Friday, November 10, 2017

Such a lowly and common dog

(exerpt from Wikipedia)

The Turnspit Dog, or Underdog:


The Turnspit dog was a short-legged, long-bodied dog bred to run on a wheel, called a turnspit or dog wheel, to turn meat. The type is now extinct. It is mentioned in Of English Dogs in 1576 under the name "Turnespete." William Bingley's Memoirs of British Quadrupeds (1809) also talks of a dog employed to help chefs and cooks. It is also known as the Kitchen Dog, the Cooking Dog, the Underdog and the Vernepator. In Linnaeus's 18th century classification of dogs it is listed as Canis vertigus. The breed was lost since it was considered to be such a lowly and common dog that no record was effectively kept of it.

Oh lowly kitchen dog, you break my heart.

"...long-bodied, crooked-legged and ugly dogs, with a suspicious, unhappy look about them..."

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