Dogs for the Pit (1885) Blue Paul mentioned

The Buffalo Evening News Nov 16 1885


Dogs For The Pit


How they are trained and worked for a fight


An old sport tells about it-putting them on Diet and Working with the Ball, Wheel, Pole and skin-Testing their Pluck.


"That's a fine Bull-dog you have there," said a Philadelphia News Reporter to Pat Carroll, a veteran sport of Southwark, when he met the latter leading a strong-looking white dog, with black markings around his left eye.

"He's no bull-dog!" exclaimed Pat; "he's a bull terrier. There ain't no more bull-dogs; the breed is run out. The man who might own a full-blooded bull-dog nowadays could make a little fortune out of his services as a breeder. Those dogs with the broad muzzles and heavy jaws that are commonly called bull-dogs are nothing more than mongrels, and no good as fighters."


"I have trained fighting dogs for nearly 40 years" continued Pat, "and the best fighters I ever saw were a breed called Blue Pauls. They were a mixture of Bull, Terrier and greyhound. The purest dog of the stock was owned by an old man in Ireland, called "Blind Paul", and from him they took their name of "Blue Pauls"> Dogs of that breed were the longest stayers and best punishers I ever saw. Most of the dogs used nowadays are straight bull terrier, but they are sometimes crossed with pointers and greyhounds, the mixture of these bloods resulting generally in terrible punishers and good fighters.


"But a fighting dog does not last long. He has to put all his work in about Four years; that is, until he is about 6 years old. A dog is never fought by a man of any judgement until he is about 2 years old, as he is too soft to stand punishment. Now, some people have a cranky notion that a dog's color will give away his fighting qualities. There's nothin' in it. I have had goog and bad fighters of every color. Some have an idea that white dogs are the pluckiest, but they're wrong-dead wrong. White ones are no better than dogs of any other color, and are as apt to go wrong as any others."


Trying Their Pluck


"Dogs are frequently matched for very heavy stakes," continued Pat, " and no man of sense would match a dog without first trying his pluck and strength. This is done by giving him a scrub fight on trial adter a week or two of training. If he shows up well then a man is willing to risk a little money on him in a match fight. If he turns out no good, get rid of him quick. When a match is made then begins the training. The dog's weight must be first reduced by the usual process of physicing and a diet of light food, such as calf's head, or sheep's head jelly mixed with stable bran. This dieting begins about six weeks before the fight, and is intended to put the dog in condition to harden up with work.


"Another and I think the best way to reduce a dogs weight is to give him a good swim every day. It reduces a dog very rapidly and without injuring him, and he enjoys the swimming very much. When the dog has been reduced to his trainers liking he is worked and his diet is changes to more substantial food, such as broiled beef or mutton, crackers and the like. The quantity of food is regulated by the trainer's judgement, the principal point to be watched being not to allow the dog to "spring up" on you, that is to get fat.


"All dogs ain't alike, but most of them fall in with the training first rate. To see them you'd think they knew what it is all for, and are anxious to get in condition for a fight. Bite a trainer? did you say. Well, I should smile. I have been bitten often, but I don't mind it. I have been bitten twice by dogs that had hydrophobia and it didn't scare me a bit, nor did the disease ever attack me.

These marks on my arm? They were made by a dog that I was training. He got excited and sunk his teeth in them and I had to choke him dead before he would let go.


How the dog is "worked"


"Working him is giving him exercise that will strenghten his legs and improve his wind. Different trainers have different methods of working a dog, and all dogs will not take kindly to all kinds of work. The dog is worked with the ball, the wheel an the "pole and skin" and he is walked from eight to ten miles every morning, and the same distance in the afternoon. This walking a dog is the hardest part of the work as the trainer must walk the twenty miles a day with the dog and must give him a vigorous rubbing until his arms ache when he brings the dog in. Working him with the ball consists in throwing a small ball as far as possible and having the dog chase it and fetch it to your hand. The wheel is a sort of treadmill, in which the dog walks from a half hour to an hour and a half. The pole-and-skin consists of a stick like a whip handle, on which is tied a rabbit's or rat's skin, or a bladder. The trainer flirts the skin around the head of the dog, and excites him so that he will run around after and jump at it, and when this is continued for half an hour or so the dog is rubbed down and given a rest for a while. A dog must be worked up to the very day of the fight. It won't do to let him rest, or he will fatten up on you, as a dog fattens very quickly.


Oh, for the Good Old Times.


"I do not train any dogs any more. I am too old for the hard work. I always charged $100 for training a dog and I always put the money up on him in the fight, and if he won my work was worth $200 to me. If he lost I did not want anything. Dogs require as patient training as is given to fighting cocks, and sometimes, with all a man's care, they go wrong and have to be put out of training."

"Is there anything in the tradition that dogs have been cruelly treated to needlessly show their pluck? the veteran was asked. "Well, I don't know. I never hurt a dog to prove he was plucky. I have heard of a case where a man made a bet that he could chop his dog to pieces without drawing a whimper from him, but, mind, I don't believe the story myself. It is said that his dog was fighting with another, and when the fight was nearly over the wager was made. He first cut off one of the hind feet and the dog fought on. He then chopped off the other hind foot and the dog still kept fighting without giving a sign of his terrible suffering. The two front feet were then cut off, one at a time, and he continued fighting without a whimper and he fought on his four stumps until he dropped dead from loss of blood. The inhuman brute won his wager, but nearly lost his life at the hands of the angry dog-fighters who saw his brutal. That's the story, I don't believe it.

"The longest fight I ever saw in this country that dog up there," pointing to the stuffed skin of a brindle bull-terrier, "fought in New York on August 10, 1860, with Harry Jennings imported Billy of New York. The fight was for $2,000, and resulted in a draw after the dogs had been in the pit four hours and forty-seven minutes."

"There's very little dog fighting done in Philadelphia any more," said the old sport with a sigh for the departed glories of the dog-pit. "They watch us too closely and we have to go to Jersey or to New York for a good fight nowadays. It's too bad, too. There's nothing cruel in a dog fight, and I do not know why they want to stop it."

 

nice,,, who wrote it and when???

 

The Buffalo Evening News Nov 16 1885 - Article on Pat Carroll doesn't mention the editor.

 

Good read. Thank you for sharing!

 

sum bitch,,, very interesting!!!
I am assuming Buffalo NY???

 

Yes Buffalo N.Y. Some of the history seems a bit mixed up by the gentleman in the article. Pretty sure every other thing about the Blue Pauls has Scotland and not Ireland as the place of origin, as well as the North of England. The story about the dog with it's feet chopped of is an story from the old Bull baiting days in England, and pretty much a myth passed around and added to over the years it seems.

There's an article from the N.Y Clipper about Blue Pauls being in Philadelphia and Illinois.

New York Clipper, 29 June 1872



Dog Fancier (1911)


G.H Vickery Advert (Ex President of the P.B.T.B.A) - 1910



J.R. Willcox's Rochester Kennels Blue Dog (1908)




Blue Mike Pedigree and infomation



NY Clipper (1854)

 

Let's not forget dog men of those times romanced and peddled their dogs just as much as they do today, we can't take these articles as fact.

The dog having it's leg chopped off while in hold story is also used for the American Bulldog.....

 

Article on The Blue Poll/Blue Paul (1913)

 

They come from Scotland ,,,in Gaelic Poll ,,,means pit ,, maybe where it comes from ,, just wonder,,,

 

The Blue Paul is more than likely just another Pit Dog (APBT) type from Scotland, i wouldn't say it's an entirely different breed per se....

 

1837 - Described as a Bulldog and a Scottish Terrier by Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps

 

1861 - House and Sporting Dogs by Meyrick


1879 - Hugh Dalziel British Dogs



1881 - Vero Shaw's Illustrated Book of The Dog



1894 - Terriers by Rawdon B Lee



1903 - British Dogs Book



1906 - Dog Book by Watson