The Mercantile
Prints & Provisions
Every breed we research gets a bronze medallion — struck for that dog, carrying its name on the ribbon. The medallions are the merch. The history behind each one is free to read, sourced, and linked from every card below.
The Medallion Series
One medallion per dossier.
Printed to order on a Bella + Canvas 3001 staple tee — soft ring-spun cotton, retail fit, side-seamed. Six colours, XS to 5XL, $29.99 flat with free shipping inside the US.
Dossier No. 001
Airedale Terrier
Assembled by Yorkshire mill workers to kill rats, swim rivers after otters and do the work of six dogs at once.
Dossier No. 002
Japanese Akita
Bred by matagi hunters to corner bear and hold it at bay. Named a Natural Monument in 1931 — the first breed ever protected that way.
Dossier No. 002
American Akita
The heavier type that came home with US servicemen after 1945. A separate breed from the Japanese Akita since 1999.
Dossier No. 003
Beagle
Two hundred and twenty million scent receptors, and no reason at all to come back when called.
Dossier No. 004
Boxer, Natural Ears
From the Bullenbeißer, bred to seize boar by the face. The broad muzzle is the mechanism, not a quirk.
Dossier No. 004
Boxer, Cropped Ears
Drawn as the working dogs were kept. Cropped ears removed what an animal could grab hold of.
On the prints. Nine originals from the record are viewable in full size in the archive below, sourced and dated the same way the dossiers cite them. A print-to-order option is still in preparation.
Provenance
What you are actually buying.
The medallion
Each design is drawn as a struck bronze plaque: the breed in relief, the Barking Past legend around the rim, the name on a ribbon below. One per dossier, and the ear or type variants exist because owners know the difference.
The shirt
Bella + Canvas 3001. 100% Airlume combed and ring-spun cotton, 4.2 oz/yd², pre-shrunk and side-seamed. Heather colours contain polyester. Printed and shipped from the US, one at a time, when you order it.
The history
Every medallion links back to a full breed dossier — real origins, working history with sources named, and an honest assessment of who should not own the dog. Read it before you buy the shirt.
The Archive
Original prints, straight from the record.
Nine pieces from the same archive that built each dossier: glass-plate photographs, a wartime field photo, an 18th-century hunting engraving, a hand-lithograph from 1835. Click any image to view it full size — sourced and dated on the breed’s own dossier page.
Airedale Terrier
Laddie Boy on the White House lawn, 1922 — the most photographed Airedale in America.
Airedale Terrier drawn by R. H. Moore for All About Dogs, 1900.Akita
Hachikō, photographed c.1934 — the year his statue went up outside Shibuya Station.
Hachikō at Shibuya Station, c.1933, with Yaeko Ueno and a station master.Beagle
‘Beagles’ — a pack working a hare in open country, from The Sportsman’s Repository, 1831.
Beagle, 1835. Print by Thomas Fairland, British Museum.Boxer
Catch dogs holding large game at bay — the job the Bullenbeißer existed for. Jagd-Album, after J. E. Ridinger.
‘Danziger Bärenbeißer’, 1719 — the broad muzzle and set-back nose already doing their job.
German army messenger-dog programme, 1917 — the Boxer served in this programme; dog pictured is a shepherd type.