With regard to this custom, it is said that the drovers originated
it. Their dogs, kept for working purposes, were immune from taxation,
and they adopted this method of distinguishing the animals thus
exempted. It has been argued, by disciples of the Darwinian theory
of inherited effects from continued mutilations, that a long process
of breeding from tailless animals has resulted in producing puppies
naturally bob-tailed, and it is difficult, on any other hypothesis,
to account for the fact that many puppies are so born. It is certainly
a fact that one or two natural bob-tails are frequently found in a
litter of which the remainder are duly furnished with well-developed
tails.

From careful consideration of the weight of evidence, it seems
unlikely that the breed was originally a tailless one, but the modern
custom undoubtedly accentuates its picturesqueness by bringing into
special prominence the rounded shaggy quarters and the characteristic
bear-like gait which distinguish the Old English Sheepdog.

Somewhere about the 'sixties there would appear to have been a revival
of interest in the bob-tail's welfare, and attempts were made to bring
him into prominence. In 1873 his admirers succeeded in obtaining for
him a separate classification at a recognised show, and at the Curzon
Hall, at Birmingham, in that year three temerarious competitors
appeared to undergo the ordeal of expert judgment. It was an
unpromising beginning, for Mr. M. B. Wynn, who officiated found their
quality so inferior that he contented himself with awarding a second
prize.

But from this small beginning important results were to spring, and