Large docile dogs also were expected to earn their keep by carrying
packages or pulling wagons for farmers
and merchants. A "coarse hound" was what Caius
called such dogs as the "Tyncker's Curre [Tinker's Cur],"
trained to "beare bigge budgettes [satchels]
fraught with tooles...mettall meete to mend kettles, porrige
pottes, skellets...and other such like trumpery
for requisite for their loytering trade." In later centuries, these
likely progenitors of modern Newfoundlands,
Appenzell Mountain Dogs, and Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs were
loosely lumped together in a class simply
identified as "cart dog," also known in French-speaking regions as the
"Matin."
-- The Lost History of the Canine Race, Mary Elizabeth Thurston
