Our Dogs Project 130

Project 130

For 130 years Our Dogs Newspaper has been championing the cause of pedigree dogs.

The first issue dated January 5th 1895 was published and printed in the city centre of Manchester and sold to a new and eager pedigree dog community. Within a very short time Our Dogs, now the only weekly dog newspaper in the world, became the go to source for news, opinion, judges’ critiques and matters covering the world of pedigree (purebred) dogs. Its creation was the brainchild of Theo Marples who gathered a group of likeminded people together to make canine history.

Theo was a contemporary of the famous Charles Cruft whose legacy also lives on

Since that time, not one week has passed without OUR DOGS publishing…an unbroken run of just under 130 years, through world wars, rabies outbreaks and even Covid!

The back issues of Our Dogs newspaper comprise millions of words forged into thousands of articles and editorials, with pictures and drawings, all devoted to individual breeds of pedigree dogs. It is a veritable treasure trove of breed history, informed opinion, dog politics and profiles of the makers of that history.

A primary resource without precedent in breed specific information and social context.

Every issue of this unique paper heritage of 130 years (nearly 7000 issues) is housed in Manchester but in binders which have been badly stored in years gone by and deteriorated over time, putting their contents at risk. This also involves Annuals and Christmas Supplements. The process of rebinding and restoration is not cheap and will take 2 to 3 years to complete. Our plan is to sympathetically restore the paper archive to its full glory and at the same time digitise pages so that the archive can be ultimately accessed online by anyone anywhere in the world.

When completed the physical archive of Our Dogs Newspaper will be available as before for personal and breed research at Our Dogs headquarters. What’s new is dog lovers living in Manchester or Manilla, Sydney or Shoreham, Skye, or Cyprus, in fact anywhere in the world will be able to access this wonderful canine treasure online should we be able to raise the funds to make this a reality.

Vince Hogan, Managing Director of OUR DOGS said,

“Preserving the living heritage of Our Dogs is my passion. Over 50 years at OUR DOGS I have hoped to reach a situation where we can preserve the legacy for pedigree dogs and their owners. This is that moment before rising costs and inflation make the task impossible. Will you help us to raise £130,000 to preserve this truly unique canine treasure whilst creating a digitally copy which will be accessible across the globe?

£1000 for each year OUR DOGS has existed….

In summary

The objective of Project 130 is to raise £130,000 to fund the rebinding and restoration of 130 years’ worth of back issues of Our Dogs newspaper and to digitise each page for online access.

All donations will be acknowledged and listed physically and digitally in the archive and recognised in full. Larger donations can be acknowledged and dedicated on specific years and in gold leaf on the binders. This opportunity is open to individuals, commercial companies, dog shows organisations in the UK, Ireland and worldwide.