The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-05-17


to Murchison. Isn't that lower jaw
Spitz, Murchison?''
Then all three would tackle the pup
and open its mouth and feel its jaw,
and the pup would wriggle and squeak,
and back away. opening and shutting
its mouth TO see if its works had been
damaged.
"All right" Brownlee would say,
| you wait a year or two and you'll
seei"
About three months later the pup
was as big as an ordinary full grown
dog, and his coat looked like a COM
promise between a calf-skin and one
of these hair-brush door mats you use
TO wipe your feet on in muddy weather
He did not look like the same pup. He
was long-limbed and awkward and
useless and hOmely as a shOpWOrn
fifty-cent yellow plush manicure set.
MGrchisOn began to feel that he didn't
really need a dog, but Brownlee was a
enthusiastic as ever. He would go
over to Murchison's fairly ooZing dog
knowledge.
I'm tell you what that dog is" he
would say. THAT dog is a cross be-
tween a Great Dane and an English
deerhound. You've got a very valua-
DlC dtS THERE val
liable dog. He comes of fine stock on
both sides and it is a cross you don't
often see. 1 never saw it. and I've seen
all kinds of crossed dogs"
Then MaSsett would drop in and
walk around the dog admiringly for a
few minutes and absorb his beauties.
''Murchison," he would say, do you
know what that dog is? That dog is a
pure cross between a Siberian wolf
hound and a Newfoundland. You treat
that dog right and you'll have a for
tune in him. Why, a pure Siberian
wolfhound is worth a thousand dollars.
and d goOd-a really good Newfound-
land, mind you-is worth two thousand,
and you've got both in one dog. That's
three thousand dollars worth of dog"
In the next six months Fluff grew.
He broadened out and heightened and
heightened, and every day or two
BrOwnlee or Massett would discover a
new strain of dog i'm him. They point
ed out TO Murchison that the marks by
which he could tell the different kinds
of dog that were combined in Fluff,
and every time they discovered a new
one they held a sort of jubilee, and
Dragged and swelled their chests. They
seemed TO spend all their time thinking
up odd and strange kinds of dog that
the traces of Cuban bloodhound,
Kamtchatka hound, beagle. Brague de
Bengale and Thibet mastiff, but Mas
sett first traced the staghound, Turko-
man watch dog, dachshund and barrier
in him.
MurchisOn, not being a dOggish man,
never claimed TO have noticed any of
these family resemblances, and never
said what he thought the dog really
was, until a month or two later, when
ne gave it as his opinion that the dog
was a cross between a wolf, a Shetland
pony and a hyena. 1t was about that
time that Fluff had to be chained. He
had begun to eat other dogs, and chill
dren and chickens. The first night
Murchison chained him to his kennel
Fluff walked a half mile, taking the
kennel along, and then only stopped
because the kennel got tangled with a
lamp-pOSt. The man who brought him
home claimed that Fluff was nearly
asphyxiated when he found him; said
he gnawed half through the lamp-post
and that gas got in his lungs, but this
was not true. Murchison learned after
ward that it was only a gasoline lamp
post and a wooden one.
IF there were only some stays
around this part of the country" said
Massett, the staghound strain In that
dog would be mighty valuable. You
could rent him out to everybody who
wanted to go stag-hunting, and you'd
have a regular monopoly, because he's
the only staghound in this part of the
country. And stag hunting would be
popular, too. out here, because there
are no game laws that interfere with
stag hunting in this state. There is no
closed season. People could hunt stays
all the year round, and you'd have that
dog busy every day of the year"
"Yesr' sneered Brownlee. 'only there
are no stays. And he hasn't any stag
hound blood in him. Pity there are no
dachs in this state, too, isn't it? Then
Murchison could hire his dog at night,
too They hunt daehs at night, don't
they, Massett? Only there is no dachs-
hund blood in him either. If there was
and if there were a few dachs-'
Massett was mad.
"Yesi" he cried. And you, with your
Cuban bloodhound straini / suppose If
il was the open season for Cubans
you'd go out with the dog and tree a
few! Or put OH snowshoes and follow
the Kamtchatka to his icy lair!'
Brownlee doesn't get mad easily.
''Murchison." he said. leaving out
Massett's dreary nonsense about stag
hounds, can tell you that dog would
make the finest duck dog in the state.
He's got all the points for a good duck
dog, and 1 ought 10 know, for 1 have
two OF the best duck dogs that ever
lived. All he needs is training. If you
will train him right you'll have a
mighty valuable dog"
But l don't hunt ducks said
Murchisop. land I don't know how to
train even lap dog"
You let me attend to his education, -
said Brownlee. II Just want to show