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Snowy: Which breed of dog is he?

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pokemon
Member
#31 · Posted: 9 Jul 2007 10:11
I have a book on dogs. Snowy's description matched very closely with an Airedale terrier, but I later saw somewhere that he is a fox terrier?
Mark Falconer
Member
#32 · Posted: 10 Jul 2007 16:58
Snowy is in fact referred to as a 'mongrel' at least twice in the books -- I'm not sure whether that's descriptive or pejorative.
NikkiRoux
Member
#33 · Posted: 24 Dec 2008 03:52
Maybe he's a mixed breed?
luinivierge2010
Member
#34 · Posted: 24 Dec 2008 13:47
An interview with Hergé almost entirely devoted to Milou appears in a 1974 issue of the magazine «Mon Ami, Mon Chien».

He confirms there that Milou is an unnaturally white Fox Terrier (and somewhere in another interview he indicates that Milou is in fact a twice-modified Fox Terrier: (1) without any markings; (2) with modified ears - which happen to match Tintin's quiff.

Meanwhile, in a 1978 television interview, Hergé says the following: «Milou est d'une race qui est approximativement le fox[-terrier] à poil dur. Un peu bâtard tout de même... Et si je l'ai choisi, c'est qu'à l'époque, ces chiens étaient à la mode... J'ai choisi d'en faire vaguement un fox terrier à poil dur.» (the emphasis is Hergé's).

Milou can perhaps be defined as a modified Fox Terrier.

But then, of course, he is unique !
NikkiRoux
Member
#35 · Posted: 31 Dec 2008 07:07
luinivierge2010:
«Milou est d'une race qui est approximativement le fox[-terrier] à poil dur. Un peu bâtard tout de même... Et si je l'ai choisi, c'est qu'à l'époque, ces chiens étaient à la mode... J'ai choisi d'en faire vaguement un fox terrier à poil dur.»
What does it mean, please?
jock123
Moderator
#36 · Posted: 11 Feb 2009 09:30
NikkiRoux:
What does it mean, please?
Approximately:

"Milou/ Snowy is of a breed which is roughly wire-haired Fox [terrier], yet a little mongrel all the same... At the time these dogs were fashionable, and it's because of that I chose to make him vaguely a wire-haired Fox Terrier"

An interesting find, luinivierge2010, as this is the first concrete quote I have seen for the Fox Terrier theory; however you have to question just how much of a Fox terrier, given the lack of the distinctive qualities such as colouring etc. mentioned above!
Harrock n roll
Moderator
#37 · Posted: 1 Mar 2009 22:14
I just saw the 1978 TV clip mentioned earlier by luinivierge2010. Hergé also mentions an early French cartoon of two dogs «Ric et Rac», who were drawn by an artist called Pol Rab. One dog was a Wire Fox terrier, the other a black Scottish terrier.

Was Snowy a cross between these two dogs?
greatsnakes
Member
#38 · Posted: 15 Mar 2009 06:19
That is a cool find. Is sure looks like it might have been!
snowybella
Member
#39 · Posted: 13 Nov 2017 07:26
I think Snowy might be a Sealyham Terrier, just without the long hair. Judging from this photo of one from 1915, it seems like they did look a bit like Snowy.
Furienna
Member
#40 · Posted: 10 Jul 2019 11:24
Back when I was a kid, I just heard that Snowy was a terrier. Now I realize that there is a whole family of different terrier breeds, which makes it a bit harder to pin it down.

That said, we now have two quotes from Hergé, confirming that Snowy (mostly) is a fox terrier, albeit with an unusual white color. Snowy is much like my childhood cat, who was purely white too. It is only as an adult, that I have come to realize that she had an unusual color.

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