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Page 4
If God had sent her into the world with a pair of tulip ears and
with a shade less width of brain-space she might have been
cherished and coddled as a potential bench-show winner, and in
time might even have won immortality by the title of "CHAMPION
Rothsay Lass."
But her ears pricked rebelliously upward, like those of her
earliest ancestors, the wolves. Nor could manipulation lure their
stiff cartilages into drooping as bench-show fashion demands. The
average show-collie's ears have a tendency to prick. By weights
and plasters, and often by torture, this tendency is overcome.
But never when the cartilage is as unyielding as was Lass's.
Her graceful head harked back in shape to the days when collies
had to do much independent thinking, as sheep-guards, and when
they needed more brainroom than is afforded by the borzoi skull
sought after by modern bench-show experts.
Wherefore, Lass had no hope whatever of winning laurels in the
show-ring or of attracting a high price from some rich fancier.
She was tabulated, from babyhood, as a "second"--in other words,
as a faulty specimen in a litter that should have been faultless.
These "seconds" are as good to look at, from a layman's view, as
is any international champion. And their offspring are sometimes
as perfect as are those of the finest specimens. But, lacking the
arbitrary "points" demanded by show-judges, the "seconds" are
condemned to obscurity, and to sell as pets.
If Lass had been a male dog, her beauty and sense and lovableness
would have found a ready purchaser for her. For nine pet collies
out of ten are "seconds"; and splendid pets they make for the
most part.
But Lass, at the very start, had committed the unforgivable sin
of being born a female. Therefore, no pet-seeker wanted to buy
her. Even when she was offered for sale at half the sum asked for
her less handsome brothers, no one wanted her.
A mare--or the female of nearly any species except the canine--
brings as high and as ready a price as does the male. But never
the female dog. Except for breeding, she is not wanted.
This prejudice had its start in Crusader days, some thousand
years ago. Up to that time, all through the civilized world, a
female dog had been more popular as a pet than a male. The
Mohammedans (to whom, by creed, all dogs are unclean) gave their
European foes the first hint that a female dog was the lowest
thing on earth.
The Saracens despised her, as the potential mother of future
dogs. And they loathed her accordingly. Back to Europe came the
Crusaders, bearing only three lasting memorials of their contact
with the Moslems. One of the three was a sneering contempt for
all female dogs.
There is no other pet as loving, as quick of wit, as loyal, as
staunchly brave and as companionable as the female collie. She
has all the male's best traits and none of his worst. She has
more in common, too, with the highest type of woman than has any
other animal alive. (This, with all due respect to womanhood.)
Prejudice has robbed countless dog-lovers of the joy of owning
such a pal. In England the female pet dog has at last begun to
come into her own. Here she has not. The loss is ours.
And so back to Lass.
When would-be purchasers were conducted to the puppy-run at the
Rothsay kennels, Lass and her six brethren and sisters were wont
to come galloping to the gate to welcome the strangers. For the
pups were only three months old--an age when every event is
thrillingly interesting, and everybody is a friend. Three times
out of five, the buyer's eye would single Lass from the
rollicking and fluffy mass of puppyhood.
She was so pretty, so wistfully appealing, so free from fear (and
from bumptiousness as well) and carried herself so daintily, that
one's heart warmed to her. The visitor would point her out. The
kennel-man would reply, flatteringly--
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