wishes, sometimes, that one’s dog could explain what is going on inside his head; and that he could tell one how often in spite of all one’s love, one misunderstands him.