#maud making even her creations PETS scotchy 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[gogandmagog]

The Blythes first dog, Rex was a gift from Anne to Gilbert, for their second Christmas in the Glen.

Rex’s arrival at the House of Dreams sees further fruition to Gilbert’s own dream. (“I have a dream,” he said slowly. “I persist in dreaming it, although it has often seemed to me that it could never come true. I dream of a home with a hearth-fire in it, a cat and dog, the footsteps of friends—and you!” [AOTI])

‘Gordon Setters’ have Scottish origins, although the term can and does also include the sub-breeds of Irish Setters (fully red in coat) and English Setters (grey and white). Rex, however, is pointedly described in the text as having a ‘sleek, brown’ head, and it’s therefore likely that Rex had the classic mixed ruddy complexion, as demonstrated above.

Renowned hunting dogs, Gordon Setters (the ‘setter’ name comes from the breeds practice of crouching low, or ‘setting,’ when hunting game) are known for being affectionate, attentive to their homes and territory, and loyal. Blythes, of course, are also known for their loyalty, and pairing this notion together with Gilbert’s recreational bird hunting (“…they shot plover in the shore fields and wild ducks in the cove” [AHOD]), Rex would’ve made an ideal match for the Doctor.

Rex was presumably a very good pal to the Blythe children, and when Jem goes ‘missing’ in Anne of Ingleside, Anne says, “If we had Gilbert's old setter Rex (…) he would soon find Jem.”

Ultimately, poor Rex is noted as having been ‘poisoned’, sometime before the arrival of Aunt Mary Maria in Anne of Ingleside. If Rex (eight months older than Jem) had survived up to the advent of Mary Maria, he would have been approx. seven years old.