PRESENTED BY
The Corgi
It
is possible that the early corgi was a landrace rather than a breed as we know
it, and probably had a few localised variations.
The
history of this breed is hoary with age; claims that they migrated Westwards
with the Celts about three thousand years ago are not unknown. There is a
hint of proof for this theory in Galicia in North-West Spain. A proud
race, the Galicians were one of the few peoples to hold out against the Moorish
invasion of Spain: and the Galicians claim to be Celtic in origin. Not
only that but in the Quisquelo Guicho they have a small vermin hunter that
looks very much like a Corgi only with slightly longer legs. The Galician
Quisquelo is a prick-eared dog that appears to be a bit taller than a Corgi
with the same body size and similar depth of brisket, although it's not the
very deep brisket associated with achondroplasia.
It
is generally accepted that the Corgi was mentioned in the codices of Hywel Dda
as a herding breed, if we take this at face value, along with the claims of its
most enthusiastic devotees, then it means that at various times the corgi has
been:
- a herder, according to the
ancient Welsh texts.
- a (slow) drover, claims of
Corgis droving abound.
- a (fast) chaser, this is the job
for which the Corgi was developed from about the fifteenth century
onwards.
- and more recently, supposedly, a
herder again, from the middle of the nineteenth century
As well as,
of course, its modern tasks of companion, and show dog – not to mention its
ages old roles as a guard dog and ratter.
In
the Swedish Vallhund there is a dog, some claim, which shows a possible Nordic
origin for the Corgi. This may be so because Vikings certainly did raid
Pembrokeshire but the Vikings were not well known for bringing gifts, it would
seem far more likely that Corgis were stolen from the Welsh along with
livestock and just about anything else that took the Vikings’ fancy.
From
time to time other spitz breeds are sometimes suggested as having a common
origin with the corgi, particularly the Pembrokeshire breed. These dogs
are the:
- Norwegian Buhund
- Old Type Pomeranian
- Norwegian Lundehund
- Schipperke.
None of
these breeds are normally achondroplastic, and in some cases their similarity
is more to each other than it is to either the Pembrokeshire Corgi or the
Swedish Vallhund.
Perhaps
the dog most similar to the Corgi is the schipperke a breed that originated in
Flanders. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries we know that The Normans
encouraged Flemish settlers to settle in what is now Southern Pembrokeshire and
this area is still known today as ‘Little England Beyond Wales’. But this
settling happened five hundred years before any mention of The Schipperke was
made in Europe and seven hundred years before Belgian and British breeders
standardised the breed. The Schipperke is generally believed to be
descended from the Leauvenaar, an ancestor breed of the Belgian Sheepdog (this
breed is slightly larger than the Leauvenaar) and, at first glance, the
Schipperke does indeed look very much like a bred down version of the Belgian
Sheepdog but, crucially, it’s a miniature version, not a dwarf version.
The Flemish settlers were mainly soldiers and weavers, would they be likely to
bring dogs with them, and perhaps more importantly were those dogs Leauvenaars
or something smaller, as the Schipperke could be an older breed than the
Belgian Sheepdog. When there are vast migrations of people into an area
no breed could develop in isolation; ‘racial purity’ for dogs is a modern
idea. DNA testing might be a possibility if anyone had the time and money
to test a large population of dogs; then again it may not, eight hundred years
is a lot of dog generations for the genes to be shuffled and dealt, different
strains may suffer genetic drift, similar or identical genes may have been
introduced by unknown misalliances, the mutation rate seems to be high in dogs,
sports crop up in litter after litter; in short a gap of several hundred years
might be too long a time lapse to give any clear-cut answers.
Farmers
in upland areas of Wales depended on the Corgi for their livelihood; quite
possibly these dogs were their most valuable possessions. Not for the
farmer the niceties of the show-breeding world, they would not hesitate to
outcross to suitable breeds in an attempt to improve ‘type’. Even
offspring from misalliances with hounds or other non-pastoral breeds would be
watched closely for signs of any working ability. Given this amount of
controlled out-crossing it is surprising that the Corgi was able to maintain
its size and shape at all, albeit with a certain amount of variability.
But the reason for this apparent conformity is simple: achondroplasia (dwarfism) is caused by a
gene that at best (or worst) expresses only partial dominance in dogs, large
dogs with very short legs, however, will always appear similar and if the
produce of the various outcrosses were mated back to corgi stock then we’d have
an extensive heterogenous short-legged landrace, more of a type than a breed,
with breeders all the time favouring low-to-ground dogs for their required
working ability with cattle.
1845
was a year of signal importance for the Corgi for that was the year parliament
passed the ‘General Enclosure Act’. The reason for this act was the
belief that certain productive land was going to waste when it remained in the
commons, pre-1845 it was not cost effective to pursue a private act for small
areas of good food producing land, so the 1845 act was introduced as a means of
cost reduction and to make the procedure less complex. Prior to the act the
commons were being broken up and allotted to certain landowners
piecemeal. The Act accounted for approximately 50 per cent of all Welsh
enclosures. From 1856 to 1863 11.5% of the common land in Pembrokeshire alone
was ‘allotted’ under the 1845 general enclosures act.
There
were three distinct ‘sub-breeds’ of Corgi that made it into the modern era they
were, The Bronant Corgi, The Cardiganshire Corgi and The
Pembrokeshire Corgi, all of them were affected to some degree by the
ramifications of the ‘1845 General Enclosure Act’. Corgis were no longer
required to maximise their owners’ available acreage by chasing cattle as far
afield as possible, nor were they required to drive neighbours’ cattle away
from the farm; the farms were now much bigger and walled, hedged or fenced to
keep neighbouring cattle out. What farmers needed now was a cattle-herder
and not a chaser-awayer. As a result of the ‘General Enclosure act’ the Cardiganshire
Corgi found itself in quite dire straits as a distinct type towards the end
of the nineteenth century as the main task for which the Corgi had been bred
for centuries, that of chasing cattle out onto the commons, suddenly became
defunct. Welsh farmers attempted to improve herding ability within the
breed (for all the corgis were still seen as one breed) by outcrossing to the
border collie and a variety of welsh sheepdogs such as the Brindle Herder, Ci
Cwrshio, the Red Herder and possibly even to the Hillman to the point that a
lot of different cross-bred animals were claimed to be corgis at the turn of
the century. The farmers could not be blamed for this as to them a good working
dog was a valuable commodity, they simply could not afford to follow the fads
and trends of ‘pedigree dog' breeding. During the latter half of the
nineteenth century the Corgi had been gradually polarising into the
Pembrokeshire Corgi in the southern half of its range, and into the Bronant
Corgi towards the very North of its range - mainly on the high ground in what
remained of the commons around the village of Bronant, notwithstanding the
numerous types of corgi cross-breeds particularly in the northern half of the
dogs range.
After
a failed attempt to interbreed corgis with the Red Herder, an excellent worker
but of very poor temperament, Welsh farmers concentrated on outcrossing to the
Brindle Herder (known as the Labourers Dog in the hills), and the two breeds clicked.
The match resulted in a more refined Corgi (now called the Cardiganshire
Corgi) but it still retained the coursing instinct and not the herding
instinct and so was employed to chase cattle away on the high farms adjoining
the remaining common land. The lowland farmers mostly gave up on Corgis
and confined themselves to using a succession of sheepdogs instead.
The
last typical specimen of the Bronant breed, a dog named Mon, was run over by a
motor van in 1929 but fortunately he had left at least one litter behind by a
Cardiganshire/ Brindle Herder bitch. Mon’s offspring were bred back to
the Cardiganshire-type corgi.
In
1934 The Kennel Club officially recognised the Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire
Corgis as different breeds and all crossbreeding was forbidden. At the
time Corgi owners were given the choice as to which of the two breeds they
would prefer their dogs to be registered.
At
first glance the modern Cardigan seems to be a dwarf version of the Welsh
Hillman. This may be because the breed inherited its bat-ears and bushy
tail from The Brindle Herder and they were very similar to those of the
Hillman. Also the achondroplasic gene which causes dwarfism is very
common in dogs: it can be found particularly in hounds, terriers and oriental
breeds. Even the ancient Egyptians had a dog (The Tekal) which appeared
to sport the gene for dwarfism. It’s interesting to note that the Hillman
has been likened to the German Shepherd Dog and the original AKC (American
Kennel Club) description of the ‘Cardiganshire Corgi’ was that it should look
like an Alsatian with shorter legs.
A
former name for the Cardiganshire Corgi was Ci Llathaid or yard dog, which
meant that the dog should ideally be forty inches (the old Welsh yard) from
nose to tip of tail yet neither the breed standard of The Kennel Club or the
AKC mention this dimension as a prerequisite.
Occasionally
one comes across stories that the Pembrokeshire Corgi was originally a faery
steed or perhaps a faery draft animal, some Corgis even display a
saddle-marking that is supposedly faery in origin. Fairy stories are not
scientific by a long chalk, but it has been theorised in the past that one
possible reason for fairy stories is the interaction between bronze age people
and iron age invaders. Obviously while dogs such as the Cwn Annwn must remain
in myth and legend, might not the presence of corgis in these fairy stories
point to something else, could it possibly mean that if these stories about
faery steeds et al are not pure romance might it be a hint, perhaps a race
memory, that the Pembrokeshire Corgis were in Wales BEFORE the Celts arrived
with their iron weapons.
Working Dogs of the World, Clifford L. B. Hubbard, 1947.
Sidgwick and Jackson Limited, London.
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