Remembering The Turnspit Dog

'With eagerness he still does forward tend,
Like Sisyphus, whose journey has no end.'

- anonymous poem about a turnspit dog called Fuddle.

Forever and ago dogs have helped us fulfill our needs. They hunted for us -- locating, flushing out or retrieving game. They have herded domestic animals, pulled sleds, yanked vermin out of holes from burrowing and eating root vegetables under the ground. They have guarded and protected us. Other breeds were even developed, such as the lapdog, not solely for companionship, but to sit on the lap to attract fleas away from the owner.

Before animal rights became an issue, dogs were expected to earn their keep. The idea that a dog had a right to exist other than fill the needs of the owner would have been regarded as well, rather peculiar.

There was once a small, hardy little dog. His legs were short and his body long with a coat of soft golden hair. He was forced into a wooden wheel about 2’-6” in diameter and had to keep moving it round and round. It was fixed that way, or else he would loose his balance. His job was to save cooks from the effort of turning meat on a spit by hand.

The wheel was mounted to the wall above a fireplace and connected to the pulley of the spit by an endless chain. As he dutifully ran churning the wheel, he endured hot and grueling work as he turned the roasting meat. When a larger slab of meat was on the spit, the more struggle he had to keep the wheel turning.

In larger kitchens such as inns where a roast was needed every day, two dogs might have been used. They would take turns each day. It has been said that these dogs knew their day to work in the turnspit. Their lonely eyes dark and wet from their painful thankless existence. The turnspit dog is where the anecdote supposedly comes from ‘every dog has his day’. There is a story of a turnspit dog who once went missing -- fleeing out the door -- upon his owner uttering the word ‘wheel’. He was chased down and forced back into the kitchen. Sometimes people took these dogs to church and set them under the pew below to keep their feet warm during long sermons.

Poor little dog. A very common practice from a time not that long ago. Now scarcely anyone has even heard of his sad quandary. Cooks who worked at inns were said to be very ill-tempered and would yell, scold and even beat the dogs if the wheel began to slow down as their limbs grew weary.

For three centuries this little dog was forced to work day in and day out. Then allowed to pass into extinction once his services were no longer needed. His plight not pitied. His head not patted. His drudgery and effort unnoticed.

So I hold a candle to you, little turnspit dog, with a softened heart and remember you from a day gone by.

'Whiskey' is the last surviving specimen of a turnspit dog.


First and last images from the Abergavenny Museum in Wales; Illustration from The Book of Days.