Whiskey the Turnspit Dog

Say hello to Whiskey the Turnspit Dog.  He won't say hello back, because he is rather badly taxidermied:

Turnspit dogs were in use until the middle of the 19th century as a tool to save cooks in large households the effort of turning meat on a spit by hand. The dog would be placed in a small wheel connected to the spit and as he ran the spit would be turned.

In order not to overexert a dog with this hot and unpleasant work they were often kept in pairs, so that they could be worked in shifts. It is believed that this is the origin of the proverb 'every dog has his day.'

'Whiskey' is the last surviving specimen of a turnspit dog, albeit stuffed. The breed appears to have died out with the advent of mechanisation in the kitchen.

Source: Cunliffe, J (1991) 'The Turnspit'. Kennel Gazette, pp. 20-22. Via Gathering the Jewels and inspired by this post at Kircher.

Comments

[julie]

So like, if he were taxidermied well, he WOULD say hi?

[prairie biker]

I do like how you point out that he is "taxidermied", as there is no such thing as a bad stuffing.

[McGehee]

Huh. My mom used to have a dog -- a pomeranian-chihuahua mix, we believed -- but that turnspit dog looks exactly like "Muffin."

Of course, had Whiskey been well-taxidermied, it's possible the border collie-dalmatian mix my wife and I have now, would bear more of a resemblance...

[gail]

It looks like the taxidermist did something weird with the dog's skull. The eyes are too far down and the crest of the skull is too far up.

[McGehee]

Yes -- and a dog's eyes face forward, not sideways.