Bull Terriers: “The Best Breed Books Anywhere!”

Why is it that some breeds attract so much good writing? Is it simply because people who are interested in that breed are more interested in reading than others? Or is it because some breeds appeal to colorful personalities who are fun to write — and read — about?

Perhaps it's a little bit of both, but the fact is that I, who don't even own the breed, have more than a dozen books about Bull Terriers, and a whole lot of magazines, pamphlets, etc., that also deal with Bull Terriers and are of a universally high literary quality (something you don't find a whole lot of in dog-related literature).

I dragged all these off the bookshelf after reading Denise Flaim's excellent profile in this publication a couple of weeks ago of David C. Merriam, the Terrier judge and Bull Terrier fancier who was inducted into the Anne Rogers Clark “Hall of Fame” at the Purina® Pro Plan® Show Dogs of the Year awards in New York, in partnership with Dog News. David was friends with Raymond Oppenheimer, the author of two of the best dog books I have, McGuffin & co (1964) and After Bar Sinister (1969). Mr. Oppenheimer also exerted an almost unique influence over the readers of his weekly column in English Dog World — far outside his own breed and at the highest level. To say that the man was treated as a god is no exaggeration, although of course he also had his critics. Who doesn't when their word is considered law?

His two books aren't really breed histories in the usual sense. As Mr. Oppenheimer says in the introduction, “These matters have already been dealt with extremely ably by numbers of other writers.” The first book is intended as an account of the Bull Terrier's progress over about 30 years. Much of the content is autobiographical, much deals with the activities of Mr. Oppenheimer's fellow breeders, and there are also chapters that are reprinted simply because they are both witty and wise; for instance “Pedigree Theories,” “Judging Good and Bad,” “Choosing a Sire” — and the much-quoted “Twenty Basic Breeding Principles,” which is printed in full with this article. It was actually reprinted from Ernest Eberhard's The Complete Bull Terrier, published by Denlinger in the U.S. in 1959. (Ernest Eberhard was American and bred ONE great dog, Ch. Madame Pompadour of Ernicor. According to David Harris' wonderful Made in Birmingham: A History of the Bull Terrier [2012], “breeding Madame Pompadour appeared to be [Eberhard's] high point,” because he then changed, and from being “as nice a guy as you'd ever hope to meet” he became a self-appointed “authority of all things, including Bull Terriers …”)

Ch. Madame Pompadour of Ernicore.

The Twenty Basic Breeding Principles, regardless of who wrote them, make a lot of sense, even though a couple of the principles apply specifically to Bull Terriers. They can easily be made to fit any breed. Like Denise, I think #3 is particularly useful, but #20 is probably my favorite.

A few other quotes:

“People may be sure that they remember what such and such a dog looked like, but, in fact, they do not, because they looked at him long ago with the eyes of yesterday while now they are remembering him with the eyes of today.”

“It is frequently said that the perfect dog will never be born. This is, of course, true in the obvious sense of the phrase since there is always something which could be better, but it is also true in another more lasting sense. As man advances the horizon for ever recedes. There is indeed no such thing as perfection, because perfection can only be found where the rainbow ends.”

“Dog breeders from time immemorial have found it hard, if not impossible, to define the word 'quality'; a wider circle of human beings have found it equally difficult to define the word 'personality.' We all know it when we see it, as Mr. Gladstone said when he confessed that though he knew an elephant when he saw one, he was damned if he could define it.” (William Gladstone was prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on four separate occasions between 1868 and 1894.)

“You will often hear a judge, defending something he has done, say: 'Oh! well, that's my opinion and I'm as entitled to it as the next man to his opinion.' If, by this statement, he honestly means that in his view the animals he has put up are more likely to contribute to the progress of the breed than the ones he has put down, then certainly he has as much right to his opinion as the next man, but if, as is too often the case, he means 'I put this dog up because I like him and to hell with the breed's progress; I am only concerned with today,' then he is utterly wrong.”                 

“It is of great importance that neither single faults nor single virtues shall be allowed to assume undue significance in the minds of breeders or of judges, all of whom should always have before them as a goal a balanced assessment of each and every animal which they are called upon to appraise so that they weigh dispassionately the virtues and the defects of each.”

Raymond Oppenheimer.

Also, I will quote from the chapter “Bull-Terriers in the USA,” because what Mr. Oppenheimer writes can apply to many breeds who don't fit into a stereotype that group judges often expect: “American bull-terrierdom suffers from what I would call 'all-rounderitis': that is to say the breed is judged at the vast majority of their shows by an all-rounder who, in at least ninety per cent of cases, judges them exactly like any ordinary terrier […] since he is completely unaware of correct type.” Is that still true?

Mr. Oppenheimer also tells of handling a dog he bred to Best of Winners at Morris & Essex KC in 1939 and of judging the breed at the same show in 1952; I am pretty sure he also judged the BTCA National Specialty in the 1970s or '80s.

At the end of After Bar Sinister, his second book that dealt with the consequences of their outstanding male Ormandy Souperlative Bar Sinister being a unilateral monorchid — and still managing somehow to become a top sire — Mr. Oppenheimer announced that he and his partner Eva Weatherill would retire from active competition with their dogs. They didn't, of course, but he refused to write a third book (apparently he was reticent due mainly to the fact that their dogs played such an overwhelming role in the breed's later development in both England and the U.S.), but again an American breeder came to the rescue: From James to Jim, by W. E. Mackay-Smith, was printed in the U.S. in 1980, very much in the style of the previous two books. Winkie Mackay-Smith was almost as familiar with the important Bull Terriers in England as Mr. Oppenheimer, a great breeder, and both knowledgeable and entertaining.

Again, why do the Bull Terrier fanciers have so much good reading to choose from? The following are just a few books that I would recommend, although all are not easy to get hold of: Forty Years of Bull Terriers (by Gladys M. Adlam, England, 1952), The Bull Terrier Book (edited by Margaret O. Sweeten, England, 1961), Colket Memorial Book of Bull Terriers (edited and compiled by Jack and Barbara Waslyn, America, 1970), The Bull Terrier (by John F. Gordon, England, 1973), All About the Bull Terrier (by Tom Horner, England, 1980s?), The New Bull Terrier (by John H. Remer, Jr., America, 1988), Bull Terriers Today (by David Harris, America, 1998).

And then there is the second book by the same author, Made in Birmingham: A History of the Bull Terrier (David Harris, America, 2012). It was privately printed (my copy is #57), 570 pages and illustrated by more than 400 pictures. It is incredibly detailed, full of information that you just cannot get anywhere else, and is probably the third-best dog book I have …