"Dog poo was valuable": 5 things you (probably) didn't know about dogs
Chris Pearson reveals surprising facts about humanity’s evolving relationship with its canine companions over the centuries
1. Dogs were treated as workers, not pets
Today, most dogs – certainly in western societies – are pets, providing companionship in return for food, strokes and a comfy bed (or sofa). But pet-keeping is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the Middle Ages, pets were largely the preserve of wealthy women and scholars. Most dogs were expected to work outdoors as guard dogs, herders and hunters.
From the 18th century, though, urbanisation, industrialisation and the rise of middle-class consumer cultures fuelled a boom in pet dogs that led increasingly leisurely lives.
Working dogs became less common, and some types disappeared altogether. Take the turnspit dog, forced to run around in a wheel to turn meat cooked in front of kitchen fires. These small, sturdy dogs with long bodies, short legs and stumpy tails worked for hours on end in sweltering conditions. Possibly the last recorded uses of turnspit dogs was at St Briavel’s Castle, Gloucestershire in 1844. They were replaced by coal-fuelled smoke jacks.
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2. Rabies changed how we live with dogs
Rabies is a rare but horrific viral disease that attacks the nervous system. It has ancient origins: the Marduk Prophecy, an Assyrian text dating from between 713 and 612 BC, listed rabies as one of the plagues that would afflict Babylon should the deity Marduk leave the city to its fate: “Dogs will become rabid and bite people. All the persons whom they bite will not survive but will die.”
The symptoms of rabies are terrifying – including, most notoriously, a fear of water – and, once they have developed, death is almost inevitable. Historical treatments for rabies, including the hair of the dog – placing a hair from the rabid animal on a bite wound – were ineffective. Unsurprisingly, then, outbreaks of public hysteria about rabid dogs erupted sporadically, often whipped up by the press, which gleefully reported stories of ‘mad dogs’.
Such anxieties led to changes in how humans and dogs lived together. In the 19th century, countless street dogs were rounded up, killed or muzzled, and dog movements became more tightly controlled. These measures continued even after the introduction of Louis Pasteur’s much-heralded vaccination in 1885, and after it spread across Europe and around the globe. Although indigenous canine rabies was eradicated from Britain in 1902, the legacy of fear of the disease is evident in the absence of street dogs and widespread leashing in the UK.
3. Dog poo was a valuable resource
Today, dog faeces is a disgusting nuisance on many streets, and a frequent cause of complaints – but it wasn’t always so. In the 19th century, some poor Parisians collected and sold this ordure to mégissiers (tannery workers), who turned sheepskins into leather: 10kg of dog faeces could treat 12,000 skins.
Henry Mayhew, the famous social investigator, wrote about “pure finders” in his book London Labour and the London Poor (1851). ‘Pure’ was the term for dog poo used to scour and purify goat and calf skins in the Bermondsey tanyards, removing moisture from the tissue and improving the smell of leather destined for book covers and other uses. Mayhew found that pure finders were better educated than the bone grubbers and other labourers within London’s blood-and-guts economy: many were former tradespeople, mechanics or semi- skilled labourers who had fallen on hard times.
As streets became paved and cleaner, authorities began to introduce anti-fouling rules and measures, which were tightened up further during the 19th century. The former use of dog excrement as a valuable resource was forgotten, and it became merely another smelly problem to solve.
4. Dog breeds were invented in Victorian Britain
In the UK and other western countries, we understand dogs primarily through the prism of breed, which is often seen as reflecting the personality of an owner. Crufts and other shows reinforce the notion that dogs are supposed to look and behave a certain way. But this system of categorising dogs is relatively new.
Before the 19th century, dogs were defined by what they did rather than how they looked. Then, during the Victorian era, an assortment of aristocratic British breeders and working-class dog fanciers (men who bred animals, often terriers, for fighting and display) founded breed lineages, stud books and dog shows.
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The Kennel Club, founded in 1873, was emulated across the world as breeders invented lineages and standards, classifying doggy diversity into defined breeds. Mongrels and dogs of no fixed breed survived, but the system had become firmly established as the dominant way to understand and value dogs.
5. Dogs have a colonial history
Today, debate rages about the merits, faults and legacy of the British empire, but it may come as a surprise to learn that dogs were part of this story.
British workers and administrators took dogs with them to the colonies, expressing concerns about how their pets would adapt to the Indian climate or life in the west African bush. They also exported the trappings of Victorian dog culture – in India, their foxhounds chased jackals instead of the russet species hunted in Britain – along with distinctly imperialist attitudes.
There was an imperialist belief that European pedigree dogs were more civilised than African and Asian canines, which they labelled ‘pariah’ after the oppressed Paraiyar caste group of southern India. Meanwhile, kennel clubs and dog shows were established, along with animal protection societies that often castigated local people’s cruelty towards animals.
Imperial authorities also used dogs to police enslaved people in the Caribbean and colonised communities in Palestine, Kenya and Rhodesia, and launched campaigns to cull street dogs. At times, these measures were resisted: in 1832, a large-scale protest was launched to oppose culling in Bombay. At others, local elites colluded, even participating in dog shows.
Chris Pearson is professor of environmental history at the University of Liverpool. His latest book is Collared: How We Made the Modern Dog (Profile, 2024)