Latest / Ridiculous History / The Tragic Tale of the 'Turnspit Dog'

Transcript

The Tragic Tale of the 'Turnspit Dog' · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you so
0:31
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. I Uh, I gotta say, I
0:36
Speaker 1: just love the cartoonish nature of this one. I'm Ben,
0:39
Speaker 1: get that out of the way. And I love cartoons, Ben,
0:43
Speaker 1: I love cartoons too, And I also love the word cartoonish.
0:45
Speaker 1: And I really learned it from you, and I think
0:47
Speaker 1: a lot of listeners have. They'll drop that word like
0:50
Speaker 1: it's a nod to Ben Bolan. That's Ben Boland speak.
0:53
Speaker 1: I love it you basically, Like it's not like you
0:55
Speaker 1: own the word, but it's certainly you've got the Ben
0:57
Speaker 1: Bowling trademark of cartoonish downpat for sure. Ben. You know
1:02
Speaker 1: what I love delicious roasted meats, you know, especially on
1:09
Speaker 1: a hand turned spit over an open flame, like like, yeah,
1:14
Speaker 1: you ever see that massive cone of meat at the
1:16
Speaker 1: euro Place, you know, or they shave it off the side.
1:19
Speaker 1: It really isn't the same unless it's it's it's got
1:22
Speaker 1: to be in motion, dude, That meat's gotta move, my friend.
1:24
Speaker 1: That's where the flavor comes from. Everybody knows that, right, Yeah. Yeah,
1:28
Speaker 1: It's just like at the Brazilian steakhouses. You remember those,
1:32
Speaker 1: I am no, yeah, like Fogo to chow. What do
1:35
Speaker 1: they call them gauchos or they like you have the
1:37
Speaker 1: little car that you flip over when you meat, and
1:40
Speaker 1: they bring you the meat and it's on a giant
1:43
Speaker 1: skewer that they literally take off of these racks that
1:47
Speaker 1: are like over these open flames and they're just glistening
1:50
Speaker 1: with deliciousness and juices. Sorry if we're triggering any vegetarians
1:54
Speaker 1: out there right now, but sorry, this is an episode
1:56
Speaker 1: about rotating meat, uh, and hedonism and a weird ways
2:00
Speaker 1: throughout history that that meat has been allowed to move.
2:05
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true. This is one of those episodes
2:08
Speaker 1: that's gonna leave the three of us null, myself and
2:11
Speaker 1: our super producer, Casey Pegrum, incredibly hungry, ravenous famished afterwards. Uh,
2:19
Speaker 1: you're right. The it has been scientifically proven by us,
2:24
Speaker 1: with zero studies or experiments or oversight of any kind
2:29
Speaker 1: or oversight of any kind, that the motion of meat
2:33
Speaker 1: is what provides the succulents, the flavor, all all the
2:36
Speaker 1: all the juicy goodness. It's there's a great uh, there's
2:41
Speaker 1: great article and the vintage news That gets us into
2:44
Speaker 1: this story where they talk about how in the Cartoon
2:47
Speaker 1: and the Flintstones, one of the running gags was to
2:51
Speaker 1: have animals taking the place of a of a machine, right,
2:57
Speaker 1: household appliance of some kind. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like you know,
3:00
Speaker 1: the dishwasher was an octopus or there was I keep
3:06
Speaker 1: remembering there was a bird right who would do something
3:09
Speaker 1: and then there would be a weird you know, sound
3:11
Speaker 1: cue and the bird would be like, that's it was
3:14
Speaker 1: it like the faucet or something. There's definitely like a
3:17
Speaker 1: pig as the garbage disposal. I definitely remember that and
3:21
Speaker 1: it and it just lives under the sink, and I
3:25
Speaker 1: guess the beauty there is like you're feeding the pig
3:27
Speaker 1: with your garbage, so you don't really But then wouldn't
3:30
Speaker 1: it just like poop everywhere? Though it seems like it
3:32
Speaker 1: would be way more mess creating than it would be eliminating.
3:36
Speaker 1: What do you think, Casey? I think you just you
3:38
Speaker 1: take that and you do composting and then it's all
3:40
Speaker 1: very sustainable exactly basically on the case. But it turns
3:46
Speaker 1: out that wasn't so far fetched, Uh, the operative word
3:50
Speaker 1: here being fetched. I like that that was good. It
3:54
Speaker 1: turns out that once upon a time, once upon a
3:57
Speaker 1: medieval time, there we go p well, did use animals
4:02
Speaker 1: to do some of the same things that machines do today.
4:07
Speaker 1: In the sixteenth century, there was a breed of dog
4:11
Speaker 1: whose entire existence was to assist humans in cooking meat,
4:19
Speaker 1: and it was known by the phrase the turnspit dog. Off. Mike,
4:23
Speaker 1: I was talking with you guys about this over the weekend,
4:27
Speaker 1: and when I first saw the phrase turnspit dog for
4:32
Speaker 1: diving into the research, I thought they were dogs made
4:35
Speaker 1: to be eaten, and I felt terrible, and I was
4:38
Speaker 1: wondering whether we should skip this episode. But luckily it's not.
4:41
Speaker 1: Had a different job no, uh, And I sort of
4:45
Speaker 1: jumped the shark a little bit when I said, once
4:48
Speaker 1: upon a medieval time, so we'll backchrack ever so slightly too.
4:51
Speaker 1: Before these dogs were employed, uh, back in the medieval times. Um,
4:56
Speaker 1: you know, in in Britain, they would essentially just scoff
5:01
Speaker 1: at the notion of roasting meat in an oven. There's
5:04
Speaker 1: a book called Amazing Dogs, A Cabinet of Canine Curiosities
5:08
Speaker 1: by Jan Bondison, and it talks about the evolution of
5:10
Speaker 1: this uh kind of dogg e tech that led to
5:14
Speaker 1: uh the spit dog um. Initially, though in the fifteenth century,
5:18
Speaker 1: it was it was it was hard work to rotate
5:21
Speaker 1: this spit by hand. So if you were a chef
5:24
Speaker 1: or you you know, you got a lot of other
5:25
Speaker 1: things on your plate literally, uh and figuratively, and so
5:28
Speaker 1: you're running around doing stuff. You don't have time to
5:30
Speaker 1: turn the spit with a crank by hand. So you know,
5:34
Speaker 1: in these royal households um and you know, moneyed kind
5:38
Speaker 1: of gentry situations, Uh, you absolutely had to have your
5:44
Speaker 1: roasted spit meat. And in order to do that, you
5:49
Speaker 1: had to actually have someone whose entire job it was
5:53
Speaker 1: to rotate the meat. If you didn't have it rotating
5:56
Speaker 1: at a steady pace, you know, you would run the
6:00
Speaker 1: risk of it not being cooked evenly, or being overcooked
6:03
Speaker 1: or or undercooked or whatever. So you had to have
6:05
Speaker 1: somebody that was like rotating it by hand. And initially, uh,
6:10
Speaker 1: it was children that did it. And and this is
6:13
Speaker 1: kind of disturbing, actually apparently oftentimes it was such hot, sweaty,
6:19
Speaker 1: backbreaking work that the children would do this job in
6:24
Speaker 1: the nude, Yeah, because oftentimes if they were wearing their
6:29
Speaker 1: clothes they would get so hot that they could faint.
6:32
Speaker 1: And we can't have these these spit children fainting because
6:35
Speaker 1: what what will happen to our meats? They will stop
6:39
Speaker 1: rotating and that's not gonna fly. So, you know, off
6:42
Speaker 1: with the clothes, young spit child. This is disturbing stuff.
6:45
Speaker 1: Apparently they weren't even allowed to take breaks and there
6:49
Speaker 1: are reports of them having to urinate in the fireplaces.
6:53
Speaker 1: Uh in Henry, the eighth home of Hampton Court. Um,
6:57
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty dark. They were called spit jack's and
7:01
Speaker 1: they were they would maybe get a wet bail of hay.
7:05
Speaker 1: That was about what they had in terms of workers rights.
7:07
Speaker 1: And this could be seen as you know, like a
7:13
Speaker 1: funny site gag in a comedy film. But this was
7:18
Speaker 1: a very real and very torturous existence. And this was
7:23
Speaker 1: also a luxury. It wasn't like if you were in
7:26
Speaker 1: the average family in England at the time. It's not
7:30
Speaker 1: like your parents would make you and your siblings draw
7:34
Speaker 1: straws to see who has to turn the meat all night. Uh.
7:38
Speaker 1: This is something that you would see more like taverns
7:41
Speaker 1: or the homes of aristocracy. But by the fifteen hundreds
7:46
Speaker 1: there was something that was kind of like a the
7:49
Speaker 1: medieval version of outsourcing. Because these kids, they weren't just
7:56
Speaker 1: living a rough life, they were also frankly often fainting
8:02
Speaker 1: just from heat exhaustion, and they get these horrific blisters
8:07
Speaker 1: on their hands, which means even when they weren't fainting,
8:10
Speaker 1: it was very difficult for them to work. So picture
8:14
Speaker 1: King Henry the eighth, like a person in an infomercial,
8:18
Speaker 1: just dropping glasses and stuff, and he's going, there's got
8:22
Speaker 1: to be a better way. Yeah, this filthy nude street urchins,
8:27
Speaker 1: open sores are getting all over my meat. That's a
8:30
Speaker 1: disgusting image. And I apologize, folks, but it's true. I mean,
8:33
Speaker 1: this was really untenable. And I imagine they had to
8:36
Speaker 1: have them kind of like off camera, you know what
8:38
Speaker 1: I mean, like somehow like pay no attention to the
8:41
Speaker 1: the the young lad behind the curtain, turning the meat
8:46
Speaker 1: spit um. So yeah, there there did have to be
8:49
Speaker 1: another way. Uh. And and it turns out that other
8:52
Speaker 1: way was what we uh know now um as a
8:55
Speaker 1: turnspit dog um, which in the sixteenth century really became
9:01
Speaker 1: the way. Uh. And to to get this done and
9:04
Speaker 1: to to get the kids you know, let's let let's
9:07
Speaker 1: give them some of the let's you know, let's put
9:09
Speaker 1: them back in the stables, you know, give them some
9:11
Speaker 1: other kind of dehumanizing and dangerous work. Um. But you
9:15
Speaker 1: know we're gonna we're gonna relegate spit turning to these
9:18
Speaker 1: dogs a particular breed of dog in fact, right, that's right.
9:21
Speaker 1: You can see a depiction of this in some old drawings. Uh,
9:25
Speaker 1: we found one that was I think through amusing planet.
9:31
Speaker 1: But let me just describe this too. So there's there's
9:33
Speaker 1: a bench and it's clearly a tavern kind of restaurant
9:37
Speaker 1: to people are sitting there, families having food and drinks.
9:42
Speaker 1: And there's someone who works at the tavern watching the
9:45
Speaker 1: fire where a leg of what appears to be you know,
9:49
Speaker 1: lamb or beef is slowly turning on the spit and
9:52
Speaker 1: it's attached through this uh system of pulleys to a
9:57
Speaker 1: hamster wheel kind of hanging a wooden wheel hanging from
10:02
Speaker 1: a roof beam. And there's a tiny dog just forrest
10:06
Speaker 1: gump level, running his heart out in the wheel to
10:09
Speaker 1: turn the meat. Uh. There is also a cat who
10:14
Speaker 1: is on the you can see at the bottom who's
10:17
Speaker 1: just sort of staring in idle curiosity at the dog.
10:21
Speaker 1: I was thinking maybe the cat was there to like,
10:23
Speaker 1: you know, like as like a stick and carrot kind
10:25
Speaker 1: of approach. You know, like the cat is what the
10:28
Speaker 1: dog is constantly running after in place, you know, on
10:30
Speaker 1: this little hamster wheel. Because I do, I do wonder
10:33
Speaker 1: like I mean, that requires some training, you know, I
10:35
Speaker 1: would think a dog eventually would get bored of just
10:38
Speaker 1: running around on a wheel. Uh. They would probably be
10:41
Speaker 1: some abusive tactics that would go into making sure these
10:45
Speaker 1: dogs never stopped right, Yeah, Or maybe they're just very
10:49
Speaker 1: energetic naturally. The way they're described reminds me a little
10:53
Speaker 1: bit of doctions of wiener dogs because they've got short
10:57
Speaker 1: legs that got a long body drooping ears. Uh. The
11:03
Speaker 1: zoologist Carl Linnaeus called the Canus revertigious dizzy dog dizzy
11:09
Speaker 1: doug because they were always running around in circles. So
11:17
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about this apparatus. Uh, that
11:21
Speaker 1: had to be like custom design like for this purpose,
11:23
Speaker 1: you know, because the kids were essentially turning a chain
11:26
Speaker 1: or like pulling a lever kind of situation. Obviously, dogs
11:29
Speaker 1: don't have hands, um, so they had to kind of
11:32
Speaker 1: manufacture something that would allow the dog to use its
11:36
Speaker 1: like locomotion to constantly turn this spit. Uh. So basically
11:41
Speaker 1: it was a hollow wheel just like a hamster wheel
11:44
Speaker 1: UM with an axle connected to it, and that would
11:47
Speaker 1: turn the chain or strings that was attached to the
11:50
Speaker 1: spit and keep it rotating um at a steady pace. UM.
11:54
Speaker 1: As the dog would run just like a hamster wheel,
11:59
Speaker 1: the spit would turn and they were able to um
12:03
Speaker 1: locate the device away from the actual spit to keep
12:07
Speaker 1: the dogs from from getting too hot, which you gotta
12:10
Speaker 1: wonder why they didn't figure that out for the kids.
12:12
Speaker 1: Maybe that would have kept them from, you know, passing
12:15
Speaker 1: out constantly. It seems like they gave the dogs a
12:17
Speaker 1: lot more attention and care than they did these children. Yeah. Yeah,
12:23
Speaker 1: and maybe if being optimistic, I could say that it's
12:28
Speaker 1: a lesson learned from their first time out the gate
12:31
Speaker 1: with this abusive practice. But maybe, like many people, they
12:35
Speaker 1: just liked dogs more than they liked humans, sort of
12:40
Speaker 1: like the Nazis and horses, right right, Like the Nazis
12:44
Speaker 1: and horses, the dogs had a number of uses, but
12:48
Speaker 1: they also had almost like workers rights. I'm not sure
12:51
Speaker 1: how to say it. They had Sundays off and and
12:55
Speaker 1: they also you know, when they were done with kitchen duty, Uh,
12:59
Speaker 1: they were given another job. They were trained to sit
13:03
Speaker 1: on their owner's feet to keep them warm in manner
13:07
Speaker 1: houses and in castles which are famously drafty. I'm sorry,
13:10
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to harp on this too much, but
13:12
Speaker 1: it's crazy. They gave the dogs sundays off and the
13:16
Speaker 1: children worked around the clock year round. I mean, I
13:21
Speaker 1: aid only assume it wasn't something that we came across
13:24
Speaker 1: of like what days did the kids get off? It
13:26
Speaker 1: didn't seem like they did. Uh. Really bizarre and interesting. Um,
13:31
Speaker 1: so let's talk a little bit more about the actual breed.
13:34
Speaker 1: We talked about a name that was given to what
13:36
Speaker 1: has it been canus vertigious dizzy dogous dog? Yeah exactly. Uh.
13:44
Speaker 1: This was you know, much like docs sins with their
13:46
Speaker 1: short legs and and long kind of slender bodies. I
13:50
Speaker 1: believe we're bred for a particular type of hunting. Initially
13:54
Speaker 1: in Germany, that's true. The British dog breeders were looking
13:59
Speaker 1: for specific qualifications. Had to be dogs was small enough
14:04
Speaker 1: to fit in a wheel. Irish wolfhound wouldn't fit the bill,
14:08
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, they had to be super strong, they
14:10
Speaker 1: had to be energetic, and they couldn't be dummies because
14:13
Speaker 1: you had to be able to train them to do
14:14
Speaker 1: some specific things. And they definitely didn't want them to
14:17
Speaker 1: talk back like those pesky animal appliances in the flint stumps,
14:22
Speaker 1: or have hands like those pesky children. So according to
14:27
Speaker 1: the Kennel Club in London, Uh, the first mention of
14:31
Speaker 1: them occurs in fifteen seventy six in the first book
14:34
Speaker 1: on dogs ever written. This is the book English Dogs
14:39
Speaker 1: by John Kiss. He said that they so diligently looked
14:43
Speaker 1: to their business that no drudge nor Scullion can do
14:46
Speaker 1: the feat more cunningly, Drudge and Scullion being names for
14:51
Speaker 1: kitchen staff at the time. Uh. And did we say
14:55
Speaker 1: it's other Latin name yet? Oh? You the vernapeture cur?
15:00
Speaker 1: What's that mean? Uh? It's just essentially like kitchen dog
15:03
Speaker 1: or cooking dog, if I'm not mistaken. I love the
15:06
Speaker 1: idea of a cur that's sort of a term of abuse,
15:09
Speaker 1: an old timey one like you cur, you villainous cur,
15:12
Speaker 1: which I guess is a dog. I didn't really realize
15:15
Speaker 1: that until looking into the research for this episode. Um,
15:18
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it is a good example. Like
15:21
Speaker 1: I was talking about Dockson's being bred specifically for hunting.
15:24
Speaker 1: It was for hunting specific types of small game like badgers,
15:28
Speaker 1: which I thought would uh would do it for you ben,
15:30
Speaker 1: and and other types of rodents and smaller things. They
15:32
Speaker 1: wanted to be lowered to the ground so they could,
15:34
Speaker 1: like wheat, wiggle into some of the smaller spaces that
15:37
Speaker 1: those creatures would go. Um, and it's the spit dog,
15:42
Speaker 1: according to this book of the English Dogs by John Caius,
15:46
Speaker 1: was a really good example of breeding an animal for
15:51
Speaker 1: a specific purpose. And to be honest, they have a
15:55
Speaker 1: little bit of a spotty history. We've been being very
15:58
Speaker 1: nice to the kitchen staff. Uh. These dogs were well
16:03
Speaker 1: known in contemporary society. Uh, people wrote about them. Shakespeare
16:08
Speaker 1: has a dog mentioned in the Comedy of Errors. And
16:14
Speaker 1: the hard truth of it is that these dogs did
16:17
Speaker 1: not have a good life, right Like, yes, they didn't
16:20
Speaker 1: work on Sundays, but the kitchen staff usually got Sundays off. Yes,
16:24
Speaker 1: they got to hang out with their owner and keep
16:26
Speaker 1: their feet warm. And that's you know, it gives gives
16:29
Speaker 1: us all the all the cute fuzzy feels. But we
16:34
Speaker 1: have to remember that these were not ornamental pets. These
16:37
Speaker 1: were dogs with a function and they were treated pretty roughly. Yeah.
16:44
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until um, you know, animal cruelty groups
16:49
Speaker 1: like the A s p c A or the American
16:51
Speaker 1: Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals UH started kind
16:55
Speaker 1: of taking notice of of, you know, animal rights. The
17:00
Speaker 1: idea of animal rights was not a thing like it
17:02
Speaker 1: was really like animals were here for us and we
17:05
Speaker 1: would do with them as as we as we pleased. Um.
17:08
Speaker 1: But this this gentleman, UH, Steven l. Zowatowski with the
17:14
Speaker 1: A s p c A UH talks about the history
17:17
Speaker 1: of of these spit dogs and says that they were
17:19
Speaker 1: so low on the social order that nobody took account
17:23
Speaker 1: of them. Um, which kind of leaves the history a
17:27
Speaker 1: little bit open ended. And then UM, there actually is,
17:32
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken, a taxidermy turnspit dog on display
17:37
Speaker 1: at the Abergaveney Museum in Wales. UH. The dog's name
17:42
Speaker 1: is Whiskey, by the way, And this animal is described
17:45
Speaker 1: by Stanley Corene, who wrote a book called Paw Prince
17:48
Speaker 1: on History UM as having a very similar body shaped
17:51
Speaker 1: to a Bassett hound with the head of a pit bull.
17:54
Speaker 1: So we're we're sort of using our imaginations here and
17:57
Speaker 1: thinking about what these dogs might have looked like. I
17:59
Speaker 1: think we're from the same page and picturing a docs
18:01
Speaker 1: in type situation. A Bassett hound is also similarly kind
18:04
Speaker 1: of longer with with little stumpy legs, but it does
18:08
Speaker 1: seem to be a breed that we wouldn't really see
18:11
Speaker 1: these days. And you know, it's it's interesting how breeds
18:14
Speaker 1: kind of fall in and out of favor, and if
18:16
Speaker 1: you don't keep breeding them, then they're gonna eventually, like,
18:19
Speaker 1: you know, get die out. Uh. And obviously there are
18:23
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of breeds of dogs throughout the world,
18:25
Speaker 1: often bred for very specific reasons and uh, like, here's
18:29
Speaker 1: a few examples from this cool medium article that we read,
18:32
Speaker 1: turnspit dogs the original rotisserie machines UM. For example, jack
18:37
Speaker 1: Russell terriers were bred to hunt rats, and border Collies
18:41
Speaker 1: were bred for hurting sheep, and greyhounds were sleek and
18:45
Speaker 1: quick so they could hunt hairs. Uh. And then Alsatians
18:49
Speaker 1: were guard dogs, so they were all these very specifically
18:52
Speaker 1: bred characteristics. UM. Turnspit dogs really really did have a
18:58
Speaker 1: rough life. I mean, they were denied some of the
19:00
Speaker 1: just most basic necessities that you think of in terms
19:03
Speaker 1: of like a dog. Dogs overheat really quickly. They need
19:06
Speaker 1: a lot of water to stay hydrated and to be healthy.
19:09
Speaker 1: And apparently these spit turn dogs would work in teams
19:16
Speaker 1: where they would there be like, you know, one working
19:18
Speaker 1: and running its little hard out on the wheel, and
19:20
Speaker 1: then when that one overheated, essentially it would it would
19:23
Speaker 1: be replaced by another dog, and they would trade every
19:26
Speaker 1: couple of hours. And even though they did try to
19:30
Speaker 1: locate the wheel a little farther away from the spit
19:33
Speaker 1: than it would have been with the early examples with
19:36
Speaker 1: the kids turning it so close to the actual spit
19:39
Speaker 1: because it was just a chain that was directly on it, um,
19:42
Speaker 1: it still was very very hot and a lot of
19:45
Speaker 1: this dry heat would hit the dogs um and they
19:48
Speaker 1: weren't getting water, so they would really kind of they
19:53
Speaker 1: were almost being tortured, you know, right, And it went
19:56
Speaker 1: even further than that. You see, some of the more
19:59
Speaker 1: villainous books involved in this situation might actually put hot
20:05
Speaker 1: coals on the wheel if they thought the dog was
20:08
Speaker 1: moving lazily, so they would threaten it with burns. You know,
20:12
Speaker 1: I've been silent for a second here, and it's not
20:16
Speaker 1: because I don't want to talk about this story just
20:20
Speaker 1: to peep behind the pandemic curtain. Uh. We usually try
20:24
Speaker 1: to avoid recording on Mondays because that's when my friendly
20:29
Speaker 1: neighborhood leafblower uh does his uh does his weekly concert
20:34
Speaker 1: outside of this window. I think he's using arc and
20:38
Speaker 1: uh audible evil as a way to work through his
20:41
Speaker 1: own issues. Uh. So, so we've had to stop and
20:44
Speaker 1: start there's a couple of times, but I'm gonna give
20:46
Speaker 1: it a go. If you hear anything in the background,
20:49
Speaker 1: just just know it's a terrible person. Definitely is super
20:52
Speaker 1: villain in the making. But what are you gonna do?
20:56
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's power through it. I'm kidding you know. Uh,
21:01
Speaker 1: maybe we'll see if we can get them on the
21:02
Speaker 1: show one day. That's a great idea, and he can
21:06
Speaker 1: explain the terrible things that let him down this dark road,
21:10
Speaker 1: why he is the way he is. Yeah. Right, So
21:15
Speaker 1: the torture I am enduring is nothing compared to what
21:20
Speaker 1: these poor pooches went through. Like you said, no, they
21:24
Speaker 1: were not provided water on a regular basis and if
21:28
Speaker 1: they were laboring under heat exhaustion. Some villainous cooks who
21:32
Speaker 1: would be like leafblower operators today, would just say, you know,
21:36
Speaker 1: these dogs are lazy, and they would put hot coals
21:40
Speaker 1: in the wheel where the dog was running. And so
21:44
Speaker 1: now the dog is doubling its efforts because it is
21:48
Speaker 1: running in fear from being burned. This is a level
21:53
Speaker 1: of abuse that, uh, like you said, was quite common
21:57
Speaker 1: before the rise of animal rights. M there's a fascinating story,
22:06
Speaker 1: and I don't know, it almost seems a little bit
22:08
Speaker 1: uh fictionalized or overblown, but who knows. Uh. In the
22:12
Speaker 1: Annals of bath Um historical account of of the time, UM,
22:18
Speaker 1: there was a story about on the Sundays that the
22:21
Speaker 1: dogs are off, they would often be taken to church
22:24
Speaker 1: with the kitchen staff. Um. And apparently on one Sunday service,
22:28
Speaker 1: the preacher was telling the story of Ezekiel and the
22:30
Speaker 1: Wheel in the sky, and according to this account, the
22:34
Speaker 1: third mention of the word wheel, all of the dogs
22:38
Speaker 1: in the in the sanctuary bolted for the door. UM.
22:42
Speaker 1: So yeah, now you take that one with the grain
22:44
Speaker 1: of salt, but it definitely speaks to the levels of
22:47
Speaker 1: abuse that these dogs were experiencing if it's true. Yeah,
22:52
Speaker 1: and you can see other authors writing about this. In
22:58
Speaker 1: the Illustrated Natural His Street from eighteen fifty three, John
23:02
Speaker 1: George would note that the dogs were very aware of
23:09
Speaker 1: their shift for lack of a better word, if they
23:12
Speaker 1: weren't relieved at the proper hour, their innate sense of
23:16
Speaker 1: timing would kick in and they would jump out of
23:18
Speaker 1: the wheel without any orders, and then they would force
23:21
Speaker 1: their companion, their fill in, to take their place. And uh.
23:25
Speaker 1: There was another author named John Cordy Jefferson who wrote,
23:30
Speaker 1: in a book about the table, I think a fanciful
23:33
Speaker 1: story about the relationships that turnspit dogs had with their
23:37
Speaker 1: canine co workers. Yeah, it goes like this. This is
23:41
Speaker 1: a little bit long, but I think it's worth worth
23:43
Speaker 1: kind of taking you there and setting the scene. Abused
23:46
Speaker 1: by men of all degrees, and scorned by every other
23:50
Speaker 1: dog of the house, a pair of turnspit dogs were
23:53
Speaker 1: continually snarling at and fighting each other, each accused the
23:57
Speaker 1: other of shirking his fair share of the or common
24:00
Speaker 1: work and devouring more than his fair share of their
24:03
Speaker 1: common ration, and in their mutual rage, they would sometimes
24:07
Speaker 1: fight to the death. Bouffon tells the story of a
24:10
Speaker 1: turnspit dog that, on escaping from the wheel in the
24:13
Speaker 1: Duke de leon Force kitchen in Paris, ran in upon
24:17
Speaker 1: his fellow turnspit and killed him because the latter had,
24:21
Speaker 1: by sulking, compelled him to perform an additional spell of work.
24:26
Speaker 1: A similar incident occurred at the Jesuits College of La Flesh,
24:30
Speaker 1: where a turnspit dog, infuriated by being compelled to work
24:34
Speaker 1: in the wheel when it was his turn to be resting,
24:37
Speaker 1: had no sooner escaped from the cage of torture than
24:40
Speaker 1: he hunted out his dishonest comrade, and after a brief
24:44
Speaker 1: conflict with him, took his life. Wow, these were violent
24:50
Speaker 1: little fellows, weren't they. I guess you know that's essentially
24:53
Speaker 1: the kind of attitude you're gonna breed when when you
24:56
Speaker 1: when you're living this life of constant servitude and sir
25:00
Speaker 1: vival that, yeah, you not wouldn't make the most friendly animals.
25:04
Speaker 1: I want I wonder if they were infamous for, like,
25:06
Speaker 1: you know, attacking other household dogs. We talked about how
25:10
Speaker 1: they were like on the lowest possible wrong of the
25:12
Speaker 1: social strata in dog terms. In these households Um, I
25:17
Speaker 1: bet they would be punished very severely if they were
25:20
Speaker 1: caught nipping at the treasured, actual lapdog of the family. Yeah,
25:25
Speaker 1: it's a good question. And again the history is spotty
25:31
Speaker 1: because these dogs were not considered especially important, right they were.
25:37
Speaker 1: It's like, why would you write history of a specific
25:41
Speaker 1: kitchen gadget, which, by the way, or the exact kind
25:44
Speaker 1: of books I love reading, Give me five pages on
25:48
Speaker 1: the rise of the blender or the the sport, the fippoon. Uh,
25:55
Speaker 1: what's another good one? Like the zeudler seen as zeudler.
26:01
Speaker 1: What's a zudler? It makes noodles out of like vegetables,
26:05
Speaker 1: zucchini and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Um. Also, you know,
26:10
Speaker 1: the most dangerous kitchen appliance or gadget is that that
26:14
Speaker 1: I own at least is a mandolin. You know, it's
26:17
Speaker 1: made for like julianning things, and it's very easy when
26:20
Speaker 1: you're scraping things on this plane with these crazy sharp
26:23
Speaker 1: blades to accidentally slice your entire hand across that thing.
26:27
Speaker 1: I've done it more than a couple of times, and
26:28
Speaker 1: it's like getting clawed by a vicious cat with like
26:31
Speaker 1: metal talents. What sacrifices will we not make in the
26:35
Speaker 1: pursuit of great cuisine, which is really messed up way
26:38
Speaker 1: to look at turnspit dogs. But also we're not heaping
26:42
Speaker 1: approbrium on just the British. It's very easy to do
26:46
Speaker 1: so because that's where most of the reports come from.
26:49
Speaker 1: But less you look down on our cousins across the pod. Uh.
26:55
Speaker 1: Please remember that there's evidence of turnspit dogs beat you
27:00
Speaker 1: used in the early United States. Pennsylvania's founder did it,
27:03
Speaker 1: that's right. And in the Pennsylvania Gazette, which was Ben
27:06
Speaker 1: Franklin's publication, UM, you could pretty regularly see ads being
27:11
Speaker 1: run for both the turnspit dogs themselves and the wheel
27:15
Speaker 1: apparatus that we're talking about. UM. Pretty interesting. Uh. And
27:20
Speaker 1: there's an account of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania,
27:23
Speaker 1: and his wife Hannah UM through through some letters that
27:27
Speaker 1: were found UM, asking uh friends in England to ship
27:31
Speaker 1: them over a new wheel for their personal turnspit dog. Yeah.
27:36
Speaker 1: This makes me so sad when we think about this, UH,
27:40
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that the practice is no longer common.
27:44
Speaker 1: It was very widespread. Like we said earlier, in seventeen fifty,
27:48
Speaker 1: you could find turnspits anywhere in Great Britain, they were ubiquitous.
27:53
Speaker 1: By eighteen fifty they were becoming scarce, and by nineteen
27:56
Speaker 1: hundred they were functionally gone, which was a very good thing. Uh.
28:01
Speaker 1: These new spit turning machines called clock jacks were replacing
28:07
Speaker 1: turnspit dogs left and right, and according to Jan Bonson,
28:13
Speaker 1: who wrote Amazing Dogs, a Cabinet of Canine Curiosity, it
28:17
Speaker 1: ultimately became a sign of poverty to have a turnspit
28:21
Speaker 1: dog instead of a steam operated clock jack. And the
28:26
Speaker 1: author here says that these turnspit dogs were quote ugly
28:31
Speaker 1: little dogs with a quite morose disposition, so nobody wanted
28:35
Speaker 1: to keep them as pets. This just breaks my heart.
28:38
Speaker 1: I I feel like every dog is great, it's just
28:41
Speaker 1: a reflection of its owner. So I think these dogs
28:44
Speaker 1: could have really blossomed with a little bit of TLC
28:47
Speaker 1: if they weren't forced to run on a hamster wheel
28:50
Speaker 1: for hours while someone was throwing coals at them. Yeah.
28:53
Speaker 1: I mean, at least the hamster gets to just do
28:55
Speaker 1: it for fun and a little exercise. I mean, can't
28:58
Speaker 1: you imagine, Like, I mean, it's very definition of like
29:01
Speaker 1: interminable to be forced to run on a wheel Uh, forever.
29:07
Speaker 1: You know. It's yeah, it's it's really is the tortures
29:10
Speaker 1: of the damned, my friend, the tortures of the damned.
29:13
Speaker 1: No pup deserves that life. And it was these types
29:17
Speaker 1: of abuses. We we mentioned this in the form of
29:19
Speaker 1: a quote early on, but that led to organizations forming
29:25
Speaker 1: with the novel goal of protecting animals from this type
29:30
Speaker 1: of abuse. Um. It was, uh the turn of the
29:34
Speaker 1: twentieth century which saw animal rights activist groups being being
29:40
Speaker 1: created for for just that reason. Um, because of all
29:43
Speaker 1: of the absurd, you know, abominable abuses that that had
29:48
Speaker 1: been you know, heaped on animals throughout throughout the history.
29:52
Speaker 1: So you've got this guy named William Boy's Weaver who's
29:55
Speaker 1: a food historian, talking about the treatment of turnspit dogs
29:59
Speaker 1: in an teen fifties Manhattan hotel. Uh, and it apparently
30:04
Speaker 1: angered his friend Henry Berg so much that it actually
30:08
Speaker 1: inspired Burg to found the a s p c A
30:12
Speaker 1: in the eighteen fifties. So the s p c A
30:14
Speaker 1: literally was founded because of the abuses that turnspit dogs
30:19
Speaker 1: are going through. And since the institution's inception back in
30:23
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, it has helped reduce the suffering of
30:28
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands, probably millions of animals across the country.
30:34
Speaker 1: So something good did come out of the the tortures
30:40
Speaker 1: of the now extinct turnspit dog. And if you want
30:45
Speaker 1: to if you want to look at one, like you said, no,
30:47
Speaker 1: the best example is going to be Whiskey, who has taxidermy.
30:51
Speaker 1: But if you want to watch the closest thing to
30:53
Speaker 1: a living one, a lot of people recommend you check
30:57
Speaker 1: out the quirky, which is like the fancy version the
31:00
Speaker 1: turnspit dog as the peasant version of the court love
31:04
Speaker 1: a corky. And you know nowadays those dogs are more
31:08
Speaker 1: bred for just cuteness. Maximum cuteness is what you get
31:11
Speaker 1: with the corky. Um. And and there's another silver lining here,
31:14
Speaker 1: and I think this is a great way to wrap
31:15
Speaker 1: up the episode. Um. Some folks were a little kinder
31:18
Speaker 1: and gentler to these turnspit dogs. Queen Victoria, for example,
31:22
Speaker 1: kept three of them as house pets instead of kitchen tools. Um.
31:26
Speaker 1: As as the Alice Obscure article that we've been referencing,
31:30
Speaker 1: UM points out, and there is a poem from a
31:33
Speaker 1: book called the Book of Days which describes the life
31:38
Speaker 1: of a turnspit dog named Fuddle and uh and and
31:41
Speaker 1: here here's how this one goes. Um. The whole the
31:44
Speaker 1: backstory is that Fuddle is so angry at his uh
31:48
Speaker 1: fellow turnspit dogs. As we pointed out in a previous account,
31:52
Speaker 1: that there was often rivalry and and sometimes fighting to
31:55
Speaker 1: the death between these um but there was also in
31:58
Speaker 1: this story an evil look and uh. The two dogs
32:03
Speaker 1: were fighting over like a pile of bones. Um, and
32:08
Speaker 1: this is how the poem goes. He licked his lips
32:10
Speaker 1: and wagged his tail. Was overjoyed he should prevail such
32:14
Speaker 1: favor to obtain among the rest. He went to play,
32:18
Speaker 1: was put into the wheel. Next day he turned and
32:21
Speaker 1: ate as well as they and never speeched again. So
32:26
Speaker 1: last thing, Ivan and say, I think I speak for
32:29
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of our fellow listeners when
32:31
Speaker 1: I say ten ten, I want to see the turnspit
32:35
Speaker 1: Dog movie. I want Pixar to do it. I wanted
32:37
Speaker 1: to be about a plucky uh group of turnspit dogs
32:42
Speaker 1: and maybe like a lovable scamp human kid in the kitchen,
32:46
Speaker 1: a spit jack, and I want them to bust out,
32:48
Speaker 1: and I want them to go on an adventure and
32:51
Speaker 1: I want them ultimately to do like a I don't know,
32:56
Speaker 1: some kind of like homeward bound thing mixed with a
32:59
Speaker 1: little bit of uh find a Nemo and uh. I
33:02
Speaker 1: want the one of the dogs to be played by
33:07
Speaker 1: Steve Bushe love it and with the Steve Bushey eyes too.
33:11
Speaker 1: I could totally picture that. Uh, you know, I gotta
33:14
Speaker 1: add Ben. I think it'd be fun if this turnspit
33:16
Speaker 1: dog it was dreaming of a life as a greyhound racer,
33:22
Speaker 1: like because he's you know, like he he wants to
33:23
Speaker 1: break out because he's he's the best turnspit dog is.
33:26
Speaker 1: He runs the fastest and the steady is. But he
33:28
Speaker 1: really is secretly dreaming of racing alongside those sleek uh greyhounds. Um,
33:34
Speaker 1: which was the thing. I think greyhound racing it was
33:36
Speaker 1: even a thing in medieval days where because they were
33:39
Speaker 1: again bred to to hunt rabbits. So uh, that would
33:42
Speaker 1: be cool. I love like that kind of fish out
33:44
Speaker 1: of water story. And then you got and then all
33:45
Speaker 1: the greyhounds are like, no, you you can't. You're not
33:48
Speaker 1: in our league. A little short stubby legs he can't,
33:52
Speaker 1: you know. And then and then and then he shows
33:53
Speaker 1: that he's got moxie with sheer will and and and
33:56
Speaker 1: and pluckiness. The Turnspit Dog does come pete and and prevails.
34:02
Speaker 1: Well he's got you know. Eventually they meet, uh, they
34:05
Speaker 1: meet royalty at the end of it, who are amazed. Right,
34:09
Speaker 1: And the kitchen scamp, who plays a much bigger part
34:12
Speaker 1: in this story, is you know, like the number one
34:16
Speaker 1: human representative, kind of doing a Rata two e thing
34:19
Speaker 1: and uh, he gets adopted or she gets adopted and
34:23
Speaker 1: they live happily ever after. But the dog always does
34:29
Speaker 1: still have Steve bushim his voice, and I think I
34:33
Speaker 1: want him to turn out to be the narrator. Will
34:36
Speaker 1: play with time a little bit, but we will play
34:38
Speaker 1: with this time because this is the story of the
34:40
Speaker 1: Turnspit Dog, and luckily it does have a somewhat positive ending. Yeah,
34:45
Speaker 1: I agreed. Um, really enjoyed these two episodes that we
34:49
Speaker 1: did this week. Um, sorry, Casey, didn't didn't mean to
34:53
Speaker 1: trigger you with all the all the British stuff. I
34:55
Speaker 1: know that you're staunchly in the you're on team France.
34:58
Speaker 1: Did you send this leaflower, Casey? Is this your retaliation?
35:02
Speaker 1: You know? Um? Wow, there's a lot of stuff you
35:06
Speaker 1: can get on five where I'm just saying he's son
35:08
Speaker 1: of the fish, okay, and then he's diabolical, absolutely diabolical.
35:12
Speaker 1: But we love him all the same as do we
35:14
Speaker 1: love Alex Williams Dearly who composed our theme. Christopher Hasciots
35:18
Speaker 1: here in spirit as always, um Gay Bluzier, our research
35:23
Speaker 1: associate extraordinaire Yes, and Jonathan Strickland a k. The Quister h.
35:29
Speaker 1: If he had a Facebook relationship status with ridiculous history,
35:33
Speaker 1: it would simply say it's complicated. Thanks thanks also uh
35:38
Speaker 1: to dogs in general. Man, I just love dogs, like
35:42
Speaker 1: oh it's send me pictures of your dogs. You can
35:45
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter as a as a
35:49
Speaker 1: show we love recommending ridiculous historians, but you can also
35:53
Speaker 1: find us as individuals. Yes, I am exclusively on Instagram
35:57
Speaker 1: at how Now Noel Brown and you can find me
35:59
Speaker 1: on Twitter or Appen Bullying hs W, or you can
36:02
Speaker 1: find me on Instagram at ben Bowling uh b O
36:05
Speaker 1: w l I N. So there you have it. Who
36:09
Speaker 1: let the dogs out? It was the uh the Age
36:12
Speaker 1: of Machines. Who was the spc A mainly I think
36:16
Speaker 1: it was, but there was also the steam operation aspect.
36:20
Speaker 1: You know, there was this certain spit dogs had a
36:23
Speaker 1: John Henry moment. We'll see you next time, folks. For
36:35
Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I heart
36:37
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
36:40
Speaker 1: favorite shows.