Yorkshire Terriers

The Yorkshire Terrier had its beginnings as a breed in the Yorkshire, Manchester and Leeds counties in the northern part of England. The weavers of Scotland brought their families and dogs with them when they left their homeland. The Industrial Revolution had forced them out of work. The time was the mid 19th century, 1860’s and 1870’s. The dogs that accompanied these families were for the most part the sturdy Scottish Terrier. The Paisley and Clydesdale Terrier’s bloodlines were probably also included in the bloodlines. These were all working men’s dogs, used to keep the vermin under control in the textile mills and coal mines. What bloodlines were used to establish the Yorkshire Terrier is subject to much speculation, due to the fact that the breeders of these dogs did not write down who was bred to whom. If they liked the spirit and looks of the dogs, they mated them. It was chancey at best. It is guessed that the Yorkshire county miners crossed the Black and Tan English Terrier, this dog was rough-coated, and the long-coated, blue-gray Waterside Terrier breeds were infused in the Scottish Terriers. The Maltese and Skye Terrier are also possibilities. In 1865, the foundation sire of the Yorkshire Terrier breed, was born. Huddersfield Ben was owned by M.A. Foster, and he enjoyed a very public life, to popularize the breed in England. He demonstrated that he was very successful in the rat killing contests (these were quite popular in the 19th century), and he won more than 70 prizes as a show dog as well. In 1872, the Yorkshire Terrier was introduced into the United States, and was recognized by the AKC in 1878. But it wasn’t until the 1930’s that the Yorkshire Terrier took on its modern look. It is important to note that the Yorkshire Terrier up until the 1930’s usually weighed approximately 30 pounds, not the 3 to 7 pounds it does today.

http://www.barkbytes.com/history/yorkie.htm

Football Mascots

A football mascot is a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck to the football club.

The mascots usually take the form of a person, animal, or a costumed character, and appear at their teams matches and other related events. Since the mid-20th century, costumed characters have provided teams with an opportunity to choose a fantasy creature as their mascot. Costumed mascots are commonplace, and are regularly used as goodwill ambassadors in the community for their team.

Mascots get their names for many different reasons for example “Terry the Terrier” is due to Huddersfield Town having the nickname of “The Terriers” whereas Leeds United’s “Lucas the Kop Kat” is from when a rumour emerged that there had been spottings of a large cat in the carparks around Elland Road (granted the rumour was probably started by the clubs PR team) hence the cat design and Lucas as it's named after a Leeds United legend Lucas Radebe.

The Mascot Grand National is an annual race over hurdles between the mascots of various football and other sports teams. It is held at Huntingdon Racecourse in The Stukeleys near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, England.

Public interest in the race began in 2000 when Harry the Hornet, the mascot of Watford F.C. won the second race. His co-mascot Harriet came second in 2001.

Since then it has expanded to include mascots from other sports and even non-sport mascots, the winners in 2005 and 2006 representing Kick 4 Life and The Sun newspaper respectively.

Anthropomorphism

“The interpretation of nonhuman things or events in terms of human characteristics, as when one senses malice in a computer or hears human voices in the wind. Derived from the Greek anthropos ("human") and morphe ("form"), the term was first used to refer to the attribution of human physical or mental features to deities. By the mid-19th century, however, it had acquired the second, broader meaning of a phenomenon occurring not only in religion but in all areas of human thought and action, including daily life, the arts, and even sciences. Anthropomorphism may occur consciously or unconsciously. Most scholars since the time of the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626) have agreed that the tendency to anthropomorphize hinders the understanding of the world, but it is deep-seated and persistent.”

Encyclopedia description of Anthropomorphism taken from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anthropomorphism