Dogs

Summary

Episode Summary: "Dogs" - Dan Snow's History Hit

In the "Dogs" episode of Dan Snow's History Hit podcast, host Dan Snow engages in a captivating conversation with historian and documentary filmmaker Mike Loades. Together, they explore the intricate and enduring relationship between humans and dogs, tracing its evolution from ancient domestication to the multifaceted roles dogs play in modern society. The episode delves into historical anecdotes, breed developments, and the symbiotic bond that has made dogs humanity's most loyal companions.

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1. The Eternal Bond Between Humans and Dogs

Dan Snow opens the episode by highlighting the profound emotional connection humans have with dogs, citing an ancient Roman tombstone inscription:

Dan Snow ([00:00]): "What a loved companion have we lost."

This sets the tone for an exploration of how dogs have been integral to human societies for thousands of years.

2. Domestication of Wolves into Dogs

Mike Loades provides a detailed overview of the domestication process, explaining that the relationship between humans and wolves began around 100,000 years ago. Through a mutualistic partnership, wolves gradually became more docile, leading to the emergence of the proto-dog approximately 15,000 years ago. Loades emphasizes the genetic similarities between modern wolves and dogs:

Mike Loades ([05:12]): "You would be surprised how small the dial is on the genetic changes from a wolf to a domestic dog."

3. Symbiotic Relationship and Selective Breeding

The conversation delves into the symbiotic nature of the human-dog relationship, where both species benefited from companionship and cooperation. Loades discusses how selective breeding began to shape dogs for specific roles while maintaining their inherent loyalty and affection:

Mike Loades ([07:54]): "We want one that's a best friend... It's natural that that companionship gene actually comes in pretty much all the things."

4. Dogs in the Tudor Court

Exploring historical contexts, Loades discusses the presence of various dog breeds in the Tudor court, particularly under Elizabeth I. Drawing from the work of John Keyes, Elizabeth's physician and a pioneering naturalist, Loades outlines the classification of dogs during this era:

Mike Loades ([13:53]): "There are a lot of hunting dogs, gaze hounds... and what today we would call lapdogs."

He shares anecdotes such as Mary Queen of Scots having a pack of 22 chamber dogs, highlighting the blend of working and companion roles dogs played even in elite circles.

5. Bloodhounds: Masters of Scent Tracking

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to bloodhounds, renowned for their unparalleled olfactory capabilities. Loades reveals:

Mike Loades ([14:54]): "A bloodhound has 230 million olfactory cells... an odor image for the bloodhound has, I think, 40 times more information than does a photograph for a human."

He recounts historical instances where bloodhounds were used to track notable figures like William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, demonstrating their crucial role in law enforcement and military pursuits.

6. Dalmatians as Carriage Guards

The discussion shifts to Dalmatians, traditionally bred to guard carriages against highwaymen and protect horses. Loades explains their historical significance during the 18th to early 19th centuries, the golden age of carriage travel:

Mike Loades ([22:25]): "Dalmatians were the favored type... they would trot behind the carriages for mile after mile after mile."

He contrasts their once aggressive nature with their modern reputation as affectionate pets, illustrating how selective breeding has transformed their behavior and appearance.

7. Drover Dogs and Livestock Management

Loades introduces the concept of drover dogs, such as Welsh Corgis and Bearded Collies, which were essential for herding and transporting livestock over long distances. He shares personal experiences filming with these breeds:

Mike Loades ([19:58]): "We used Bearded collies... to bring the sheep up to London. The droving dog needs to be quite gentle, quite different to that style of working of the border collie."

This highlights the adaptability of dogs to various working environments and their importance in sustaining agricultural economies.

8. The Evolution of Carriage Dogs

Exploring further, Loades explains the role of carriage dogs in safeguarding not just the travelers but also the horses:

Mike Loades ([23:48]): "A carriage dog would drive the horse off before the highwayman could get in shot range."

This section underscores the tactical roles dogs played in ensuring the safety and efficiency of transportation during a time when roads became more navigable and travel became more common.

9. Modern Symbiotic Roles of Dogs

The episode concludes by bridging historical roles with contemporary applications, emphasizing the continued symbiotic relationship between humans and dogs. Loades mentions various modern uses, from medical detection to service roles:

Mike Loades ([25:49]): "Our interdependence is now so deeply interwoven."

He elaborates on roles such as:

• Medical Detection: Dogs trained to sniff out cancers.
• Service Animals: Guide dogs for the blind and deaf.
• Police and Military Roles: Enhancing security and operational efficiency.
• Rewilding Efforts: Acting as flock guardians to deter predators like wolves.

10. Preserving Canine Heritage

Loades concludes by stressing the importance of conserving the diverse breeds and roles dogs have historically fulfilled, likening it to wildlife conservation:

Mike Loades ([25:04]): "It's a precious and fragile heritage, and I personally think we need to look after it just as much as we need to conserve the wildlife in the natural world."

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Notable Quotes:

• Dan Snow ([00:00]): "What a loved companion have we lost."
• Mike Loades ([05:12]): "You would be surprised how small the dial is on the genetic changes from a wolf to a domestic dog."
• Mike Loades ([14:54]): "A bloodhound has 230 million olfactory cells."
• Mike Loades ([22:25]): "Dalmatians were the favored type... they would trot behind the carriages for mile after mile after mile."
• Mike Loades ([25:49]): "Our interdependence is now so deeply interwoven."

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Conclusion

The "Dogs" episode of Dan Snow's History Hit offers an enlightening journey through the centuries-long partnership between humans and dogs. From the initial domestication of wolves to the specialized roles of various breeds in historical contexts, the episode underscores the profound impact dogs have had on human society. Mike Loades' insights and historical anecdotes provide a comprehensive understanding of why dogs remain humanity's most loyal and indispensable companions.

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Further Resources:

• Documentaries by Mike Loades:

  • Dogs of the Tudors
  • Dogs in the Age of Revolutions (1760 to 1850)

• Books by Mike Loades:

  • Dogs Working Origins and Traditional Tasks

For more detailed explorations of the historical roles of dogs, subscribe to History Hit at historyhit.com/subscribe.

Transcript

[Dan Snow]

Hi, I'm Dan Snow and if you would like Dan Snow's History Hit ad free, get early access and bonus episodes. Sign up to History Hit With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe hi everyone. Welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. It's a love affair stretching back tens of thousands of years. The love between a dog and an owner in some ways more dependable and long lasting than the love that exists between two humans. On an ancient Roman tombstone, one bereft Ona wrote of his deceased friend, My eyes were wet with tears. Our little dog, when I bore thee to the grave. So Patrickus, never again shall thou give me a thousand kisses. Never canst thou be contentedly in my lap, in a resting place of marble. I have put thee for all time by the side of my shade. What a loved companion have we lost.

[Mike Loades]

Now?

[Dan Snow]

If I drop dead today, I'm not convinced my wife would write that. Nice. An epitaph for me. Not convinced. That's because, well, we all know dogs understand human emotions more than any other animals. Often more than any other humans, they have astonishing senses. Their sense of smell can be something up to a hundred thousand times stronger than ours. It's why they can sense chemical changes in our bodies. They can detect diabetes and epileptic seizures before they take place. As I'm sure many of you know, the connection between us and dogs, one of the greatest joys of our human experience, it has been for millennia. I grew up with Welsh corgis on my grandma's farm in Canada. My wife and I had a Great Dane before we had kids. He was called Otto, after the iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. And through the ages, dogs have been protectors and hunters, hunters and gatherers and comrades and companions. In fact, I learned from this podcast they've been doing a bewildering range of very important jobs. I'm joined today by historian Mike Lodes. He has recently made a documentary for historyhit. So make sure you go and get a subscription, everyone. Historyhit.com subscribe the documentary is all about this tangled story of man and canine. It's available now on the history hit TV app. And here he is. To help us trace the history of our relationship with dogs. We're gonna talk about bloodhounds, Elizabeth I's army. We're talking about the Dalmatians, fierce dalmatians, apparently, that protected coaches from highwaymen and the vital role of Collies in the agricultural revolution. If you're a dog lover, this episode is for you. Enjoy. T minus 10.

[Mike Loades]

Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black white unity till there is first some black UN Never to go to war with one another again. And liftoff. And the shuttle has cleared the tower.

[Dan Snow]

Welcome back to the podcast, Mike.

[Mike Loades]

Loads, thank you. Good to be here.

[Dan Snow]

Let's get the housekeeping done. Dogs and wolves, wolves and dogs, are they the same thing? Different, descended. Do the family tree for me.

[Mike Loades]

Okay, so it all starts around 100,000 years ago, but the dates are very murky and the information is quite, quite murky. But there is general acceptance as to what happened and that is that some kind of symbiotic relationship between wild wolves and humans started. Then they were a mutual benefit. They're scavenging around human camps. So if you have a wolf pack that doesn't mix particularly with other wolf packs, that just breeds within itself, quite a large pack, over the generations, it becomes beneficial to survival for that pack to become slightly more docile, less of a threat to the humans, so it can edge in closer and scavenge around the camp. That obviously takes thousands of years to develop. And they get to what is called a proto dog, though no one's ever found a proto dog, but it is referred to. And that happens but about 15,000 years ago. So there's a sort of 85,000 year slow wooing between the two species. But then around 15,000 years ago, we start to get evidence that the dog has been domesticated or 15, 10,000 years ago, coinciding with the beginning of agriculture, as far as we know at the moment.

[Dan Snow]

I learned from your book as well that dogs are less closely related than modern wolves. They're distant, distant cousins. Now that wolf has morphed into other things as well.

[Mike Loades]

It has, but it has a surprise. You know, you even take a pekingese and the DNA, it's in the 90 percents, I think, of wolf. You would be surprised how small the dial is on the genetic changes from a wolf to a domestic dog.

[Dan Snow]

And I'm so interested by this symbiotic. These are two animals, humans and the wolf in this case, that just sort of realize subconsciously that their interests are aligned and they start working together. At first, I say not consciously, but eventually the human will take one of these animals in hand and train it. But there is an understanding between these two animals. It's fascinating.

[Mike Loades]

Exactly. It really is. And I think that's the key for the enduring fascination we were predestined to come together in the sense that we're so similar and we see ourselves in dogs at an animal level. We're both pack animals, we are both social animals, we both have hierarchies. We hunt strategically, tactically, in packs. That's a lot of commonality at an animal level. And we both have deep affection.

[Dan Snow]

Yeah. Both capable of enormous loyalty and affection. Presumably we've then also selected for, quote unquote, nice, affectionate, useful dogs as well. So actually there's a permanent artificial selection in fact going on in this story.

[Mike Loades]

Absolutely. So once we get to roughly 15,000 years ago, then what happens is the natural selection of it being beneficial to be a little bit more docile around humans. Because if you are, they'll throw you a bone and there's, you know, a reciprocal arrangement that they can help guard you. They can do all sorts of things. Once you get to that, then people start breeding for particular traits that are of use to humans. But what is always of use to humans is that bond of affection and loyalty. So even if you're breeding a shepherd dog, well, a shepherd's a lonely fella. He's on the hill day and night, months on end. His only companion, his dog. So yes, the dog's very good at rounding up sheep or at guarding sheep or whatever it may be, but you also want one that's a best friend. Similarly, the hunter's dog, you know, he's out there in the watery wastes hunting ducks. He's off chasing something somewhere else. He wants the dog to do that job, but he also wants a pal with him. So it's natural that that companionship gene actually comes in pretty much all the things. Even if you took guard dogs who you're breeding for aggression, but the handler doesn't want to get bitten. So it'll be a one man dog, but it'll have affection for him.

[Dan Snow]

Yes. Now that my children are getting older, I realize that I need a dog in my life. Because a dog is the only thing that looks at you like a nine year old child looks at their parent. They just think he's the coolest person in the whole world. They just want to spend all their time with them. Then sadly, the children grow up and realize the flaws of their parents. But dogs just seem locked in that state. It's great.

[Mike Loades]

You're exactly right. And they are. That is one of the things comparing it back to the wolf. Dogs are in a permanent juvenile state. So for instance, a wolf cub has floppy ears. The prick ears come later on as it matures. Well, our soppy spaniels have got floppy ears, so it's a juvenile trait that's perpetuated.

[Dan Snow]

Traits are important because as you've started to allude to, humans quite quickly start to select dogs for actually completely different tasks. And we see in the world today, we've got cozy little dogs just to keep us company and help boost our mental wellness. And we've got dogs, as you say, that retrieve that, track that round up sheep. So if you go back in the, well, the archaeological record, do you see humans selecting for these traits quite early on?

[Mike Loades]

Yeah, absolutely. And that's where my interest really starts. I mean, you know, the stuff we've talked about is we can't quite pin a date on it, but once dog history intersects with human history in a way that we can read about and study and see evidence for, then that's where I think it gets really interesting. And that dog history and human history from then on are interlinked and both can inform each other. We use dogs to do different things and we influenced the breeding. So if you had a dog that was particularly fierce, then you might develop that into a strain of guard dog. If you had a dog whose natural instinct was to herd, to shepherd, and you see it in little puppies that some do something, some do others, and you can create a type quite quickly. You know, a dog litter has anything from sort of eight to 14 puppies. So a male dog can siren several hundred puppies in its lifetime. So, you know, in a decade, you've got a completely different style of dog with human selective breeding influences. And that is why we have this fantastic portfolio of amazing dog types. Breeds are a different thing. And that doesn't really happen until the 19th century. Until the 19th century, and the kennel clubs were formed and breeds were identified. You know, you have to have this characteristic, and your tail needs to be so many inches long and your back needs to be at that angle, and your whiskers must be this color or whatever it may be. Until then, selective breeding was entirely for function, and form and function were intertwined, as they always are. So we had types, but the specific breeds where they're locked in didn't really happen until the mid 19th century. And the kennel clubs.

[Dan Snow]

But I learned from your work that the Romans, I mean, the Romans really evolved pets. So it's not that everyone had working dogs in the past, and lap dogs were popular in elite Roman circles.

[Mike Loades]

Absolutely, they were. And they're the ones we know about the most. Obviously, one of the most Moving images from antiquity is the dog from Pompeii. But there is also, you know, the cave canem guard dogs, the mosaics with hunting friezes on them when they're sighthounds. And they had their herding dogs and their livestock guardians, so they had the full range. But, yes, companion dogs, the military, the sort of predecessor of the Maltese, were popular, and we know they had dog burials, which shows us that they were beloved pets. But they were beloved by the Greeks as well, and I have no doubt, also by the Egyptians and by unnamed cultures.

[Dan Snow]

Listen to Dance Night's history. More dogs coming up after this. Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, host of Echoes of History, the podcast that plunges you into the ranks of the Knights Templar, across ancient Egypt and behind the barricades of history's great revolutions to explore the worlds recreated in Assassin's Creed. In our new series, Chasing Shadows, we're in feudal Japan alongside samurai warlords and shinobi spies. Whether you're gearing up for Assassin's Creed Shadows or captivated by Japan's rich history, this podcast, brought to you by Ubisoft and historyhit, is a must. Listen, Chasing Shadows is out now on the Echoes of History podcast. Let's whiz forward a little bit to where we have really quite interesting sources. Tell me about the Tudor court. What have you learned about the various different kinds of dogs that you might have stumbled across in the court of, say, Elizabeth the First?

[Mike Loades]

Ah, well, there's an interesting question. The dogs of the Tudors, we really start to get good evidence because Elizabeth I's physician, John Keyes, was also a naturalist and he wrote the first book. He was the first Englishman to write a book classifying all the dogs in Britain, depending if you're talking about geographical Britain or Britain as a political idea, but he categorized these dogs. Now, in his classification, there are a lot of hunting dogs, gaze hounds, which are like our sight hounds, greyhounds, Beagly harrier, sighthound type dogs, pack dogs, and the bloodhound. And I just recently filmed with bloodhounds. Oh, they're wonderful. Do you know that a bloodhound has 230 million olfactory cells?

[Dan Snow]

What, those are for smelling?

[Mike Loades]

Yeah, smelling sensors, which channel the scent up to the olfactory bulb where they create an odor image. And an odor image for the bloodhound has, I think, 40 times more information than does a photograph for a human.

[Dan Snow]

What?

[Mike Loades]

Yes, it's quite interesting, isn't it? Well, we know today, you know, we have dogs that can detect cancer in people.

[Dan Snow]

Dogs are extraordinary and those bloodhounds were evolved as incredible sniffer machines.

[Mike Loades]

Sniffing machines? Yes.

[Dan Snow]

For hunting or the battlefields. Why?

[Mike Loades]

For hunting, but particularly for hunting down fugitives. So William Wallace was hunted down by bloodhounds. Robert the Bruce was hunted by bloodhounds when they were out trying to escape the English armies. The Duke of Monmouth was hunted and found by bloodhounds after the Battle of Sedgemoor. They're used quite a lot. And the Earl of Essex, Elizabeth's one time favorite, took 800 bloodhounds with him on his expedition to Ireland to put down a Catholic rebellion. Why would he do that? Because he presumably thinks it's going to be a guerrilla war and he's going to need to hunt down fugitives in the wild countryside. We filmed with a bloodhound pack and bloodhound packs today, they hunt down a cross country runner. Nobody's hurt. The worst he gets is he gets licked a lot if they catch him. But he sets off in advance. Cross country runner. Just the faintest of scent they're given and they follow him. But how do you film that? That was one of the most fun filming days I've ever had. Because he's a cross country runner, we know the path he's going to take, we know that you know the route he's going to take. So we plotted that on our phones, on gps. And then I picked various spots where the hounds are going to jump over a hedge or a fence, come round a right angle, bend over a brow of a hill, all of that. Picked spots for cameras. But it was magical because it was a timeless scene. That's one of the things about dogs, when we're thinking of dogs in history, is they're so authentic, they're so natural. When you put a dog in an historical context, it's the same. I'm having the same experience with that dog as whatever century you care to put it in. That gives me a connection with the people of that time.

[Dan Snow]

So we got the bloodhounds, which is just extraordinary because some dogs, you think, well, they got no purpose whatsoever. They look nice, they feel nice. But poodles had a purpose.

[Mike Loades]

Oh, yeah. Again, in Elizabeth's time, they were extremely popular as duck hunting dogs. They were water spaniels. So you think of the word poodle. Well, it's like puddle. And our word puddle comes from the German poodel, which means a sort of splash. So there is this water connection and they've got webbed feet, you know, the big standard poodles, they've got webbed feet. They're water repelling coat. They're great water dogs, very powerful swimmers. And the way that you hunted a duck in the 16th century was with a crossbow. So John Keyes actually writes about the water spaniels retrieving the hunter's crossbow bolts when he missed. How useful is that? So we did that, you know, we shot a crossbow and the poodle went out and retrieved it and went out and retrieved a rubber duck in our demonstration. And they're wonderful, really wonderful working dogs.

[Dan Snow]

So got working dogs. I always remember there's a story about Mary Queen of Scots, isn't there? When she was beheaded, didn't a little dog pop out from under her skirt? So she had dogs.

[Mike Loades]

Yeah. The other really important category that John Keys talks about in his book is what he calls little dogs or chamber dogs, and what today we would call lapdogs. And they were universal at the Tudor court. And Mary Queen of Scots, who had a very lonely childhood, she had a pack of 22 chamber dogs. And it is said, legend has it, that when she was executed, after her head was chopped off, they found her loyal little spaniel hiding still beneath her skirts. It doesn't get sadder than that.

[Dan Snow]

Terrifying. Speaking of loyal, moving slightly further onwards, I think it's the 18th century. I remember a story off the top of my head about these Drover dogs, because obviously, no refrigeration. If you want to take meat to the city, it's got to be alive, it's got to walk there itself. And these dogs would you tell me. But they would sort of go from South Wales across to southern England and then they'd find their way back home again by themselves and stuff. I mean, it's an extraordinary.

[Mike Loades]

Yes. And the dogs you're talking about, there are corgis. And I went to meet this wonderful character who still herds his black cattle with Welsh corgis. He's in Bwilfwalds in Wales. And you think corgis, surely that's, you know our associations of them as royal pet dogs. But they're lively little dogs, much faster than you might expect. And because of their proximity to the ground, what they do is they nip at the cattle's heel to move them along. And when the cow kicks, it just misses the dog, because the angle of a cow's kick and the height of a corgi is a hair's breadth. And the corgi can nip at the cattle and be unharmed. But, yeah, they would drove from Wales all the way to Smithfield Market in London. We used Bearded collies, the shaggy dogs, similar to the old English sheepdog type. And I worked with those down in the west country where they would bring the sheep up to London. The deal with that, the deal with droving is you need your livestock to arrive at market in prime condition, you know, with as much meat on it as you could sell it per pound. So the droving dog needs to be quite gentle, quite different to that style of working of the border collie, which is always a magical sort of formula. One thing to watch, but it's lightning fast and it whizzes those sheep around, gallops them around, gets them into a pen. Very useful for managing them on the farm. But when you want to take them a long distance, you need a completely different character, and that's the droving dog, whether it's the little corgi pushing cattle or a bearded collie droving sheep and walking along. That day, even though we're filming, I often forgot we were filming because it was so calming, so pleasant. That ability of dogs to. You talked earlier about their ability to sort of heal us is they really can have a wonderfully calming energy. And those be deeds were magical.

[Dan Snow]

So speaking of that period in our history, carriage dogs, I've always been struck by that expression, carriage dogs. What does that mean?

[Mike Loades]

Carriage dogs were dogs that guarded the carriages. So 18th into early 19th century is the grand age of carriage travel. It happens then because it's only by then that roads are good enough for there to be, you know, fast, decent carriage travel. Yes. Royals had had a few trundling carriages before, but they weren't really a good way of getting around. But once you start to get a better road system, then you have carriage travel. And once you have carriage travel, then you are prey to highwaymen. Not just the travelers inside the coach who may be carrying valuables, but also the horses. Horse theft was a big thing and carriages had to stop at inns overnight. So carriage dogs, now there's limited space in a carriage, space is at a premium. So the carriage dogs used to run behind. Tremendous stamina. Dalmatians were the favored type. And although they're wonderfully affectionate today because of selective breeding to create that, they were once quite aggressive. And I remember because I'm very ancient, as a child, you know, Dalmatians had a reputation of being a bit bitey. Not anymore.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, really?

[Mike Loades]

Oh, yeah. But absolutely in the 18th century, they were aggressive, but with this enormous stamina. And they would trot behind the carriages for mile after mile after mile. Guarding the coaches, spotted dogs, you could see them. So a deterrent to highwaymen. And of course, you know, highwayman comes and you think, oh, how they're gonna. You know, highwayman's got a gun. But you see, the highwayman has to get to the carriage on a horse, and a carriage dog will drive that horse off before the highwayman can get in shot range. And they slept with the horses in the stable overnight. So that if you're stopped at an inn, you don't want your horse to be stolen, but you want to go to bed. You know, if you didn't have a carriage dog, the coachman had to sleep with the horses. But with a carriage dog sleeping and guarding the horses, he could get a bed for the night.

[Dan Snow]

You're just describing a world in which dogs. We're so familiar with dogs now, but for most people, dogs primarily in a pet role, very controlled boundaries of going for a dog walk and having a cuddle on the sofa at night. You're describing a world in which you'd have seen dogs everywhere, serving purposes, doing jobs, as we might describe them.

[Mike Loades]

Yeah. And interdependence, that was the engine that powered this deliberate development of different types. That's why we have this galaxy of different types. And we could lose it very quickly. It's a precious and fragile heritage, and I personally think we need to look after it just as much as we need to conserve the wildlife in the natural world.

[Dan Snow]

Let's finish up with the model, because you do mention that, you know, dogs have been trained to sniff out cancer, and that symbiotic relationship continues, not just in those traditional fields of retrieving for hunters and sportsmen or rounding up animals. There are other symbiotic jobs that go on.

[Mike Loades]

Yes, they are. And one of the everyday things that's symbiotic is people throwing a stick or a ball for their dog. There's a lovely letter from Lady Lyle, who was at Henry VIII's court, and she talks about a poodle who's very good at retrieving a glove on a stick. So you imagine sticking a glove on a stick and throwing it for the dog to retrieve. Well, that's just like you go to the park today and see all these people with these plastic ball throwers. So everybody loves throwing something for their dog and the dog bringing it back. It's a mutual reward system that goes on with all dogs every day. But, yeah, we use them for guarding us. We use them. A lot of military and police and things use dogs in those roles. They're used as flock guardians more and more as there is more rewilding reintroduction of wolves in certain areas. And the way to help keep that balance is to give the flocks a flock guardian which deters the wolves. There is for dogs at airports. There is guide dogs for the blind and for the deaf. Our interdependence is now so deeply interwoven.

[Dan Snow]

Mike Loades, my interdependence with your history content is interwoven as well. So thank you for coming on and talking all about your wonderful book and your TV show, Tell us what they're all called.

[Mike Loades]

The films which are now on history hit are Dogs of the Tudors and Dogs in the Age of Revolutions, which is roughly 1760 to 1850. And my book is called Dogs Working Origins and Traditional Tasks.

[Dan Snow]

Beautiful. Thank you very much indeed for coming on. Mike.

[Mike Loades]

Thank you, Dan.