Talk:Jock of the Bushveld

This page needs a reference to the Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa (C. Niven, 1971) - see the below lifted from http://www.jocksafarilodge.com/legend.asp

Untitled

He used to ...

The book appeared...

I have reduced the quote from the contrib above (added at 10:33, 20 February 2006 by 168.209.97.34 (talk · contribs · WHOIS), and placed inside the box by me) to the first 3 words of each of its two paragraphs. It was a COPYVIO, even tho it was not in the main ("article") namespace where we do most of our worrying about that. If the material has been paraphrased into the article, perhaps whoever confirms that could note it immediately following this; if it hasn't, a second opinion on the value of doing so would be valuable following this.
--Jerzy•t 05:26, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

• This was an excellent entry. However I can't help but question the last statement given the difference in size between Staffies and Boerboels. Where is the reference backing up that last claim? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.102.46.121 (talk) 23:34, 10 July 2006

There is much debate about Jock's breed. Per the book, Jock was a purebred Bull Terrier, not a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. It is very clear. His father was a much admired, imported dog with a very good pedigree. The mother was a purebred too, although she was not imported. Jock did not have the look of a modern Bull Terrier as the first one to appear with the distinctive egg-shaped skull was in 1917, long before Jock was born. 24.30.138.122 (talk) 06:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Removed material

This is about the breed, not the dog, and those interested should find it (probably without the PoV abt what is ironic) by following a lk to an article on the breed:

(This is ironic because it is common nowadays for breeds similar to Jock to be stolen to compete in dog fights in Alexandra, Johannesburg.)

--Jerzy•t 05:26, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Seedling?

>>He was once enticed to fight a baboon by Seedling. He killed the baboon in the fight, due to his small, stocky build.

What's "Seedling"? It's capitalized as if it were a person or place, but there's no link, nor other mention made in the article.

Mike (talk) 16:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Breed – Staffordshire Bull Terrier cross (not pure and not American)

This article from the Mail & Guardian newspaper makes a compelling case for the fact that Jock was a Staffie and not an American Bull Terrier:

"It is Rich’s view that Fitzpatrick’s well-known reaction to an inaccurate drawing of a dung beetle may be the key to proving Jock was a Staffie and not a bull terrier. “In the earliest editions of Jock of the Bushveld there was a drawing of a dung beetle pushing a ball of dung with its front feet. Fitzpatrick blew a fuse when he saw that and had it corrected immediately. The dung beetle had to be redrawn to be shown pushing the ball with its back feet as it does in real life. “With an eye for that sort of detail, Fitzpatrick would never have let the wrong breed of dog be drawn in the book. Never. Jock was a Staffie.”

This article on the Kruger National Park's website about Sir FitzPatrick's life states that Jock was a cross breed. It's important to note that FitzPatrick and Jock's adventures played out in the area where the Kruger Park is today.

In the early 1900's he used to recount the adventures of his dog Jock (a Staffordshire Bullterrier cross), in the form of bedtime stories to his four children

Lastly we get to FitzPatrick's own book

"There was only the one dog in our camp; and she was not an attractive one. She was a bull-terrier with a dull brindled coat—black and grey in shadowy stripes. She had small cross-looking eyes and uncertain always-moving ears; she was bad tempered and most unsociable; but she was as faithful and as brave a dog as ever lived. ...That was Jess, the mother of Jock!

"Five of the puppies were fat strong yellow little chaps with dark muzzles—just like their father, as Ted said; and their father was an imported dog, and was always spoken of as the best dog of the breed that had ever been in the country. I never saw him, so I do not really know what he was like—perhaps he was not a yellow dog at all; but, whatever he was, he had at that time a great reputation because he was ‘imported,’ and there were not half a dozen imported dogs in the whole of the Transvaal then. Many people used to ask what breed the puppies were—I suppose it was because poor cross faithful old Jess was not much to look at, and because no one had a very high opinion of yellow dogs in general, and nobody seemed to remember any famous yellow bull-terriers.

Unphazed2048 (talk) 04:24, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

References