Meet RIPE FOR SCANDAL's dog: Gulliver

To celebrate the release of RIPE FOR SCANDAL today, I'm returning to a post from last year about Newfoundlands. I feature one in SCANDAL, the stray, shipwrecked Gulliver. Like Pen in PLEASURE, he's a hero in his own right, but he's not quite as ready to be the family pet as she was. I based his personality on my godmother's wonderful Newfie, Ashley (she came with the name) who we often called Mrs. Pedecaris (as in "you are a great deal of trouble"), with a little of the beloved Newfie of my childhood, Hanuman, thrown in (he liked to "answer the door" by jumping up on it and opening his mouth over the small window so the new arrival was greeted by gullet and teeth), and with the "must save all swimmers" instincts of another Newf (my godmother's mother's dog) Gladstone.

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All the wonderful who-ha that has been generated for cats in the past week has me thinking about dogs getting short shrift. I’ve posted about Mastiffs previously, but today I’m going to talk about another giant breed that’s close to my heart, the Newfoundland. I grew up with Newfies. My family and a lot of friends had them, and they still hold a VERY special place in my heart. They are also among the breeds that my characters might have owned (hmmm, no dog has walked into my WIP so far . . . maybe we need a Newf to balance out the Mastiff in book one?).



The oldest picture in England can be found on the Landseer website (portrait of Sir Humphrey Style by Robert Walker, 1625). The breed was named by George Cartwright, who appropriately applied the name of the dog's native island to his dog in 1775. During the Georgian era, they tended to be lighter boned than those of today, though the one depicted with the Duchess of York in 1807 appears quite large and sturdy (top pic on the right, Princess Frederica Charlotte, Duchess of York, 1807, by Peter Edward). Like the one in that painting, all the images I’ve ever seen from the era show the black and white variety that came to be called “Landseer” in the late Victorian age (after the painter who popularized the breed; first image on the left, Lion by Edwin Landseer, 1824). You can find more images and more on the topic of coloration here.







The AKC site gives their history thusly (on the right is Newfoundland dog by George Stubbs, 1803)."





"There is much uncertainty about the origin of the Newfoundland. Some say that his ancestors are the white Great Pyrenees, dogs brought to the coast of Newfoundland by the Basque fishermen; others that he descended from a "French hound" (probably the Boarhound); but all agree that he originated in Newfoundland and that his ancestors were undoubtedly brought there by fishermen from the European continent. Many old prints of Newfoundlands show apparent evidence of a Husky ancestor, while other traits can be traced to other breeds. At any rate, a dog evolved which was particularly suited to the island of his origin."





Whatever their ancestry, they were indispensible to fisherman as helpmeets (they pulled in then nets0 and were famous then as now for their natural instinct to rescue humans from the water (my godmother’s Newf, Gladstone, had to be locked in a room with no widows when we wanted to swim, or he’d “rescue” us from the pool). They were also used as carting dogs (as most large breeds were) and as sled dogs (as in Call of the Wild).



One of the most famous Newfs in England was Lord Byron’s Boatswain (image next to the poem, Boatswain by Clifton Tomson, 1808). When he died, the poet had a monument built to him and wrote this inscription for it:



Near this spot

Are deposited the Remains

Of one

Who possessed Beauty

Without Vanity,

Strength without Insolence,

Courage without Ferocity,

And all the Virtues of Man

Without his Vices.



The Price, which would be unmeaning flattery

If inscribed over Human Ashes,

Is but a just tribute to the Memory of

“Boatswain,” a Dog

Who was born at Newfoundland,

May, 1803,

And died in Newstead Abbey,

Nov. 18, 1808.



When some proud son of man returns to earth,

Unknown by glory, but upheld by birth,

The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe,

And stories urns record that rests below.

When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,

Not what he was, but what he should have been.

But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,

The first to welcome, foremost to defend,

Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,

Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,

Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth,

Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth –

While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,

And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.



Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,

Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power –

Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,

Degraded mass of animated dust!

Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,

Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!

By nature vile, ennoble but by name,

Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.

Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn,

Pass on – it honors none you wish to mourn.

To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise;

I never knew but one – and here he lies.



Another very famous Newf was Lewis’s Newfoundland Seaman (on the left). Seaman accompanied Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition to the Pacific. He is first mentioned in Lewis’s journals on September 11, 1803: “I made my dog take as many [squirrels] each day as I had occasion for. They were fat and I thought them when fried a pleasant food. They swim very light on the water and make pretty good speed. My dog was of the Newfoundland breed, very active, strong and docile. He would take the squirrels in the water, kill them, and swimming bring them in his mouth to the boat.”





In literature we have Pilot, Rochester’s dog in Jane Eyre, and of course Nana in Peter Pan (curse you Disney for misrepresenting her as a St. Bernard!). Nan was inspired by Barrie’s own Newfoundland, Porthos.



So, any other breeds you’re dying to know about? Any particular dogs you’ve loved in books?