Brian Hodgson's Tibetan Mastiffs: twice presented to the Zoological Society of London

• Published in: Archives of Natural History
• Main Authors: Lowther, David, Sylph, Ann, Watson, Mark F.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Edinburgh University Press 2019
• Subjects: Agricultural and Biological Sciences (miscellaneous); History; Anthropology; Hodgson; Canis lupus
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/anh.2019.0586; https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full-xml/10.3366/anh.2019.0586

In November 1828, King George IV presented to the menagerie of the Zoological Society of London a pair of Tibetan Mastiffs (Canis lupus familiaris) sent from Nepal by Brian Houghton Hodgson, the Assistant Resident at the British Residency in Kathmandu. The dogs' stay was brief: within weeks of their arrival, both dogs had succumbed to distemper, a disorder which periodically ran rampant through the Society's collections. However, during their short lives they caught the imagination of those naturalists fortunate enough to see them, and they live on in a number of watercolours commissioned by Hodgson before they started on their journey to Britain. This paper traces the brief existence of the “Thibet watch dogs” in London, paying close attention to their intended and abortive use as a gift to gain favour with the King, and places their portraits within the wider context of Hodgson's work in Nepal.