The world does not lack for dogs with style. In fact, since few dogs actually do what they were originally bred to do, it might be said that most have far more style than function as fashion accessories. Which is what more and more urban dogs are (leaving aside the wet noses, wagging tails, and adoring stares). Some dogs are classically effective. Just like the trilby or the trench coat.

Could there be anything more elegant than the Borzoi? More well-descended than the King Charles Spaniel or more dignified and druidic than the Irish Wolfhound?The list goes on. ( If closets were kennels, you could have an impeccable wardrobe of haute couture canines.)
Ironically, what the world does seem to lack is dogs with true animal magnetism. Being creatures at the mercy of fashion, dogs have through the centuries suffered a certain loss of significance. They're still noble, loyal, affectionate, true blue and all that, but domestication has clearly robbed them of the primeval presence they once had.

For one breed, however, there has been no loss of presence- of fundamental dogness- despite all the, me Tarzan you Fido trade-offs of modern life. This dog, starkly simple in design, basic to the point of being generic,( part bowwow part Bauhaus) by turns awesome and absurd, medieval and arf moderne, very dog of very dogs, the Ur cur incarnate, is the Bull Terrier.
As an object, the Bull Terrier evokes the kind of feeling cherished by automotive designers, movie stars, politicians, and others with a keen interest in arousing instant deep primal recognition. Even if you've never seen a Bull Terrier, somehow you know one when you see one. There is something elemental about the breed, some vestige of the Big Bark of creation: it looks like the model from which more elaborate dog forms evolved.

The first Bull Terrier I ever saw ( other than in the movies Oliver! and Patton) was on the beach at Malibu in the early seventies. Muscular, stolid, dour as an actuary, he stood as motionless as a plaster lawn ornament, staring at his owner with little black eyes. Eventually, the man put down his Wall Street Journal, stood up, hefted a rock the size of a volley-ball and threw it as far as he could toward the water. For half an hour, the Bull Terrier rolled the stone up the beach with his nose until he arrived back at his masters side, then waited patiently for the whole Sisyphean ordeal to begin again.

I knew then that I was seeing a breed like no other. About equal parts Rex the Wonder dog and Tyrannosaurus Rex.

For all its ancient, unevolved appearance, the Bull Terrier is a relative newcomer, and the product of determined breeding-more than I can say for most of my other friends. Invented ( if that's the word) in the 1850's by James Hinks of Birmingham, England. The Bull Terrier was a significant escalation in the ongoing arms race among the owners of fighting dogs. Hinks started with a "bull and terrier", a feisty, but none too user friendly creature that had resulted from mixing bulldogs with almost any terrier. Bull and terriers were deadly in the pits, but as Hinks son Carleton later wrote, "their appearance was deadly against them."

To improve both the looks and temperament of the dogs Hinks mixed in a white English terrier and Dalmatian. Another breeder at the time claimed that various pointers, greyhounds, and even whippets were thrown into the cocktail shaker. But breeding at the time was far more pragmatic than scientific. So the exact ingredients are unclear. What is clear is that the dog that resulted from Hink's meddling is far more than the sum of it's parts.

Because the new dog in town was pure white and perhaps a bit more refined looking for the devotees of blood sports, the word was they didn't have what it took in the pits. Hinks proceeded to match his forty pound Puss against a famous fighter who weighed in at sixty pounds. In a long, evidently awesome bout, Puss dispatched her opponent and went on not long afterwards to win honors at one of the most important dog shows of the day.

With form and function so handsomely intertwined, the Bull Terrier- nicknamed the "White Cavalier" by London swells, became one of the most popular dogs in England around 1900. Then, as now, the dog had a combination of clout and
ecalat that must have appealed mightily to gentlemen intent on cutting a flawlessly correct figure.

Today, although Bull Terriers are as visually appealing as ever and ( with their fighting days over) playful and even-tempered ( unless a breeder is being lazy or greedy) they are no longer popular by numerical standards. According to the latest A.K.C. figures, only 1,191 Bull Terriers were registered in 1984, compared with the vast herd of nearly 95, 000 cocker spaniels.

This relative rarity is to a great extent the result of careful breeding and the lack of interest among most reputable breeders in having Bull Terriers all over the place. Winkie MacKay-Smith, a veteran Virginia breeder whose dog Benson
(a white Bull Terrier) won top honors at the prestigious Westminster show in New York City in 1983, is a firm believer in keeping the breed at a controllable level. "A tremendous number of people who see Bull Terriers want to have one," she says. "But only a fraction of a percent of the population can cope with one. A Bull Terrier is like a kid in a dog suit, which can be charming; the trouble is, not everybody is equipped to handle a kid in a dog suit."

Bull Terrier owners trade war stories the way veterans of the Battle of Britain discuss action over the Channel. All the characteristics and physical equipment that made them successful fighters remain on call to give new luster to the term "bad dog": jaws more like those of a great white shark than a short white dog. Strength at 9.5 on the Godzilla scale, and the awful tenacity of the IRS.
Their single-mindedness makes Bull Terriers very hard to train, the sit-up- and- beg-roll- over- and- shake- hands- good dog- routines are a Bull Terriers idea of nothing to do. Worse, while most dogs have a fairly well choreographed series of steps between peaceful coexistance and war, Bull Terriers are like certain scary customers in bars. They have an off/on button; either they are not fighting, or they are fighting. And if they are fighting, it is very serious business.

Most Bull Terriers, however, would just as soon not fight. (Pit bulls, another breed sometimes mistakenly thought of as Bull Terriers are far more inclined to mix it up) Yet the dog's macho image can bring out the worst in people. Mrs. MacKay-Smith recalls that when the t.v. series Baa Baa Black Sheep portrayed Robert Conrad as a tough Marine pilot with a Bull Terrier named "Meatball", she got phone calls from "completely off the wall characters who had to have one. Men who wanted a Bull Terrier because they wanted to be Bull Terriers."

Happily, most people who end up with Bull Terriers want them for better reasons. But as the saying goes, there's no free elan. The Bull Terrier is difficult to rear. Definitely it's own creature and oftentimes downright weird. Yet the breed possesses that quality found in the rarest of people- a kind of natural class and amazing grace that cannot be missed and cannot be faked. Having a Bull Terrier around, with it's very specific gravity, serves as a reminder there is nothing quite so stylish as being just exactly what you are.