The following account appears in Rawdon Lee’s A History and Description of Modern Dogs (Sporting Division) (1894):
Sir Everett Millais ultimately found that through inter-breeding [sic] the Basset-hound was deteriorating in many respects, and, with the idea of improving his appearance and size, he looked out for a cross. He says:
“After inbreeding for nearly twenty years, it was obvious that the English Basset required fresh blood, primarily because the general mass of hounds were below the average in size; secondly, because there was increasing difficulty in breeding and rearing them; thirdly, because barrenness was becoming very prevalent; and fourthly, because when reared they succumbed through constitutional causes to distemper in a most alarming manner. The question, having determined to make the cross, was, what hound to use which would give us the points we desired, and give increased stamina to the breed. “I chose the Bloodhound, firstly, because the head of the Basset should resemble that of the Bloodhound; and secondly, because from my experimental work with Beagles, I knew that the question of a return to Basset formation in legs was but a matter of one or two generations. There therefore remained simply the question of colour, and this I was certain would come back very speedily.
“The first cross was between the Basset-hound Nicholas and the Bloodhound Inoculation, and the puppies were produced artificially by the method now known as ‘Insemination.’ Twelve in all were born, and they were all anatomically nearer the Basset than the Bloodhound, but in colour they took after the dam. These were Basset-Bloodhounds.
“The next cross was between Champion Forester and one of the above litter, viz., Rickey. There were seven puppies born, six of them were tricolours like the sire, and one black and tan like the dam. They all took after the Basset in anatomy, and were 3/4-bred Bassets with 1/4 Bloodhound.
“The next cross was between Dulcie, one of the above litter, and Bowman. There were four pups in the litter, three tricolours and one lemon and white. They cannot be distinguished from purebred Bassets. They are naturally hounds containing 7/8 of Basset and 1/8 of Bloodhound.
“The next cross was between one of the above litter and the Basset-hound Guignol. Here six puppies were born, four tricolours, one lemon and white, and one black and tan. They are perfectly indistinguishable from pure Bassets, and are composed of 15/16 Basset blood to 1/16of Bloodhound.
“The result of this set of experiments has brought about animals which cannot be distinguished from pure Bassets, and they can be used throughout the breed to bring in the trifling quotum of fresh blood necessary without damaging or altering the existent type in the slightest degree.
“Now, in going through these various crosses, it will be seen that in the first we get half-bred hounds taking mostly after the Basset in shape and the Bloodhound in colour. In the second cross we have a return to Basset colouring, and greater approach to the Basset in every way. In the third cross we get pure Bassets, and in the fourth the same, with what might be expected, one case of atavism to the Bloodhound in colour.
“We have, however, something more. I have said that one most desirable object was size, and when 1 stated that most of the hounds one meets with are below the average, I place the average at such hounds as Fino de Paris, Fino V., Fino VI., and Forester.
“These have been the four great sires in direct descent and those most used, and it will be acknowledged, that with a few exceptions, few of their offspring have equalled them in size and bone. By the use, however, of the Bloodhound cross, both the third and fourth crosses are equal in size to Forester, and in addition we have the required points.
“It is, in my opinion, a mistake to call such hounds as the third and fourth crosses by the name of Basset-Bloodhounds, for this name applies only to the first cross. The third cross has only 1/8 of Bloodhound in it, and the fourth 1/16; in other words, is an animal a Basset-Bloodhound, whose greatgrandmother or great-great-grandmother was a Bloodhound? I think most breeders would not pay very much attention to such relationship as this, and would call their animals pure Bassets. At least such is my intention. It would take a very good man to tell an Octoroon in the human subject, and I would defy him to pick out a cross below that. Why should we do so in dogs? Of course, in crossing one must expect a case of atavism now and then as is seen in the fourth cross, but by such phenomena as these, we are able to add a new colour to those now existing in Bassets” (pg. 344-346).
Now, this argument exists today in two rather notorious cases: The Dalmatian Backcross Project and Bruce Cattanach’s bob-tailed boxer experiment. Like the basset-bloodhound outcross, these two projects involved the introduction of foreign blood. The Dalmatians were crossed with a pointer to produce Dalmatians that did not have the uric acid defect that so plagues the breed, and the boxers were crossed with naturally bob-tailed corgis to produce boxers that have naturally bobbed tails.
Neither of these outcrosses has been well-received. The Dalmatians can’t be registered as Dalmatians with the AKC, even though they have only minute amounts of pointer blood, and the German boxer fanciers (and the FCI) amended their standard so that only docked bobtails were in keeping with the standard. (Of course, tail docking is now illegal in Germany. Except for the stuffed one, all the boxers I saw in Germany had tails.)
It is interesting that the bassets with bloodhound in them became widely established within the breed, as Millais points out.
That did not happen with the modern day examples.
The bloodhound outcross with the bassets was done to alleviate what appears to have been an inbreeding depression. The only breeds I know of that have had outcrosses to stop problems with inbreeding are the Cesky terrier and the Chinook. In the Cesky, those dogs that have the outcrossed Sealyham blood are called “Line 2 dogs,” which distinguishes them from the original Line 1 dogs that were developed from a Scottish terrier bred to a Sealyham in the 1940’s in Czechoslovakia. And the Chinooks have such a stringent outcross plan that very few outcross dogs have been registered.
It seems in the case of the basset hound that the outcross was successful. Had they stayed on this road, the British basset breed probably would have gone extinct.
Of course, I don’t know why they didn’t add blood from the French basset breeds. There are many different breeds of basset in France, some of which, like the Artesian Basset of Normandy, look like English bassets.
But they wanted the bloodhound head.
So the bloodhound was chosen.
Ah, just like the corgi in the bob-tailed boxers.
An outcross for conformation reasons.
Too bad the boxers didn’t get the same treatment as the bassets.
Shouldn’t naturally bob-tailed boxers have as much right to be considered boxers as modern bassets with bloodhound heads have the right to be called bassets?
Double standards?
You betcha.
The really funny thing about changing the FCI Boxer standard to make a naturally stumpy tail a DQ, is that it gives the Boxers with a wee bit of Corgi blood in them that have normal tail a pass. Silliness.
To be fair, purity was still approaching the endorsement it got from scientists during the 20s and 30s. Funny how theories about breed purity didn’t really take solid roots until just before WWII.
Basset hounds were not known in England until the mid 1800s.
In France, in those days, bassets hounds had inclined in their popularity too, since it was time after Revolution and aristocracy culture.
To want the dog have a Bloodhound head, was a wish I think with true, historical roots, since the Mid-European (original) Bassets were of the St. Hubertus Hound -type and belonged the same family. Bassets just have and pass on their mutated gene that affects the bone- developing in a way that growing stops in an early state.
I have always admired the head their have. It is a very remarkable feature since the Bloodhound of today lost this type of head during the 1800s. But the look of the old -type Bloodhound has been preserved in the Basset.
So I think the header of this blog should be actually called “The cross that saved the Bloodhound head”.
Well, if they’d continued along, the English strain of basset would have died out.
So yes, it saved them.
The English basset is different breed from those of France. Unfortunately, many breed clubs claim that this basset originated in France, when it was actually created in Britain from French ancestors– in the same way that the Labrador is actually British but derived from ancestors from Newfoundland.
Short-haired French Bassets look the same as their British versions – only difference is that the French hound looks healthier, and don’t have the head of the British 1700s Bloodhound.
http://www.bassetartesiennormand.fr/le-basset-artesien-normand/histoire/
The British wanted to create a show animal of the original conintental breed. The dwarf-fashion was blowing in the Kennel world already in those days. The English really didn’t need another short-legged hound, for they already have theirs, the Beagle.
That is the Artesian basset from Normandy I mentioned in the post.
“The cross that saved the Bloodhound head.”
That’s like saying Quebec saved 17th century Parisian French, albeit it’s a koiné language when the reality is that the originator of the language evolve more quickly than the diverging dialects. It’s the same thing with the Basset Hound.
So it would be more accurate to say “the cross that kept the old-type Bloodhood head.”
lol
Still, these are all fragments of the history that passed by so fast.
Field Spaniels were outcrossed to English Springer Spaniels as late as the 1950’s to save the breed from near extinction and to reestablish the correct type that was ruined by breeding for exaggerated features for the show ring. All Field Spaniels alive today can trace their pedigree to just four dogs, and all but one of those dogs was the result of an English Springer Spaniel outcross.
I’m working on something on fields right now.
A large part of the reason for the Field Spaniel’s small numbers was the loss of so many dogs (of all breeds) during WWII. Many British owners simply had the dogs destroyed. Lucky ones managed to send dogs overseas to the USA or Canada. A few did make it through with some dogs, but in many breeds significant changes happened in rebuilding the canine populations after the War.
Very good article. I made a similar experiment:
Outcross
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