Citizen Canine

It is often said that people come to resemble their , and dogs their masters. But we humans do not stop at searching for reflections of our individual qualities in our canine companions, the author writes. We are also eager to find the representa- tive virtues of entire nations and ethnic groups—and therein lies a tail.

by Edward Tenner

ften I walk or run around a half-mile the children speak to their parents and Opath near my apartment, a simple among themselves in English. We say that asphalt loop encircling soccer and baseball these families are becoming “naturalized.” fields, playgrounds, and basketball courts. Their dogs are newcomers, too; indeed, so Morris Davison Park is the green of a glob- are all dogs with owners, even if the dogs’ al village. Professional urbanists and cultur- ancestors have been on American soil for a al critics may deplore our landscape of gar- century or more. The dogs, however, will den apartment complexes (like mine), never be entirely naturalized. They are, in housing tracts, and shopping centers, but a sense, perpetual newcomers. my neighborhood travels show that families For all their emotional intimacy with from all over the world love it. People with owners and their families, dogs remain origins throughout Europe, in East and conditional citizens. Americans without South Asia, in the Middle East, in the criminal records need not register with the Caribbean and Central America all happily authorities, as Europeans often must, but gather to walk, talk, play, and rest here. To in most places they do have to register see their cosmopolitan soccer teams on a their dogs. It would take a four-legged spring or summer afternoon is to witness Foucault to anatomize our elaborate the beginnings of a fresh transformation of regime of surveillance over dogs—the American identity. taxes, the tags, the inoculations, and above Bigotry and ethnic tensions are not dead, all the human control of reproduction that and Plainsboro, New Jersey, is no utopia, has made possible the profusion of canine but the congenial scene at my local park is physical and mental traits. confirmation of what modern genetics has The ’s conditional legal status is only revealed, the unity of the human species. the beginning. Like any greenhorn, it must The dogs that accompany my fellow citi- learn, often painfully, the ways of its hosts. zens are also conscious that they form a sin- It may be spared the need for table man- gle species. They vary far more in size, ners, but it must learn human conceptions color, and temperament than we people do, of appropriate behavior. It is expected to but in their vivid and seemingly indiscrimi- modify its innate concepts of territoriality nate interest in one another they betray no to suit the human propensity toward socia- apparent breed consciousness. (Chihua- bility, to refrain from jumping on dinner huas are said to prefer their own kind, but it guests, and to respect the otherness of the is more likely that they are simply, and sen- postal carrier’s uniform instead of consid- sibly, most interested in other small dogs.) ering it a provocation. When we pet some Many of my foreign-born neighbors are adorable puppy, we are also educating it. already Americans, and still others are well Reared in isolation, many dogs become on their way to Americanization. Already aggressive or shy, or indeed both at once.

Citizen Canine 71 The burden of learning does not, how- years of archaeology, genetic analysis, and ever, fall only on the dog nation. Children documentary research still needed. equally learn the ways of an alien folk. Specialists question many of the assertions Children must come not to fear dogs, yet of breed histories, such as the close kinship they also must learn rules of caution, such of the Tibetan Mastiff and the Neapolitan as not approaching an unfamiliar dog Mastiff, or the Egyptian ancestry of all without asking the owner. They must avoid greyhounds and other sight hounds. running from a dog. When they are older, (Independent origins are more likely.) The they may learn the disconcerting fact that Peruvian Inca Orchid, a nearly bald variety the sight of a running child may trigger a said to have been kept in luxury and pro- hunting response in dogs, including some tected from the sun by the rulers of the small, cute breeds. Of course, they may Inca Empire, appears similar enough to also learn how much cleaner a dog’s the Xolo, or Mexican Hairless, that mouth is than a human mouth. The worst Mexican fanciers do not recognize it as a bite is a human bite, my mother said. separate breed. Both in turn are closely Science has proved her right, as usual. related to the Chinese Crested, but it is not clear when and in which direction the umanity, unlike dogdom, has not ancestors of these breeds were transported. Hbeen satisfied with the distinctions between the two conjoined species. In the ome breeds are of more recent, and last hundred years or so, it has increasing- Smore reliably known, origin. The ly mapped its own political and ethnic Teutonic Dachshund has Gallic Basset identities onto the nation of dog. Out of Hound blood. The the variegated world of dog breeding and was developed by Americans, possibly training, it has extracted symbols of history from the stock of Basque herdsmen. and character. (Ironically, the “native” dingo, which long A cultivated, telepathic dog might give ago crossed to Australia from Eurasia, is an amusing interview. It might quote reviled by European Australians as a live- David Starr Jordan, the ichthyologist who stock pest, accused in one celebrated case was Stanford University’s first president: of stealing and killing an infant.) “When a dog barks at the moon, then it is Our canine informant might continue religion; but when he barks at strangers, it that dogs are most comfortable when they is patriotism!” But human politics, it might enjoy a close working bond with people in a remark, is, was, and will remain meaning- given terrain performing a certain job— less to its kind: ubi bene ibi patria. Where patrolling and defending a territory, hunt- my kibble is, there is my fatherland. Dogs ing—or simply sitting in a human lap. Each indeed have special human loyalties, but of the dozens of types of herding dogs in the these precede the rise of nation-states by world is accustomed to a certain landscape hundreds of years. They have been spe- and specific sizes of sheep or cattle. Indus- cially bred by different kinds of groups— trialization indirectly promoted still other classes, occupations, and trades—for par- breeds. Factory workers of the River Aire in ticular uses: sight hounds, retrievers, herd- Yorkshire bred large terriers for chasing rats ing dogs, watchdogs, even draft animals, and pursuing (often forbidden) game, creat- are attached respectively to nobles and ing the ancestors of today’s gentrified hunters, sheep raisers, property owners, Airedales. (English gamekeepers, in turn, and small tradespeople. How can a dog crossed bulldogs with mastiffs to create a trace geographic affiliations, it might well new breed, the bull mastiff, that could take ask, if human beings are so confused? down a poacher and hold him without Scholarship and scientific research on devouring him.) The high spirits prized by dog origins remain in their infancy, with today’s Airedale breeders and trainers reflect

> Edward Tenner, a former Wilson Center Fellow, is a visitor in the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University. He is the author of Tech Speak (1986) and Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Conse- quences (1996). Copyright © 1998 by Edward Tenner.

72 WQ Summer 1998 “Venus” the bulldog was the ship’s mascot of a British destroyer during World War II.

the raffish culture of the dog’s original blue- The upper classes of Europe and North collar enthusiasts. America have been transporting dogs for When European settlers in the New centuries—George Washington ordered a World and other outposts began creating Dalmatian from England—but few people new varieties around the 18th century, they could afford to do so before efficient trans- were not exercising their fancy but blending portation by rail, road, and air was generally the structure and behavior of existing available. Our cultivated guide dog might breeds to suit new conditions: thus the conclude its remarks by reminding us that Newfoundland and Chesapeake Bay the same pathways helped make heartworm retrievers and such distinctively British lega- a national rather than a southern problem. cies as the Rhodesian Ridgeback and the New Zealand Huntaway. Folk breeders ven the most learned poodle proba- paid no attention to borders. Mark Derr, a Ebly could not analyze the subject fur- leading dog writer, speculates that the ther. It is one thing to recognize that peo- descends from ple have changed dogs and quite another colonists’ curs and indigenous dogs, with to understand what these changes had to traces of red wolf and Spanish Mastiff do with human self-consciousness. And mixed in. But while it is found along the even to people, the beginnings of national Gulf of Mexico from Mexico into Florida, dogdom were gradual. The literary scholar Louisiana has claimed it as its state dog Harriet Ritvo has studied how the abolition since 1979 and pointedly employs Cata- of bullbaiting in the 1830s led fanciers to houlas as guard dogs on state property. begin the bulldog’s transformation to Today, even as the cult of national dogs house pet and competitive show animal. flourishes, geography imposes fewer limits The viselike jaws were turned into stylized than ever on how far a breed may range. jowls, and polygenic traits such as large

Citizen Canine 73 heads and short legs were maintained gen- the human celebrities who embody nation- eration after generation. The early breed- al qualities—think of Benjamin Franklin ers were not trying to make a national and George Washington. But where statement. Nevertheless, their kinder, gen- Franklin was a wise if eccentric uncle, mas- tler bruiser proved the perfect canine com- cots are metaphorical children, loved as plement to England’s existing cartoon much for their foibles and mild misbehavior emblem, the beefy, foursquare yeoman as for the positive side of their character. John Bull. The bulldog was more a crea- The distinction is not absolute. The ture of enthusiasts than a common com- Irish Wolfhound, for example, despite the panion, and it was never accorded any offi- imposing size and aristocratic bearing that cial status, yet it became an indelible make it so much a classic monument dog, national emblem of tenacity, applied to is part mascot. Centuries of breeding after doughty Englishmen from Thomas Henry the disappearance of wolves and other Huxley (“Darwin’s bulldog”) to the plain- large predators from Ireland have given it clothes policemen of Oxford University. such a sweet temperament that it is no longer fit to hunt wolves or defend sheep, ational dogs seem to fall into two just as few bulldogs would be eager to Ngroups: mascots and monuments. jump at the nose of an enraged longhorn. The former is a natural greeter, a goodwill As a symbol of Irish culture the wolfhound ambassador; the latter is a stern standard still retains impeccable credentials; bearer. (Whether mascot or monument, few according to tradition, Saint Patrick him- of these breeds enjoy official recognition as self worked with wolfhounds during his national dogs.) A similar distinction between youthful period of captivity among the the familiar and the distant applies among Irish and thus was able to call them off in Gaelic when he re- turned as a mission- ary many years later. Wolfhounds are fea- tures of Saint Pat- rick’s Day parades in the United States, but it is unlikely that an IRA cell would have any use for one. Conversely, a mas- cot is not held to a high performance standard. Tony Blair swept Britain’s 1997 general elections with a campaign ad featur- ing a bulldog rejuve- nated after years of Tory torpor by the prospect of New Labor. (The spokes- dog, Fritz, was only three, so it was no great feat.) The breed’s alleged health problems and distant heritage of blood Hitler called his beloved shepherds “my only perfect friends.” As a sport could equally breeder, he sought to emphasize the dog’s wolf-like qualities. have made it the sym-

74 WQ Summer 1998 bol of all that Blair and his associates who presided over yet another tragedy. sought to purge from a “re-branded” Even before 1914, though, another type of Britain, but it had a nationalist subtext that national dog was emerging: the monument Labor’s official red rose could not match, dog. had an old monument dog, even if some Scots thought the bulldog the Deutsche Dogge, another mastiff variant was too English a breed. and a fearless protector. A dachshund on a pedestal would be laughable, a Deutsche he poodle, especially the miniature Dogge plausible. But the Deutsche Dogge Tpoodle, is an unofficial mascot dog of needed a lot of room, indoors and out, had France, even more childlike than the bull- an appetite that could challenge even the dog. In the early 19th century, the standard average Junker’s bank account, and lived poodle was as much a German as a French only about a decade. Perhaps even more dog, fit to serve in Goethe’s Faust as an damning, many foreigners thought it was incarnation of Mephistopheles. As more originally Danish—it is called the Great people moved to Paris and provincial cities, Dane in the English-speaking world—even the Pudel’s French cousin, a duck hunting if it seemed an unlikely product of such a dog, or caniche, was selected for compact- small, peaceable nation. ness and trainability. It was not only a favorite performing dog, and the earliest early a hundred years ago, a group dog of the hunter’s blind, but the signature Nof German fanciers made a fateful pet of bourgeois urban apartment dwellers. innovation in the culture of national dogs. Yet the more beloved the poodle became, In 1899, only a year before the significance the less fearsome. Standard poodles are of Gregor Mendel’s long-neglected papers physically and temperamentally excellent on genetic inheritance burst into the protection dogs, yet are disqualified symbol- awareness of scientists, these fanciers ically from such service. Much dog work is formed a Dog Society, pure theater, and a poodle guarding a the SV, to develop what they considered nuclear missile site, no matter how intelli- the outstanding qualities of one of gent and even fierce, is simply miscast. Germany’s native breeds. The cofounder (Even among mascots, it has an awkward of the SV, a retired Prussian cavalry cap- position: would you rather be a powerful tain named Max von Stephanitz, was no person’s metaphoric bulldog, or that per- Junker. He had grown up in a cosmopoli- son’s poodle?) tan, well-traveled household and The dachshund was the third classic mas- was familiar with the breeding customs cot of the 19th century and, like the poodle, and dog shows then part of the vogue for a citified hunter. The Teckel Society— all things English among the Continental Teckel and Dackel are the dog’s more upper class. Like other dog fanciers, von gemütlich names—was founded in 1888 and Stephanitz had noted the elegant lines of is one of the oldest German dog organiza- the Rough , Queen Victoria’s tions. Some owners continued the breed’s favorite and the outstanding international original work of hunting badgers, but for luxury dog of the day. friend and foe of Germany alike the dachs- After observing the autonomous herding hund remained the “wiener dog,” endowed skills of sheepdogs in western Germany, by its distorted anatomy with an eccentric von Stephanitz (with another former offi- dignity and musculoskeletal problems to cer) resolved to bring a new spirit to elite match. Even more beloved than other mas- dog breeding, emphasizing the folk breed- cot dogs, and often courageous and persis- er’s cultivation of character, intelligence, tent, it has been sadly unable to defend self and working ability over mere looks. A or country. With the outbreak of World War fierce nationalist, he promoted these pur- I, even native-born British dachshunds faced suits as a distinctively German alternative abuse and death in the early waves of British to the frivolous and superficial ways of for- jingoism. The last dachshund in the interna- eign breeders. Realizing that fewer and tional spotlight was the unfortunate Waldi, fewer dogs would ever actually herd sheep, the emblem of the 1972 Munich Olympics, he still insisted on the field trial as the

Citizen Canine 75 ultimate test of a pedigreed dog and optics and racing cars. Many American extolled the loyal and protective character police departments still believe so strongly of the shepherd. The shepherd would in the original bloodlines and methods that retain the working virtues that Britain’s they pay premiums of thousands of dollars effete collie had lost. Von Stephanitz’s tire- for German-bred, German-trained shep- less publicity, massive correspondence (up herds, hoping to find dogs that fulfill von to 17,000 letters logged in a single year), Stephanitz’s policedog ideal: “joy in work, and persuasiveness with police officials devotion to duty, loyalty for his master, mis- brought quick popular recognition, trust and sharpness against strangers and though no official status, for the new breed unusual things.” of German Shepherd Dog. During World Other peoples have followed the War I, the centrally organized SV was able Germans in the manufacture of monu- to mobilize so many shepherds for the ment dogs. Whether or not in conscious army that the breed displaced the Airedale imitation, Japanese breeders of the early terrier as favorite. 20th century began to purify the largest of Von Stephanitz, a Saxon who had their indigenous spitzlike strains, the served Prussia and then moved to an estate Akita, to remove traces of the European in Bavaria to oversee his informal network dogs to which it had been bred during its of breeders and fanciers, epitomized fighting days in the 19th century. Japanese German national fusion in his own right. breeders, according to one history of the And the breed standard that he and his Akita, created a hierarchy of colored leash- associates developed merged what they es and honorific forms of address for the considered the best traits of a number of most accomplished dogs. Shepherds and regional varieties of sheepdog in Central others could earn titles of Schutzhund Europe, especially strains from (protection dog) I, II, and III, but Akitas and Württemberg. Express crate shipment that progressed from Ara-inu (beginning via a national rail network let breeders dog) all the way to an exalted training title combine varieties that could have re- such as O-hana Shi-inu (released dog) mained distinct breeds; Belgium alone has were honored with a red leather collar dec- three recognized sheepherding breeds. orated in gold with a shogun’s crest. By Indeed, it is not clear how many of the 1919 the Akita was a designated national dogs originated on “German” soil: Glenn monument, and other breeds soon Radde, a Minnesota geographer and received the same distinction. anthropologist and pioneering student of the breed, believes that much of the foun- he German connection helped pro- dation stock came from non-German- Tduce at least one even more surpris- speaking Central Europe. Nevertheless, by ing monument dog. In his history of the 1938 the leading German encyclopedia shepherd breed, the fiercely anti-Semitic Meyers Lexikon was proclaiming the shep- von Stephanitz denied that Jews could herd’s “pure German descent and pure understand the “essence” of the shepherd, German breeding.” but he evidently recognized honorary Aryans. Among the contributors to the espite the use of masquerade names magazine of the SV was Dr. Rudolfina Dsuch as “Alsatian” and “police dog,” Menzel, chief consultant to the Vienna Hollywood only helped confirm the police department and one of the leading German-ness of the breed during the first specialists of the Shepherd world. Menzel decades of the century, when its early canine and her husband emigrated to Palestine in stars Strongheart and Rin Tin Tin (both the the 1930s, where they became - products of German police or military ken- ers and trainers for the Haganah, the nels) paraded the shepherd’s athletic Zionist military organization. And when prowess before international film audiences. shepherds and other European breeds The innocent dachshund remained stigma- wilted in the Middle Eastern heat, Menzel tized, but the shepherd became a token of a began to develop a new, desert-hardy dog valiant foe, and a luxury import item akin to from the fittest and most intelligent of the

76 WQ Summer 1998 pariahs that followed sojourners have been the Bedouin camps. adopting and fostering Until comparatively what they perceive as recently, Jews shared “native” breeds in vari- some of Muslims’ cul- ous corners of the tural misgivings about world. dogs. In the Eastern In Afghanistan, it was European shtetl, dogs British diplomats and were suspect as the The Kangal military officers serving guardians of the gentry’s under the British pro- estates and as the fighting companions of tectorate that prevailed from 1839 to 1921 an often hostile peasantry. The Zionist who began to put together narratives of the dream of a Jewish state in Palestine Afghan Hound as a breed—this at a time changed aversion into enthusiasm. The when Afghanistan was still a tribal, local dogs of the Middle East, with whom nomadic society with no fixed political the Bedouin could be alternately affec- identity. Mary Amps, the wife of an tionate and harsh, were the survivors of rig- English major stationed near Kabul after orous natural selection, and close to their World War I, bought valuable specimens uncorrupted, spitzlike ancestors. Despite of the dog from tribesmen. Her writings their nomadic and letters not only defined much of the history, the dogs breed’s history but helped create a nation- turned out to be al consciousness of the Tazi Hound, as it is fiercely territorial called locally. as well as intelli- Some foreigners have gone a step further, gent and self- promoting breeds that were not yet recog- reliant, able to nized locally. Anoth- signal an out- er English overseas sider’s approach couple, the husband with two distinct in this case a diplo- The Akita barking tones. mat on Malta, recog- Were these not nized in a large local the dogs of ancient Israel, ready to emerge rabbit-hunting dog from centuries of neglect and to defend a the descendant of land of their own at last? animals painted on the walls of the he Canaan Dog, like the shepherd, tombs of ancient Thas no official status in its homeland, Egypt. They chris- yet it also is used widely by public authorities tened it the Pharaoh in Israel, and even as overseas celebrities Dog, worked with adopt the breed, locally and internationally it other breeders and continues to represent national values. fanciers in the Uni- The Canaan Dog Native residents and settlers are not the ted Kingdom and only creators of national dogs. Peoples all then in the United States, and ultimately over the world may be skillful practical helped it achieve recognition by the owners of regional varieties, but shaping a American Kennel Club in 1983. It is now breed demands familiarity with the biolog- the official hunting dog of Malta. ical, legal, and social aspects of dogdom— Yet another diplomat, an American a body of knowledge that arose little more named David D. Nelson, and his wife, than a hundred years ago in Western Eur- Judith, delighted their Turkish hosts in the ope and North America. Just as the system mid-1970s by recognizing among the of Scots clan tartans was elaborated by diverse herding and guarding dogs of east- English textile manufacturers, just as central Anatolia the Kangal dog, named Captain von Stephanitz appropriated the for a leading family and town of its region. craft skills of working shepherds, Western As the Nelsons note on their World Wide

Citizen Canine 77 Web site devoted to the dog, “the Turkish of breed wardens organized by von villager has little concept of ‘breeds.’” In Stephanitz saved the shepherd from ruin the absence of a Turkish national kennel through commercialization in the 1920s.) club, and despite the preference of urban Yet narrow as the biological base may be, it Turks for imported breeds, the Nelsons still supports a monument. succeeded in raising Turkish government The creation of national animals by cos- consciousness. Now there are two state mopolitan enthusiasts has not ended. The kennels in the dog’s home province. Today Inca Dog of Peru, for example, follows a the Kangal appears on a Turkish postage breed standard developed by fanciers in stamp and, like the Akita in Japan, is one Bremen. The Fila Brasileiro, with the build of a mastiff and the nose of a bloodhound, the unofficial monument dog of Brazil, is prized by owners there for its fierce territoriality and suspi- cion of strangers. But one of its chief promoters is a Brazilian- born breeder and writer named Clelia Kruel, who lives in Texas, where he manages a Fila Web site. Urban Brazilians may pre- fer shepherds and Dobermans, but, according to the site, the Brazilian Center for Jungle Warfare has judged the Fila “the best dog for jungle work.” “Faithful as a Fila” is a Brazilian proverb. While the Chihuahua, unlike the Xolo with its proud Aztec ancestry, began as the darling souvenir of Anglo tourists, it has proved surprisingly popular Stubbie the pit bull, wounded while serving in World War I among Hispanic Americans, to and greeted as a hero by three U.S. presidents, made a judge from their favorable reac- strong but unsuccessful bid for national dog status. tion to opinion polls on a contro- versial Spanish-speaking dog in a of a number of breeds prized as a national Taco Bell commercial. Nor is this the only asset for a combination of beauty and welcome addition of humor to the formerly courage in the face of fierce predators. hard-bitten world of canine nationalism: Cobi, the mascot of the 1992 Barcelona ome academic biologists dispute the Olympics, was officially a Gos d’Atura SNelsons’ claims and are skeptical that Catala (Catalan ) but existed there are any real distinctions among mainly as an unrecognizably stylized car- Turkish breeds, but, as interest in the toon figure by the local artist-designer Javier Kangal grows in Turkey and the West, the Mariscal. No Catalan seemed to mind that standard is becoming a self-fulfilling phy- foreign journalists regularly misidentified logeny. Turkish scientific opinion seems to the breed as a Pyrenees. support the Nelsons’ view that the Kangal is a long-established breed. Like other s with most technologies, there are newly recognized breeds, it will need care- A glaring paradoxes in dog breeding. ful management and selection to retain When a mascot or monument dog be- the qualities that attracted owners to it in comes a global success, as the shepherd the first place. (Only a rigorous new system did, its country of origin may lose much of

78 WQ Summer 1998 its control over selection and quality. (This nuclear plant that he has identified as has been a serious issue among Akita descended from the earliest native dogs, breeders in Japan.) Though most people but these Carolina dogs, as he has called distinguish between individual animals them, do not have American Kennel Club and the images associated with their breed, recognition yet, let alone a postage stamp. dogs are sometimes made to suffer for atrocities committed by totalitarian or mericans seem to reserve their affec- racist police employing the breed. A tion and enthusiasm for mixture Residents of Kinshasa, Zaire, took violent itself. In 1990, the chairman of Japan’s offense at the German Shepherd Dog that Toyota Motor Company caused an inter- accompanied George Foreman for his national uproar when he declared that 1974 world championship match with Americans built inferior cars because they Mohammed Ali; it recalled the dogs of the were a “mongrel race.” Americans may hated Belgian colonial police. And mili- have been embarrassed by the quality of tary mobilization, which initially promot- their Fords and Chevies at the time, but ed the shepherd in its homeland during they never wavered in their commitment the First World War, nearly wrecked it in to the glories of crossbreeding. Around the the second. Though Hitler was an SV same time, when Robert Dornan, then a member who exalted the shepherd as a Republican congressman from California, quasi-official national totem through the used a talk show to propose a bill to desig- 1930s, he also requisitioned thousands of nate a national dog, the winner of the the finest breeding dogs for war service, show’s poll was the “great American mutt.” and many or most never returned. (Today, My neighbors in the park don’t neces- the overwhelming majority of German sarily want to merge their cultures or their military and police dogs are shepherds.) genes into a vast, old-style melting pot, but The ultimate national-dog paradox may neither are they happy with ideologies of be that Americans, so receptive to the mas- purity. The pluralism reflected in the mutt cot and monument breeds of other cult has, at least for the time being, sus- nations, have never had a pure-bred candi- pended the search for a national culture date of their own. Just as we have a succes- and purpose that was so prominent in the sion of presidential libraries across the 1950s and ’60s. But there is an equally land supplementing our national archives, unforeseen side of the pedigreed dog we have a trail of presidential dogs, from fancy. As sites on the World Wide Web Warren Harding’s Laddie Boy (an Aire- suggest, the establishment and mainte- dale) to Bill Clinton’s chocolate Labrador nance of “pure” bloodlines is a national retriever Buddy, and a diverse lineup of and international sporting activity. It military and police dogs. Few traces brings together people of the most diverse remain of our native American dogs, at backgrounds in new communities, just as least outside Alaska. Enthusiasts have only the assorted dogs of Davison Park are giv- a slender basis for a truly autochthonous ing older and newer Americans occasion breed on the Canaan Dog model. One to meet each other. Animals are not only biologist, I. Lehr Brisbin, has found and good to think with, as Claude Lévi-Strauss bred a wild strain near the Savannah River wrote. They are good to link with.

Citizen Canine 79