Too Fond of Dingo

This is the mouth-filling song

Of the race that was run by a Boomer,

Run in a single burst--only event of its kind--

Started by big God Noong from Warrigaborrigarooma,

Old man Kangaroo first: Yellow-Dog Dingo behind.

. . . --Kipling.

At Canberra last week the Commonwealth Government passed a law definitely prohibiting the importation of Alsatian Shepherd dogs ("German police dogs") into Australia. Bluntly, the legislature recommended extermination of the breed in Australia.

Reasons:

1) Alsatians worry sheep.

2) Alsatians in Australia cross-breed with the ferocious wild dingo, chief enemy of Australian flocks.

Devotees of Just So Stories are familiar with Yellow-Dog Dingo and his fabled speed. The dingo or warrigal (Canis dingo) is a stocky sand-colored wild dog, in size half way between a jackal and a wolf. Peculiar to Australia, so ancient is the dingo breed that its fossilized bones are found intermingled with those of the extinct giant kangaroo and giant wombat. Bitter are the scientific disputes whether the dingo is really indigenous to Australia or whether it was brought there by prehistoric man from Malaya. More important than academic wrangles is the problem of recently imported Alsatian Shepherd dogs. It is claimed that they kill sheep, so the Alsatians must go. The mere possibility that they might grow too fond of the dingo, produce offspring combining the intelligence of the Alsatian with the speed and ferocity of the dingo fills sheep growers with alarm.

The Melbourne Alsatian Club and the Queensland Shepherd Dog Association fought a hard fight for their favorite animal.* The office of the Minister for Agriculture and Stock in Queensland, has been snowed under with petitions, photographs and affidavits in defense of the amiability of Alsatians. Most of all Mr. Smith's office was inundated with pictures of famed Cinema Dog Rin-Tin-Tin. But, famed though he is for docility and discretion, not even Rin-Tin-Tin could save his brothers and sisters in Dingoland.

*A year ago in Britain the sheep-worrying propensities of Alsatian Shepherds were being bitterly discussed. On the side of the Alsatians was Edward of Wales. Temporarily deserting Cora the Cairn terrier (TIME, June 3), he bought an Alsatian as a gesture of confidence in the breed.