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(Cross-posted to Dr. Watson's Consulting Room)

The Mystery of Watson's Dog: An Old Controversy Reopened

A review of The Copper Beeches adventure when it was screened in August 1985 re-opened one of the most puzzling of all Holmesian puzzles--the mystery of Doctor Watson's bull-pup.

The matter was started by the Guardian critic, Nancy Banks-Smith in her review of August 25 entitled, 'The hounded of the Baskervilles.'

'Talking of bulldogs,' she wrote, 'I don't know if you share my growing conviction that Conan Doyle was not a dog man.  A dog has only to raise its handsome head in Doyle to have its brains blown out.  The Hound of the Baskervilles (as large as a small lioness) got five barrels in the flank from Holmes.  The mastiff in The Copper Beeches (as large as a calf) was as affable a dog as ever wagged its tail ingratiatingly at a cameraman (straight between the ears) and what about Watson's bull pup?

'When he first met Holmes, Watson mentioned he owned a bull pup (size unspecified)  because these things can be accounted a flaw in a fellow lodger.  "Oh, that's all right," said Holmes, "with a merry laugh." Ha, ha, indeed. Do we ever see hair nor hide of that dog again? We do not. Undoubtedly it fell victim to Holmes' reckless target practice."

Michael Fox was as intrigued as anyone by this reference and put pen to paper to the Editor of The Guardian.

'Sir,' he said, 'Nancy Banks-Smith has re-opened one of the great Sherlockian mysteries--what became of Watson's bull pup. Jack Tracy, an American Holmes scholar, states that, "To keep a bull pup, in Anglo-Indian slang, means to have fits of quick temper." But there are no bull pups in Partridge to support this view so Holmes remains suspected of foul play.  Can anyone clear his name?"

This plea brought two immediate replies to the newspaper. Kevin Jacklin, writing from Emsworth in Hampshire, offered these thoughts: 'I'm afraid the evidence is black for Sherlock Holmes with regard to the disappearance of Watson's bull pup. Several Holmesian scholars have tried to explain away the missing dog as a military term for a rifle or a small calibre revolver (no doubt also missing from the relevant reference work). Others have suggested that the pup is a fiction of Watson's to put Holmes on his guard (bearing in mind his weakened condition from the effects of the infamous Jezail bullet). Elsewhere there are hints that Mrs. Hudson objected to a pet in her house; or even that the dog was the unfortunate victim of Watson's stumbling on the stair to 221B.

'However, it is Watson himself who gives the game away by reminding us of the fact that Holmes was bitten on the ankle by a bull terrier whilst still a student at college. I am therefore forced to the conclusion that the pup reminded Holmes of this incident and that it was either ordered away or was used as target practice for Holmes' revolver.'

Steve Duffy, of Betws-yn-Rhos in Clwyd had a still more ingenious suggestion to offer.  'If we assume,' he wrote, 'that Watson has a grown bull-terrier which, out of affection, he refers to as a bull pup, the solution to the mystery may be found in A Study in Scarlet.  Holmes has two pills which he believes to be poisonous. Rather than utilise his "profound" knowledge of chemistry in analysing the pills, he suggests that Watson bring up "that poor little devil of a terrier...which the landlady wanted you to put out of its pain yesterday." One of the pills proves fatal to the dog.'

(From The Television Sherlock Holmes)