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"I Keep A Bull Pup"

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Anonymous

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In A Study in Scarlet at their first meeting, Dr John (or James) Watson tells Holmes that he 'keeps a bull pup'.

One assumes that he has a dog, but it never mentioned again in the canon.

Does anybody know if this is slang for something other than owning a dog?
 
a quick search of google brought up the following things:

a gun
a rocket kit
a tractor
:confused:

but it'll probably be a dog
 
Tadaa!

Jack Tracy defines the expression, "I keep a bull pup" as an Anglo-Indian slang meaning "to show fits of quick temper."
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Or so it says here... :)
 
or a terrier?

Among the curious incidents in the lives and careers of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, surely none is more obscure than the matter of Dr. Watson's bull pup.

In the initial contact between Holmes and Watson, as related in A Study in Scarlet, Watson informed Holmes (or, perhaps it should be said, confessed to Holmes), "I keep a bull pup." And that, it seems, is the last we hear of the dog.

Holmes did not object to Watson having the dog in their lodgings, but we hear no more of it. Or do we? Was Watson's bull pup in fact the terrier upon which Holmes performed his experiment with the poisoned pill? If this is so, let us first dispose of any doubt concerning the use of the terms "bull pup" and "terrier" to describe the same dog. It is common knowledge that Dr. Watson was rather distressingly lax in his terms. Let us concede that this laxity extended to the dog in this case. Then let us consider the assumption that the dog was in fact the pet of Mrs. Hudson and not of Watson. Is there any basis for this? No.
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maybe
 
Hmm, 'fits of temper' hardly sounds like the universally affable Dr. Watson...

He gets flustered quite often...
 
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I don't know : I'd be inclined to go for the gun .... Watson's fresh back from war in Afghanistan and been living in a hotel ... neither of which suggest dog ownership, and you're right there's no mention of him owning a dog in any of the stories.

IIRC he and Holmes are discussing their vices ... I have wondered about this myself and remember arbitrarily deciding that it was some sort of personality trait ..............

EDIT .... oh it took me so long to trype this everyone else answered!

"to show fits of quick temper."
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fits in with the context pretty well.
 
I think you'll find that Nigel Bruce got flustered. Watson, the narrator, played the foil...
 
Google tells me Nigel Bruce is the actor, though I can't conjure his face.

I'd say Watson did 'flustered' reasonably frequently in the stories, but I don't have time to search for textual evidence now.
 
Confused maybe, noplussed certainly. However, with all due respect, you don't want someone with a side arm who gets 'flustered'...
 
Watson? Flustered? Oh, no no no, didn't happen. Watson was much too solid for that.

The bull pup is careless editing and the proof is that the most dedicated Holmesian can't do a thing with it. The trouble with all the slang interpretations is that Watson was attempting to lay out a clear view of himself for a future roommate he didn't know at all well. He wouldn't confuse the issue by using ambiguoust terminology. If he meant a gun, or whatever, he'd have said gun.

Although I have to say the gun is the soul of logic and reasonableness compared to the slanderous interpretation in Michael Hardwick's *The Private Life of Dr. Watson: Being the Personal Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D.* (E.P. Dutton, New York, 1983). In this, we are expected to believe that "bull pup" is slang for "son" and that Watson is supporting an illegitimate child! That is not at all what Holmes meant when he said "The fair sex is your department" and it pisses me off no end that anyone would think such a thing.

Although of course if Watson had committed any indiscretions with results he would certainly have taken responsibility for them.
 
a bullpup when it is referred to in the context of firearms is a rifle with the action in the butt therefore making the rifle shorter and more balanced. the sa80 as most people will know as the current british army rifle is a bulllpup.
 
Im sat here trying to add another set of eyes to this one, and I came across this page. (It adds nothing serious, sorry!)
 
I don't know about "bull pup", but Eric Partridge in he's Dictionary of Slang & Unconventional English, published in 1961, refers to the late 17th - 19th Century colloquial expresion of a "bull dog" to mean a pistol!!!!!
 
David said:
I don't know about "bull pup", but Eric Partridge in he's Dictionary of Slang & Unconventional English, published in 1961, refers to the late 17th - 19th Century colloquial expresion of a "bull dog" to mean a pistol!!!!!
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The 'bark' of gunfire is a fairly common (if slightly anachronistic) expression.
 
Couldn't it just be that old Arthur Conan Doyle didn't share the modern fan obsession for continuity.

IIRC Watson's war wound wanders a bit.
 
I don't know about the 'pup', but 'bull' is also an old military term for neat and tidy.
Just to confuse everyone.......
:rolleyes:
 
Well Holmes must have broken him of that fixation rather quickly. Otherwise Watson would have strangled him with his dressing gown cord.
 
COuld have meant a pistol. There were a number of revolvers referred to as bulldogs in the late 1800's. Smallish frame, short barrel, large calibre. The .44 bulldog round is typical.

Bullpup referring to a rifle, or certain style of rifle, is modern. I don't think there were bullpup designs prior to WWII. And I'm positive that there weren't any in the late 1800's. That was the era of Martini-Henrys, Lee-Metfords, and the Lee-Enfield. And amazing civilian items like Howdah pistols.
 
While Watson always kept his revolver handy, I believe it was a British Army service revolver, which would have been a .455 Webley or similar with a longish barrel. Not really a bulldog.

Conan Doyle's lack of continuity is the stuff of legend. As has been mentioned, Watson's war wound wandered about his body, his middle name changed, and he went through wives in a matter of weeks on some occasions. (His medical advice was also somewhat dubious, which makes one wonder about Conan Doyle's patients and whether they were upset when he gave up practice to write full time.)

The short temper one is probably what was meant. The Anglo-Indian heritage of it fits with Watson's background, and it might be expected of someone who was wounded in battle and had to be shipped home. The fact that his short temper is not evident in the stories may be due to his status as narrator - self editing any such instances out of the story, circumstance - not actually having an outburst in the course of any of the stories, or Conan Doyle just forgot.
 
anome said:
The short temper one is probably what was meant. The Anglo-Indian heritage of it fits with Watson's background, and it might be expected of someone who was wounded in battle and had to be shipped home.
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Re-read the passage, and anome is correct. The discussion is about bad habits and personality traits. Dogs and guns aren't part of that.
 
hedgewizard said:
Re-read the passage, and anome is correct. The discussion is about bad habits and personality traits. Dogs and guns aren't part of that.
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I'm not convinced it's not meant to refer to temper, but I'd still say both dogs and guns wouldn't be too out of place. 'Keeping a gun' could be a nod to a suspicious, impulsive or fiery nature, and owning a dog would be an important fact to impart. e.g. in a similar situation my prospective housemate might say "I work late and am irritable in the morning," to which I might reply "And I'm wary of uninvited guests and keep a rapier at my bedside." If you see what i mean.

Edit: having re-read, Holmes mentions a liking for strong tobacco (Ship's), and then refers to his other shortcomings, like getting down in the dumps etc. i.e. a combination of the physical and psychological. Likewise Watson mentions the ambiguous bull-pup and then his nerves and laziness--tacitly naming them collectively as 'a set of vices'.

I don't think gun ownership is out of the question.
 
Peni said:
The trouble with all the slang interpretations is that Watson was attempting to lay out a clear view of himself for a future roommate he didn't know at all well. He wouldn't confuse the issue by using ambiguoust terminology. If he meant a gun, or whatever, he'd have said gun.
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Perhaps, with a military career just finished, Watson would have used the term bullpup for a gun without a second thought.

With the military folk I have known the slang sticks for life and is often used impulsively with the assumption it will be understood.
 
On the side question of Watson's war wound it is always possible he was shot twice. He mentions two different locations - leg and shoulder. In 'A Study in Scarlett' he mentions the shoulder wound that ended his military career. It was serious at the time - he nearly bled to death and then contracted enteric fever (disentry, I think) while convallesing.

The leg wound which he mentions later might not have been so serious when it happend but the bullet (or more likely bullet fragment) in his leg ment that ached in the cold weather and gave him an intermittent limp. Presumably the shoulder wound healed completely.

For the leg wound to not be serious it would have to be a low velocity round at the end ot if's tragectory or perhaps a ricochet.

Cujo
 
Another of Holmes' vices was smoking tobacco soaked in laudanum. If I found that out about my flatmate I'd wish I had a bullpup/gun too. :eek:
 
I read, in some 'Sherlock Holmes companion' of some sort(years ago),that 'keeping a Bull pup' referred to having a quick temper.Seemed to make sense.
Less charitably,the question of Watson's wandering war wound was explained somewhere by the suggestion that he'd actually been shot in the a*se- no the wonder his explanation of the wounds whereabouts was a bit uncertain!
 
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