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Dog poo was once a useful tannery material: Chris Pearson reports that 19th-century leather workers used it to process animal skins, and that 10 kg could treat 12,000 skins. That startling trade is one of five details in the history of dogs that complicate the familiar picture of them as pets. Dogs also worked for households, became targets of public-health controls, acquired modern breed categories relatively recently, and were drawn into colonial systems of authority. The historical examples below come from Pearson, a professor of environmental history at the University of Liverpool, writing for HistoryExtra on February 26, 2025; they are attributed to his account rather than presented as independently verified primary-source findings.
1. Why did people use dog poo in leather-making?
In 19th-century tanning, dog excrement had a practical use: it helped prepare animal skins for leather-making. Pearson says poor Parisians collected and sold it to mégissiers, tannery workers who turned sheepskins into leather. He reports that 10 kg of dog faeces could treat 12,000 skins—a striking figure that should be understood as Pearson’s account of the historical trade, not as a modern recommendation or an independently checked measurement.
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The material had a separate name in Bermondsey, London: “pure.” According to Pearson, workers used it to scour goat and calf skins, helping remove moisture and improve the smell of the leather. The word can sound like the opposite of what it described, but in this context it was a trade term for dog excrement used in processing. The Paris and Bermondsey examples concern related tannery work, but they are distinct places and practices: Pearson associates the Parisian collectors with sheepskin tanning, and the Bermondsey term with work on goat and calf skins.
This use connected urban life to manufacturing in an unusually direct way. People who collected waste could sell it to workers who needed it for their trade; something that was a nuisance in the street became a resource in the tannery. Pearson links the decline of the practice to cleaner, paved streets and anti-fouling rules. The story is therefore not that dog waste was intrinsically valuable, but that a particular industry found a use for it under particular working and street conditions.
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It also offers a glimpse of how different parts of city life could depend on one another. The collectors’ work linked street waste and poverty to leather production, while tanners had a material that served a practical purpose in preparing skins. The reported figure—10 kg treating 12,000 skins—underscores how strikingly small the amount was said to be relative to the number of skins. It should remain an attributed historical claim rather than be treated as a recipe, modern practice, or independently confirmed production measure.
2. Were dogs always kept as pets?
No. Pearson describes many dogs before the 18th-century growth in pet keeping as working animals expected to spend their lives outdoors. Their value was often tied to a task: guarding, herding, or hunting. The growth of pet dogs from the 18th century, in his account, was linked to urbanisation, industrialisation, and middle-class consumer culture.
One especially unusual working role belonged to turnspit dogs. They ran inside wheels that turned meat in front of kitchen fires. The arrangement made a dog part of the household’s food preparation rather than a companion lounging beside the hearth. Pearson identifies St Briavel’s Castle in Gloucestershire as the site of one of the possibly last recorded uses of a turnspit dog, in 1844. “Possibly” matters: that is a reported late example, not proof that no dog did the work anywhere afterward.
The turnspit example also makes clear that “working dog” could mean work inside a household, not only guarding property or helping with animals outdoors. Its role was tied to a specific domestic task: turning meat before a fire. The 1844 example is a late record of that arrangement, while Pearson’s wider point concerns the earlier expectation that many dogs worked outdoors. These examples illuminate different kinds of labour rather than a single uniform way of keeping dogs.
The shift toward keeping dogs as pets did not mean that working roles instantly vanished or that every dog experienced the same change. It points to a broader change in how some people related to dogs and what they expected from them. As more people lived in towns and consumer culture expanded, dogs could be valued increasingly for companionship as well as for the work they performed. Pearson’s account makes the contrast visible: the same species could be a tool of labour, a household companion, or both, depending on time and circumstance.
3. How did rabies change the way authorities treated dogs?
Fear of rabies helped make dogs a matter of public control. Pearson’s account traces descriptions of rabid dogs far back in time: an Assyrian text known as the Marduk Prophecy, dated between 713 and 612 BC, describes dogs becoming rabid and biting people. The translation and attribution of the ancient text have not been independently checked here, so the example is best treated as Pearson’s reported account, not as a freshly verified quotation.
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In the 19th century, anxiety about rabies was associated with measures directed especially at street dogs: rounding them up, killing them, or requiring muzzles, alongside tighter controls on dogs’ movement. These actions show how an animal-health danger could become a question of public order. Measures aimed at preventing bites or disease also restricted where dogs could go and whether they could remain on the streets.
These controls did not all take the same form. Rounding up, killing, and muzzling were distinct responses, while restrictions on movement addressed where dogs could travel. Pearson’s account connects them through public anxiety about rabies, but the measures also reveal a broader tension: protecting people from a feared disease could involve controlling animals that lived or moved in public spaces. This is why dog history here is also a history of authority over streets and urban life.
Pearson notes two later milestones in Britain: Louis Pasteur’s vaccination in 1885 and the eradication of indigenous canine rabies there in 1902. These dates belong to the historical account and should not be expanded into a claim that rabies disappeared everywhere or that all forms of the disease were eliminated globally. The relevant point is narrower: in Britain, dog control was shaped by rabies fears, and vaccination and public measures formed part of a history that Pearson says culminated in eradication of indigenous canine rabies.
4. Have dog breeds always been defined the way they are now?
No. Pearson says that before 19th-century breeders and dog fanciers established lineages, stud books, and dog shows, dogs were often described by what they did. A dog might be understood as a hunter, herder, or guard rather than primarily as a member of a formally documented breed.
The Kennel Club was founded in 1873, according to Pearson’s article. That date provides a useful marker for the emergence of organised breed culture in Britain, but it should not be mistaken for the moment dogs themselves first became distinct from one another. The historical change described here is about classification and institutions: breeders and fanciers increasingly recorded lineages and used shows and stud books to organise dogs into named categories.
Those elements worked together in a new way of documenting dogs. A lineage made ancestry important; a stud book recorded it; and dog shows gave breeders and fanciers a setting in which to display and assess dogs. Pearson’s account describes the rise of this organised system, not the sudden appearance of canine differences or the end of practical working roles. A dog could still be a guard, hunter, or herder, even as formal pedigree categories became more prominent.
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That distinction helps explain why breed labels can feel timeless even though the systems that define and record them have a history. People had long recognised differences among dogs, but a formal pedigree framework placed greater emphasis on ancestry and regulated categories. In Pearson’s telling, this was part of the making of the modern dog: not simply a change in canine appearance, but a change in how people documented, valued, and sorted dogs.
5. What role did dogs play in colonial history?
Dogs travelled with British workers and administrators to colonies, carrying Victorian dog culture into new settings. Pearson describes colonial ideas of hierarchy being applied to dogs too: European pedigree dogs were distinguished from local dogs, rather than all dogs being treated as interchangeable animals.
Dogs also figured in systems of policing and control. Pearson says colonial authorities used dogs to police communities and launched campaigns to cull street dogs. The effects were not simply imposed without response: his account cites a protest against culling in Bombay in 1832 as an example of resistance.
The example brings together several roles without making them equivalent. A dog taken overseas by a British worker or administrator might be a companion and a marker of imported Victorian culture; authorities could also use dogs in policing, while street dogs became targets of culling campaigns. Pearson’s account places these practices within colonial hierarchy, where European pedigree dogs and local dogs could be treated differently. It does not support treating every colony or every local response as the same.
These examples make the history of dogs part of a wider history of imperial power. A dog could be a companion brought by an administrator, a marker of European status, an instrument used by authorities, or a street animal targeted by a campaign. Those roles were shaped by colonial institutions and local responses, so they should not be collapsed into one universal story about how people in colonies viewed dogs. The Bombay protest, in particular, shows that people could challenge the way authorities treated street dogs; Pearson’s account identifies it as resistance, without establishing that the protest ended culling.
What ties these five histories together?
They show how much a dog’s place in society depends on human institutions. A household could assign a dog work; a tannery could turn its waste into a production input; public-health authorities could restrict its movement; kennel organisations could define its pedigree; and colonial administrations could use dogs within systems of policing and hierarchy.
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They also show that a dog’s role was not fixed by the animal alone. Work, companionship, breed status, and control were shaped by changing expectations and institutions, in different places and periods. The turnspit dog at a kitchen fire, a street dog subject to a muzzle rule, and a pedigreed dog recorded in a stud book belonged to different human systems, even though all were dogs.
That history also explains why the opening fact is more than an oddity. The tannery trade depended on the relationship between street life, poverty, and manufacturing. Its disappearance, as Pearson describes it, accompanied changes in sanitation and street rules. The same broad pattern appears elsewhere in the five examples: dogs’ roles changed when work, urban life, public health, breeding culture, or political power changed.
For readers who want the full historical argument, Pearson’s HistoryExtra article is the source for these examples. His book Collared: How We Made the Modern Dog is another topic-relevant route into his work. The claims above are attributed to Pearson’s account and are not presented as independently verified readings of the underlying historical records.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Frequently Asked Questions
Does dog poo still have a use in tanning today?
Pearson’s account describes a 19th-century tannery use, not a current industry practice. It does not establish whether any present-day tannery uses dog waste.
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Pearson says “pure” was the local term for dog excrement used to scour goat and calf skins, helping remove moisture and improve the smell of leather.
How could dog waste be valuable?
In the historical examples Pearson describes, tannery workers used dog excrement in processing skins. He reports that 10 kg could treat 12,000 skins; that figure is an attributed historical claim, not a modern recommendation.
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What was a turnspit dog?
It ran inside a wheel that turned meat in front of a kitchen fire. Pearson identifies a possibly last recorded use at St Briavel’s Castle in Gloucestershire in 1844, not proof that no use occurred afterward.
Did the 1832 Bombay protest stop dog culling?
Pearson’s account identifies the protest as evidence of resistance to colonial culling campaigns, but it does not establish that the protest ended those campaigns. A protest is evidence of opposition, not by itself evidence of a policy outcome.
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Was the Kennel Club the first organisation to care about dog breeds?
Pearson gives its 1873 founding as a marker in the rise of organised British breed culture. That does not establish that it was the first such organisation worldwide or that people only began distinguishing dogs after its founding.
When did Britain eradicate indigenous canine rabies?
Pearson’s article gives 1902 as the date indigenous canine rabies was eradicated in Britain. That should not be read as a claim that rabies disappeared everywhere or that all forms of the disease were eliminated globally.
The Bottom Line
Dogs have been workers, companions, public-health concerns, pedigree animals, and instruments of colonial authority. The details—including a tannery use for dog waste—show how people’s institutions and priorities shaped the roles dogs occupied across different periods and places.
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