Previous Page: Nipper was always putting his ears next to the horn listening to the sound, he was a little terror of dog, it didn't matter what size a dog was, he had no fear taking the dog on even if it was twice his size. Nipper had unusual habits for a dog; he developed a taste for pheasants and at times he'd behaved just as cat would if it saw a rat, just like the cat, the moment Nipper saw a rat he would go chasing after it. According to some documentations: Nipper was 11 years old when he died in the year 1895. He was laid to rest in a garden at Kingston-Upon-Thames where recently a plaque was placed on his grave in commemoration of him. It is sad to know that his road to fame came after his death, sad but that is like every thing else! Francis Barraud three years after Nipper's death took to painting Nipper listening to the cylinder playing phonograph's horn on canvas. Barraud tried to sell the painting to the Edison Bell Company without success as bold Edison retorted: "Dogs don't listen to phonographs"! In an article for the Strand Magazine: Barraud wrote that he next visited the English Gramophone Company Ltd., whose manager William Barry Owen offered to buy the painting if the cylinder playing contrivance in the painting could be transformed from the original to include a record-playing machine. |
