Updated the history page 25th Jan 2009

Ive had a clean up on the history pages, as i thought it would be best to find out how our dogs came about,  Starting with the family tree of the Tomarctus and the Gray Wolf ect ect. This is what ive found on the web any one of you can look this up just as i did. There’s so much history on the Wolf and the dogs of today.

Ive managed to find articles on all the dogs if this family tree just to show you where they come from and what roles they play in the modern dog of today .

In the family tree are The Tomarctus, The Gray Wolf, The Old English Seep Dog, The Samoyed, The Grayhound, The Tibatan Mastiff, The Border Collie ( Gregor ), The New Foundland ( Hepper )

The family tree link to this site is  http://www.nwcreation.net/dogsandwolves.html all to do with the DNA found in the wolf . All the articles on theses pages are of what ive found they are not mine so we take any credit for this thank you.

The Old English Sheep Dog

 Despite the name 'Old English', records do not confirm that the breed is either 'Old' or all 'English'. The breed emerged in England in the mid 1700's and it seems likely, given its characteristics, that it is linked to ancient herders, including the Bergamasco, the Bearded Collie, the Briard and the Armant. The nickname 'Bobtail' is significant in its history. In England in the 18th century, tax exemption was granted to drover dogs, which helped drive the herds to market. To mark these dogs, their tails were docked. OES's were excellent at this job because of their eagerness and weather-resistant coats. However no one in these days groomed the dogs and they were sheared annually along with the sheep. The farmers' wives spun the dog shearings as well as the sheep's wool into warm clothing. In 1873, the breed made its first appearance in a British Show and demand was soon to follow in America, Canada and other countries around the world. Intelligence This is an intelligent breed who needs firm handling during training to overcome their strong wills. However, they do want to please their handler. Early training is imperative to control the breed's boisterous behaviour. Show Characteristics Pigmentation should be black. Their coats should be shaggy without being curly and have a hard texture, with a water-resistant undercoat. The head should be rather square with a well-defined stop. The jaws should be strong with a complete scissor bite. The eyes should be set well apart and can either be dark or wall, although two blue eyes are acceptable. Their ears are small and carried flat against the head. The neck should be fairly long, strong and gracefully arched merging into well laid back shoulders. The shoulders should not be loaded. The dog should stand lower at the withers than at the loin with a rather short back. The forelegs should be perfectly straight with plenty of bone and the loin sturdy and broad. The second thigh should be long and well developed. The feet should be small, round, and tight. The tail should be docked as close as possible to the body. Country Of Origin Great Britain Famous Examples 'Dulux' Dog

THE BORDER COLLIE

The Border Collie is descended from droving and gathering breeds originating on the Scottish, Welsh and English borders, including the Cumberland Sheepdog. Mention of the "Collie" or "Colley" type first appeared toward the end of the nineteenth century, with every current Border Collie tracing back to a dog known as Old Hemp. Old Hemp, a tri-color dog, was born September 1893 and died May 1901. He was bred by Adam Telfer from Roy, a black and tan dog, and Meg, a black-coated, strong-eyed bitch. Hemp was a quiet, powerful dog that sheep responded to easily. Many shepherds used him for stud and Hemp's working style became the Border Collie style.

Wiston Cap is the dog that the International Sheep Dog Society (ISDS) badge portrays in the characteristic Border Collie herding pose. He was the most popular stud dog in the history of the breed, and appears in a huge percentage of pedigrees today. Bred by W. S. Hetherington and trained and handled by John Richardson, Cap was a biddable and good-natured dog. His bloodlines all trace back to the early registered dogs of the stud book, and to J. M. Wilson's Cap, who occurs sixteen times within seven generations in his pedigree. Wiston Cap sired three Supreme Champions and is grand-sire of three others, one of whom was E. W. Edwards' Bill, who won the championship twice.

These dogs were traditionally known simply as "collies," but terms like working collie, old-fashioned collie, and farm collie have also been applied to them. It was in 1915 that James Reid, Secretary of the International Sheep Dog Society in the United Kingdom, first used the term "Border Collie" to distinguish those dogs registered by the ISDS from the Kennel Club's "Collie," which originally came from the same working stock but had developed a different, standardized appearance following its introduction to the show ring in 1860

The Origin of the Breed- The Samoyede People and Their Dogs

The People
The name Samoyed comes from the Samoyedes, a semi-nomadic people of Asian decent. Historians tell us that, as the population of Asia grew, larger tribes drove others (with their families, their herds, and their dogs) away to other regions, so there would be enough natural food found for those remaining. The Samoyed peoples "of the family of Sayantsi" were part of this migration, and they moved northwest. In the late 1800's European exploreres and historians described them as a race in the transition stage between the “Mongol pure and the Finn”. The name "Samoyede" translates to "living off themselves" which reflects their strong, self-sufficient culture. The two principle Samoyede groups are the Nentsy and the Entsy.
The Samoyede migrated to their current location in the first millennium and inhabited

lands covered with snow and ice in the vast stretches of tundra reaching from the White Sea (an inlet of the Barents Sea on the northwest coast of Russia) to the Yenisei River (the greatest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean). They lived mainly on the Taimyr Peninsula, between the Yenisei and Olenek rivers. This peninsula is in Northwestern Siberia north of the Arctic Circle jutting into the Arctic Ocean. It is the Northernmost part of the continent and is shown in the upper left hand corner of this map.
 

The Dogs  The first wolf-like canines (Canis familiaris palustris) appeared 12,000 to 14,000 years ago and originated from the Southern strain of the Gray Wolf in South Central Asia, where the Samoyed people originated. Early Asian hunter-gatherers demonstrated a special kinship to wolves because of their common social structure and hunting prowess. This relationship in the Samoyede culture was heightened to reverence due in part to the culture's traditional animistic religion (worship of animal spirits). They took puppies and gave them a special place in their lodgings ("chooms"). This relationship went from reverence to partnership. Both the hunter-gatherer and the wolf-like canine had many aspects of their clan/pack behavior that were identical. It is therefore easy to see how the primitive canines adapted well to the similar social structure of the Samoyede people.

Due to their isolation from the rest of the world, the Samoyed dog "bred true, " meaning that there was no alteration of the breed from other wolf, fox, or primitive dog breeds. As a result, the Samoyed dog of today is one of only 4 breeds that are directly decsended from wolves. 1

The Samoyede people call their dogs "bjelkier" (byel-kee-er) which translates to "white (dog) that breeds white." In Russian, the dogs are called "voinaika" which means lead or direction dog. The Samoyedes incorporated their dogs into every aspect of their daily lives and trained and depended on them year round for hunting, herding, guarding, and as sledge (sled-pulling) dogs. Their dogs were considered part of their family. They included them in meals and even brought them in to sleep (especially with the children) for warmth on cold Arctic nights. The Samoyede so trusted their dogs that they would leave them to guard their children and posessions (including their valuable reindeer) while they were out hunting.

For generations the Samoyede people have lived a nomadic life, dependent upon their reindeer herds and their dogs. The Samoyede's lifestyle has always revolved around reindeer, which they used for food and their skins for clothing and shelter (a round-topped tent called a "choom"). As the Samoyede people domesticated the reindeer, they moved from a hunting, to a herding lifestye. Herding the domesticated reindeer was another useful service that came naturally to their dogs. The natural attribute of a wolf-like canine to go after an animal (prey drive) that breaks from the herd made it easy to use that behavior to herd the Reindeer. The Bjelkier could herd, haul and hunt. and it enjoyed doing all three.

The Samoyede and their dogs people exist today, although their numbers are less than 50,000. They are scattered across Siberia and have struggled to maintain their culture as industrialization expands throughout Siberia. For more information about the aboriginal dogs of the Nentsy region,
 

The Gray hound

Popularly, the breed's origin can be traced to ancient Egypt, where a bas-relief depicting a smooth-coated Saluki (Persian Greyhound) or Sloughi was found in a tomb built in 4000 BC. Analyses of DNA reported in 2004, however, suggest that the Greyhound is not closely related to these breeds, but is a close relative to herding dogs.

Historically, these sighthounds were used primarily for hunting in the open where their keen eyesight is valuable. It is believed that they (or at least similarly-named dogs) were introduced to the area now known as the United Kingdom in the 5th and 6th century BC from Celtic mainland Europe although the Picts and other hunter gatherer tribes of the Northern area (now known as Scotland) were believed to have had large hounds similar to that of the Deerhound before the 6th century BC.[citation needed]

The name "Greyhound" is generally believed to come from the Old English grighund. "Hund" is the antecedent of the modern "hound", but the meaning of "grig" is undetermined, other than in reference to dogs in Old English and Norse. Its origin does not appear to have any common root with the modern word "grey" for colour, and indeed the Greyhound is seen with a wide variety of coats.[citation needed] This may be confusing, however, as the Deerhound and Irish wolfhound are more commonly grey in colour and possibly the true origins of the Greyhound.[citation needed] However, the Deerhound and Irish wolfhound, the latter being a reconstructed breed, probably cannot have had any genetic influence on the much older Greyhound. It is known that in England during the medieval period, Lords and Royalty keen to own Greyhounds for sport, requested they be bred to colour variants that made them easier to view and identify in pursuit of their quarry.[citation needed] The lighter colours, patch-like markings and white appeared in the breed that was once ordinarily grey in colour. The Greyhound is the only dog mentioned by name in the Bible; the King James version names the Greyhound as one of the Four things stately in the Proverbs.[31] However, in the modern version of the Bible this has been changed to strutting rooster, which appears to be a more correct translation of the Hebrew term (zarzir).

According to Pokorny[32] the English name "greyhound" does not mean "gray dog/hound", but simply "fair dog". Subsequent words have been derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *g'her- 'shine, twinkle': English gray, Old High German gris 'grey, old', Old Icelandic griss 'piglet, pig', Old Icelandic gryja 'to dawn', gryjandi 'morning twilight', Old Irish grian 'sun', Old Church Slavonic zorja 'morning twilight, brightness'. The common sense of these words is 'to shine; bright'.

The Tibatan Mastiff

This is an ancient breed, descended from very early large Tibetan dogs from which many of today's Molossuses are descended. The first known record of a Tibetan mastiff was in 1121 BC, when a dog trained for hunting was given to a Chinese emperor Marco Polo encountered the large Tibetan dogs in his travels and described them as "tall as a donkey with a voice as powerful as that of a lion." They were used as guard dogs outside the sacred city of Lhasa. This dog might be able to over power its owner but they like most guard dogs need a firm hand In the early 19th century, King George IV owned a pair, and there were enough of the breed in England in 1906 to be shown at the 1906 Crystal Palace show. However, during the war years, the breed lost favor and focus and nearly died out in England. Gaining in popularity worldwide, there are more and more active breeders, although the breed is still considered somewhat uncommon. Initially the breed suffered because of the limited genepool from the original stock, but today's reputable breeders work hard at reducing the genetic problems through selective breeding and the international exchange of new bloodlines.

In 2008, the Tibetan Mastiff competed for the first time in the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

The Newfoundland

The breed originated in Newfoundland from a breed indigenous to the island, that later became known as the St. John's Dog. The speculation they may be partly descended from the big black bear dogs introduced by the Vikings in 1001 A.D. is based more in romance than in fact. It is more likely that their size results from the introduction of large mastiffs, brought to the island by many generations of Portuguese fishermen, who had been fishing the Grand Banks of Newfoundland since the 1400s. By the time colonization was permitted in 1610, the distinct physical characteristics and mental attributes had been established in the breed. In the early 1880s fishermen from Ireland and England traveled to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, where they described two main types of working dog: one more heavily built, large with a longish coat, whereas the other was lighter in build, an active, smooth-coated water dog. The heavier one was the Newfoundland and the other was the known as the Lesser St. John's Dog, the forerunner of the Labrador Retriever. The dogs were used in similar ways to pull fishnets and heavy equipment.