BAD RAP shared a link.
Its Dog Bite Prevention Week. Did you know that there was never such thing as a Nannys Dog? This term was a recent invention created to describe the myriad of vintage photos of children enjoying their family pit bulls (see link for details about vintage photos). While the intention behind the term was innocent, using it may mislead parents into being careless with their children around their family dog - A recipe for dog bites!
From 2004 to 2010 59 US children were killed by the familys, babysitters, neighbors or friends pit bull.
The pit bull apologia would have you believe that their fighting bred dogs are just like any other dog in many ways, but so superior in their unparalleled love and devotion for children they were commonly known as "The Nanny Dog" throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. If pit bulls are held in low esteem today, it is only due to ignorance and the gullible acceptance of biased news reporting because, once upon a time, pit bulls were the most beloved dog in England and the United States.
A google search brings up 77,100 results for the term "nanny dog." While some sites bestow the Nanny Dog mantle on the American Pit Bull Terrier or the American Staffordshire Terrier and some lead you to productions of Peter Pan, most of the results lead you to 21st century blogs and news articles about the Staffordshire Bull Terrier.
120 sites dedicated to the Staffordshire Bull Terrier include this phrase in support of the fighting nanny dog mythology,
"These dogs were renowned for their courage and tenacity and despite their ferocity in the pit were excellent companions and good with children. In fact it was not unknown for an injured dog to be transported home in a pram with the baby!"
Frankly, even if this anecdote were plausible, let alone true, this doesnt support a nanny dog claim so much as it supports a sociopathic, baby abusing, dog abusing parent claim.
Dig as hard as you want, the pram story is all youll find to support the Nanny Dog myth in any of these sites. You wont find a single citation, quote or reference of any kind to a 19th century, or early 20th century text. Since the Staffordshire Bull Terrier enthusiasts didnt see fit to support their claims, I decided I would have to find the origin of the Nanny Dog myself.
Meet the Nanny Dog - the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Englands ultimate fighting dog and, inexplicably, the supposed dog of choice to care for Englands children in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
It is not hard to find old references to the Bull Terrier. The various histories and descriptions of the breed largely agree with each other. After bull baiting was banned in England, Coalminers in various cities including Staffordshire were at a loss for blood sporting alternatives for their beloved, courageous bulldogs. So, they developed another blood sport - pit dog fighting. Sadly, they soon found their bulldogs were not suited to win in the pit.
According to a 1908 New York Times article,
"The old lovers of the bulldog found to their dismay that sometimes a terrier, with only quickness and a pair of punishing jaws to recommend him, would kill a bulldog while the latter was merely hanging on. The bulldog would be brave to the death of course, and would withstand pain that the terrier would never endure, but that was poor consolation when the terrier had killed the dog.The dog fighters were, however, as persevering a set of men as were the bull baiters, and they set to work to remodel their favorites for their new occupation. They began to cross their bulldogs with the white English terrier, a breed now practically extinct, but the same in every respect, save color, as the modern Manchester or black-and-tan. The progeny was named the bull terrier, the greatest fighting machine, pound for pound, on four legs. The bull terrier had the courage of the bulldog and the jaws and quickness of the white terrier. Moreover, he has the terriers way of fighting. He does not simply take a hold and stay there. He takes a hold and begins to eat his way through and tear and worry. If his first hold doesnt suit, he takes another. If he gets his adversary by the throat, he will tear out the throat in a minute or so and end the battle.""There is perhaps no more beautiful illustration of the results of artificial selection than is provided in the history of the bulldog. It is a wonderful example of patient and skillful breeding for an object that is not wholly ignoble.
We can agree to disagree on that last point.
It is a bit confounding that the New York Times author neglected to mention the Staffordshire dog fighters even more stupendous genetic achievement, that of creating an unstoppable "fighting machine" that can also be used to nanny their children.
Nineteenth century dog breed books, such as The Illustrated Natural History (Mammalia), by Rev. JG Wood (1853), and The Dogs of the British Islands, by J.H. Walsh (1878) very precisely describe the deadly nature of the Bull Terrier, including an account of a Bull Terriers attack on a rhinoceros by a dog "called Venus in derision of her ugliness."(Wood, p. 311) Walsh suggests that, "unlike the bulldog, he (the Bull Terrier) is an excellent companion for the male sex, being a little too violent in his quarrels to make him desirable as a ladies pet (p. 221)." Nanny Dog? Not so much.
In 1894, Rawdon B. Lee wrote A History and Description of the Modern Dogs of Great Britain and Ireland in which he explains that in the middle of the 19th century, fanciers began to breed bull terriers as "a gentlemans companion" and began showing them in the ring. It was about this time that the Staffordshire Bull Terrier began to be recognized as distinct from the Bull Terrier. The Kennel Club in England recognized the Bull Terrier in the last quarter of the 19th century, and the Staffordshire Bull Terrier became the pit fighting dog of choice. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier was denied Kennel Club recognition until 1935 because of its reputation as a pit fighting dog.
Lee illustrates the Bull Terriers unsavory past by revealing that Bulls-eye, one of the meanest dogs in literary history and Bill Sykes sidekick and alter ego from Oliver Twist (1838) was a Bull Terrier. Dickens describes Bulls-Eye as having a face "scratched and torn in twenty different places..." and..."who by a certain malicious licking of his lips seemed to be meditating an attack up on the legs of the first gentleman or lady he might encounter in the streets when he went out." Charles Dickens also seemed unaware of the Bull Terriers special powers as a nanny, but was aware of the pit bulls capacity for human aggression.
Charles Dickens Bill Sikes and Bulls-Eye
Lee (p. 23) contends, "our modern Bull Terrier is a very different creature from what he was half a century ago." According to Lee, they had been perhaps the most popular dog in England, until they were recently supplanted by the Fox Terrier. They were kept for pets and companions, they gained recognition in dog shows, and became fashionable to own among the undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge. If any pit fighting dog might have been called Englands Nanny Dog, surely it would have been the white Bull Terrier. And yet there is no mention of it.
Mr. Lee is perhaps the first recorded pit nutter. He penned what might be the first known iteration of, "Its how you raise them" (p.22, p. 26) which is hilariously followed by the woeful tale of the demise of Mr. Lees own beloved Bull Terrier, Sam. Sam was incredibly talented and an incomparable companion who, owing to fighting blood on his sires side, became increasingly aggressive. After killing at least two dogs, Sam was dumped at a warehouse to be a guard dog where he died of a broken heart. 30 years later, Mr. Lee still laments the incredible and bloodthirsty Sam. But, I thought it was how you raise them...
As for 19th century mentions of the "Staffordshire Bull Terrier" that can be found online, there is one. It is a want ad for a fighting dog:
Pleshey Chelmsford Wanted a Staffordshire bull terrier dog must have an exceedingly long nose and thoroughly game to face anything and win A tried dog preferred PS For special purpose weight 34 lb 944 (1871 Exchange and Mart and Journal of the Household (p. 614))
Archive searches of British, American and Canadian newspapers going as far back as the 18th century turn up not one single mention of "Nanny Dog" with regards to ANY breed until 1904 when the first stage production of Peter Pan opened featuring a nursemaid dog named Nana. Though J.M. Barrie patterned Nana after his Landseer Newfoundland, Nana has been portrayed by a St. Bernard, and an Old English Sheep Dog in subsequent stage and screen productions. No mention of Nana ever being a Staffie Bull. Not even in Never Never Land.
So, where is the oldest known reference to the Staffie Bull being some sort of nanny dog? In a New York Times article. In 1971, Walter R. Fletcher wrote an article entitled, "A Breed That Came Up the Hard Way" in which he interviewed William R. Daniels and Mrs. Lilian Rant, President and magazine editor for the Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club of America on the eve of the Staffie Bulls being granted permission to be shown in the American Kennel Clubs miscellaneous class. Its the first step to AKC recognition and the club wanted to polish their dogs image.
Daniels brings up Dickens villainous Bulls-Eye again and Mrs. Rant acknowledges that the Stafford "had an unsavory reputation for fighting and violence and his name became associated with ruffians, who cared little for him as a dog but only for his ability in the pit. The Stafford we know today quickly becomes a member
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