Naming Rights
(November 2011) Repeat visitors may notice that we have a new link in the navigation list on the left. Skye vs Cairn is a new page that preserves the “In a Class by Themselves” page from Cairn fancier Brian McKinney.
If you haven’t read it before, it’s a detailed account of the infighting in The Kennel Club over the introduction of Skye and Cairn terriers to the British show ring in the early 20th century, concentrating on the fight over what to call the two breeds.
Mr. McKinney has long written with humor and humility of his life with Cairns, and we are dismayed to discover that not only do our links to his site no longer work, but we cannot find his pages at all on the web. We happen to have a copy of “In a Class by Themselves” left over from the time Mr. McKinney gave his permission to reprint his work in the Skye Canada newsletter Long and Low. Until we learn otherwise, we will pretend that that permission extends to publishing the page here on Mr. McKinney’s behalf.
“The earth trembled and a great rift appeared, separating the first man and woman from the rest of the animal kingdom. As the chasm grew deeper and wider, all the other creatures, afraid for their lives, returned to the forest — except for the dog, who after much consideration leapt the perilous rift to stay with the humans on the other side. His love for humanity was greater than his bond to other creatures, he explained, and he willingly forfeited his place in paradise to prove it.”
—Native American folktaleFrom The Lost History of the Canine Race by Mary Elizabeth Thurston, Andrews and McMeel, Kansas City, 1996.