Jock of the Bushveld

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Jock of the Bushveld

Author	Percy Fitzpatrick
Illustrator	E. Caldwell
Country	South Africa
Language	English
Subject(s)	Jock of the Bushveld
Publisher	Longmans, Green, and Co
Publication date	1907
Media type	Hardback
Pages	475

Jock of the Bushveld is a true story by South African author Sir Percy Fitzpatrick. The book tells of Fitzpatrick's travels with his dog, Jock, during the 1880s, when he worked as a storeman, prospector's assistant, journalist and ox-wagon transport-rider in the Bushveld region of the Transvaal (then the South African Republic).

Fitzpatrick later recounted these adventures as bedtime stories to his four children. Rudyard Kipling, a good friend of Fitzpatrick, also took part in these story-telling evenings and eventually persuaded him to collect these tales in book form. Illustrations for the book were done by Edmund Caldwell, a brother of Mary Tourtel, creator of Rupert Bear.

The book was first published in 1907 and had an extremely warm reception, being reprinted four times in that year alone. Since then it has achieved the status of a classic South African book and has been also widely read abroad - more than one hundred editions have been printed and it has been translated into Afrikaans, Dutch, French, Xhosa and Zulu, amongst others. Jock was saved by Fitzpatrick from being drowned in a bucket for being the runt of the litter (he would ruin the litter if left with them). Jock was very loyal towards Percy, and brave.

Statue in front of the City Hall in Barberton, Mpumalanga

He was once enticed to fight a baboon by Seedling. He killed the baboon in the fight, due to his small, stocky build. (This is ironic because it is common nowadays for breeds similar to Jock to be stolen to compete in dog fights in Alexandra, Johannesburg.)

Jock permanently lost his hearing when a kudu cow kicked him. This is attributed as one of the main reasons he died, as he could not hear Tom Barnett when he called him, and was mistakenly shot, because he was thought to be the dog killing chickens on the farm (when Jock had meanwhile already killed the other intruding dog).

Jock was a Staffordshire bull terrier.

[edit] Movie

The book was made into a movie in 1986, and featured the music of Johnny Clegg on its soundtrack.^[1] The movie did not prove popular with American audiences however, primarily due to its sad ending. Another fictional movie with an ending that was more palatable to this audience was therefore released in 1995.^[2]