DOG-BREEDING
"A black dog with white fore-legs, many male children will be born to the family.
"A yellow dog with white fore-legs, he will have good luck.
"The breeding of a white dog with a black head is lucky, and will bring a man riches.
"A white dog with a black tail will cause the family through all generations to ride in chariots."[1]
With these old superstitious beliefs may be compared the ancient Parsee rite for expulsion of the corpse-drug from the dead by means of a dog having two spots above the eyes or of a white dog having yellow ears. "As soon as this dog has looked at the dead," remarks the ritual, "the Drug flees back to hell in the shape of a fly.[2]
Numerous historians refer to the care bestowed by the Emperors of the Tang and Sung Dynasties upon their dogs. These Emperors, unlike the English kings, who when resident at Greenwich kept their sporting kennels at the Isle of Dogs, appear to have bred their dogs in the palace, and even in the Imperial ancestral temple. Under the Emperor Wan Li (1563-1620) this was prohibited, and one of the eunuchs, guilty of keeping a small dog in this temple, escaped severe punishment only on payment of a substantial "squeeze."
In Europe remarkable freedom was allowed to dog-owners by the mediaeval Church. The office of "dog-whipper," whose holder's duty was to keep the congregation's dogs in order while in church during services, was held in numerous churches in England, and in some persisted beyond the middle of the nineteenth century. On the Continent, too, it was customary to allow dogs to enter sacred buildings with their masters. "At Avignon the dogs made love or war, and barked in the churches at pleasure."[3]
- ↑ In ancient China only members of families in which there were officials were allowed to ride in carts.
- ↑ "Sacred Books of the East," Zend Avesta, vol. iv, p. lxxxvii.
- ↑ Notes and Queries, p. 343, October 1897.
