![]() As the labour would be too great for a single Dog, it was usual to keep at least two animals for the purpose, and to make them relieve each other at regular intervals. At one extremity of the spit was fastened a large circular box, or hollow wheel, something like the wire wheels which are so often appended to squirrel-cages and in this wheel the Dog was accustomed to perform its daily task, by keeping it continually working. So complicated an apparatus, however, could not be applied to all chimneys, or in all localities, and therefore the services of the Turnspit Dog were brought into requisition. The smoke-jack, as it was rather improperly termed-inasmuch as it was turned, not by the smoke, but by the heated air that rushed up the chimney-was a great improvement, because the spit revolved at a rate that corresponded with the heat of the fire. In former days, and even within the remembrance of the present generation, the task of roasting a joint of meat or a fowl was a comparatively serious one, and required the constant attendance of the cook, in order to prevent the meat from being spoiled by the unequal action of the fire. Here and there a solitary Turnspit may be seen, just as a spinning-wheel or a distaff may be seen in a few isolated cottages but both the Dog and the implement are exceptions to the general rule, and are only worthy of notice as being curious relics of a bygone time. Just as the invention of the spinning jenny abolished the use of distaff and wheel, which were formerly the occupants of every well-ordained English cottage, so the invention of automaton roasting-jacks has destroyed the occupation of the Turnspit Dog, and by degrees has almost annihilated its very existence. According to John George Wood in The Illustrated Natural History (Mammalia) (1853): Due to the strenuous nature of the work, a pair of dogs would often be worked in shifts. The Vernepator Cur was bred to run on a wheel in order to turn meat so it would cook evenly. Work Ī dog at work inside a wheel near the ceiling from Remarks on a Tour to North and South Wales (1800). Ī preserved example of a turnspit dog is displayed at Abergavenny Museum in Abergavenny, Wales. Some sources consider the Turnspit dog a kind of Glen of Imaal Terrier, while others make it a relative of the Welsh Corgi. The breed was lost, since it was considered to be such a lowly and common dog that no record was effectively kept of it. ![]() In Linnaeus's 18th-century classification of dogs it is listed as Canis vertigus (also used as Latin name for the Dachshund). It is also known as the Kitchen Dog, the Cooking Dog, the Underdog and the Vernepator. William Bingley's Memoirs of British Quadrupeds (1809) also talks of a dog employed to help chefs and cooks. It is mentioned in Of English Dogs in 1576 under the name "Turnespete". ![]() The turnspit dog is an extinct short-legged, long-bodied dog bred to run on a wheel, called a turnspit or dog wheel, to turn meat. Illustration from The Illustrated Natural History (Mammalia), published in 1853, showing the conformation of a turnspit dog.
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