Turnspit dogs: the kitchen dogs bred to turn the roasting spit
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A turnspit dog was a short-legged, long-bodied dog bred to run inside a wheel mounted on a kitchen wall, turning a roasting spit as it ran. Turnspit dogs were short-legged, long-bodied dogs bred in Britain to run inside a wheel that turned meat over an open fire, and the breed is now extinct. They worked this way for roughly three centuries before mechanical spit-turners made them obsolete.
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The story in 6 parts
A short version first. The full story, with every detail, is further down.
Part 1
What a turnspit dog actually did in the kitchen
A turnspit dog worked inside a slatted wooden wheel fixed high on the kitchen wall or hung from the ceiling, usually two and a half to four and a half feet across.
Part 2
What the turnspit dog looked like
Turnspit dogs had long bodies, short bowed front legs, and drooping ears.
Part 3
Where and when turnspit dogs were used
The earliest known description of a turnspit dog appears in John Caius's 1576 book Of Englishe Dogges, where he calls it a Turnespete and writes that it did the job more skillfully than any kitchen servant.
Part 4
Why the breed disappeared
Clockwork jacks became cheap to buy around 1800 and spread from grand houses into ordinary taverns and kitchens.
Part 5
Is any dog today descended from the turnspit
You might recognize an echo of the turnspit if you have ever seen a corgi or a dachshund.
Part 6
How we know what we know about turnspit dogs
The only surviving physical specimen is a taxidermied turnspit dog named Whiskey, displayed in a wooden case at Abergavenny Museum in Wales.
Read the full story
Part 1
What a turnspit dog actually did in the kitchen
How the wheel and treadmill device worked
A turnspit dog worked inside a slatted wooden wheel fixed high on the kitchen wall or hung from the ceiling, usually two and a half to four and a half feet across. The wheel connected to the roasting spit by a chain, rope, or belt, so your dog's running turned the meat below. As the dog ran, like a hamster in a cage, the spit rotated and the joint cooked in front of the fire.
Why spits needed constant turning for even roasting
Open-fire roasting needed constant attention, because a joint left still on one side would cook unevenly. A dog could keep the spit turning for four hours, five, or as long as the meat required. Households often kept two dogs so they could work in shifts rather than tire out a single animal.
Which households and inns used turnspit dogs
A visitor to Bristol in 1639 reported that scarcely a house in the city lacked a turnspit dog. By 1750 the dogs were working in kitchens across Britain, and they also turned spits in American inns and hotels. Hannah Penn, wife of Pennsylvania founder William Penn, wrote home asking for a dog wheel to be sent over, and advertisements for turnspit dogs appeared in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette. A turnspit also worked in the kitchen of the Statehouse Inn in Philadelphia.
Part 2
What the turnspit dog looked like
Short bowed legs and long body build
Turnspit dogs had long bodies, short bowed front legs, and drooping ears.
Recorded coat colors and size
Their coats came in gray and white, black, or reddish brown. Estimates drawn from surviving illustrations put a turnspit dog at around fourteen to sixteen inches at the shoulder and twenty to thirty pounds.
How the build suited the wheel
A dog running inside a fixed wheel for hours needed to be long enough to keep contact with the drum, short-legged enough to fit its width, and low enough not to tumble. If you picture your own dog running on a wheel for hours, you can see why that shape mattered so much. Charles Darwin listed the turnspit among breeds he believed had already been shaped by selective breeding, pointing to its crooked legs as a trait people had deliberately kept.
Part 3
Where and when turnspit dogs were used
Earliest written mentions
The earliest known description of a turnspit dog appears in John Caius's 1576 book Of Englishe Dogges, where he calls it a Turnespete and writes that it did the job more skillfully than any kitchen servant. Two centuries later the naturalist Carl Linnaeus classified the breed as Canis vertigus, Latin for dizzy dog, after its endless circling in the wheel.
Regions in Britain where they were common
By 1750 turnspit dogs were common across Britain, and a 1639 visitor to Bristol said scarcely a house there was without one. An image from 1869 shows one still at work in an inn at Newcastle, Carmarthen, in Wales.
Spread to American kitchens
If you dig into old letters and newspaper adverts, you can find record of this spread. The dogs reached American kitchens too, though in smaller numbers than in Britain. They worked in hotel kitchens and, according to one account, in cider mills.
Part 4
Why the breed disappeared
Arrival of mechanical spit-turning devices
Clockwork jacks became cheap to buy around 1800 and spread from grand houses into ordinary taverns and kitchens. Closed cast-iron kitchen ranges also began replacing open hearths from the early 1800s, and a dog could not power anything inside a closed stove.
Changing attitudes toward working the dogs
The dogs were treated harshly, kept running with a thrown hot coal or a choking collar, and were regarded as kitchen equipment rather than companions. By the mid-1800s, owning a turnspit dog in your kitchen had become a sign that you could not afford a mechanical jack. Writer Edward Jesse, recalling the dogs of his youth in the 1840s, described them as long-bodied, crooked-legged, ugly dogs with an unhappy, suspicious look.
The last known turnspit dogs on record
Historian Jan Bondeson has traced the decline: turnspit dogs were everywhere by 1750, scarce by 1850, and gone by 1900. Unlike some other working breeds, nobody wanted to keep turnspit dogs once the job disappeared, so people simply stopped breeding them.
Part 5
Is any dog today descended from the turnspit
Claims linking it to the Welsh Corgi
You might recognize an echo of the turnspit if you have ever seen a corgi or a dachshund. Some sources describe the turnspit dog as related to the Welsh Corgi, while others connect it instead to the Glen of Imaal Terrier. Writers have also compared its build to a basset hound with the head of a pit bull, or to a terrier, dachshund, or corgi.
What evidence actually supports or disputes this
No clear record settles the question, because the breed was considered so common and low-status that little was written down about its ancestry. Scientists today are still not certain which breed, if any, the turnspit originated from.
Museum specimens used to study the breed
Most of what is known about the turnspit's build comes from illustrations, written descriptions, and the taxidermied specimen named Whiskey.
Part 6
How we know what we know about turnspit dogs
Taxidermy specimen at Abergavenny museum
The only surviving physical specimen is a taxidermied turnspit dog named Whiskey, displayed in a wooden case at Abergavenny Museum in Wales. The museum is housed in an old hunting lodge on the grounds of a Norman castle, and Whiskey has a shaggy reddish-gold coat.
Written accounts from the period
Caius's 1576 book gives the first written account, and later writers such as Edward Jesse and William Bingley described the dogs' build and temperament in the centuries that followed. Shakespeare mentioned a dog fit only to run in a wheel in his play The Comedy of Errors.
Illustrations and photographs that survive
Illustrations from the 1700s and 1800s show the dogs at work beside the spit, and an image from 1869 shows one running its wheel in an inn in Wales. These images, together with the Abergavenny specimen, let you picture how a dog bred for this one task actually looked and moved.
Things you might not know
- A visitor to Bristol in 1639 reported that scarcely a house in the city lacked a turnspit dog.
- Clockwork jacks became cheap to buy around 1800 and spread from grand houses into ordinary taverns and kitchens.
- Historian Jan Bondeson has traced the decline: turnspit dogs were everywhere by 1750, scarce by 1850, and gone by 1900.
- The only surviving physical specimen is a taxidermied turnspit dog named Whiskey, displayed in a wooden case at Abergavenny Museum in Wales.
Year by year
- 1639A visitor to Bristol in 1639 reported that scarcely a house in the city lacked a turnspit dog.
- 1750By 1750 the dogs were working in kitchens across Britain, and they also turned spits in American inns and hotels.
- 1750Historian Jan Bondeson has traced the decline: turnspit dogs were everywhere by 1750, scarce by 1850, and gone by 1900.
- 1800Clockwork jacks became cheap to buy around 1800 and spread from grand houses into ordinary taverns and kitchens.
- 1850Historian Jan Bondeson has traced the decline: turnspit dogs were everywhere by 1750, scarce by 1850, and gone by 1900.
- 1869An image from 1869 shows one still at work in an inn at Newcastle, Carmarthen, in Wales.
- 1900Historian Jan Bondeson has traced the decline: turnspit dogs were everywhere by 1750, scarce by 1850, and gone by 1900.
Questions people ask
What is a turnspit dog?
A turnspit dog was a short-legged, long-bodied dog bred in Britain to run inside a wheel that turned a roasting spit over an open fire.
Are turnspit dogs extinct?
Yes, the breed is extinct. The population was common by 1750, scarce by 1850, and gone by 1900.
Did turnspit dogs turn into Corgis?
Some sources link the turnspit to the Welsh Corgi, while others connect it to the Glen of Imaal Terrier. Scientists today are still not certain which breed, if any, it descended from.
How did the turnspit wheel work?
The dog ran inside a wheel mounted on the kitchen wall, and the wheel was connected by a chain, rope, or belt to the roasting spit below, so the dog's running turned the meat.
When did people stop using turnspit dogs?
Mechanical spit-turning devices and closed kitchen ranges made the dogs unnecessary during the 1800s, and by 1900 the breed had disappeared.
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Sources
- Turnspit Dogs | Dogs in History. Dogs in History.
- Turnspit Dogs. Jane Austen's World, Feb 23, 2021.
- A Dog's Life: A Brief History of the Turnspit Dog - Modern Farmer. Modern Farmer, Jun 13, 2014.
- Turnspit Dogs: The Rise And Fall Of The Vernepator Cur. NCPR, Dec 31, 1969.
- Turnspit Dogs: The Rise And Fall Of The Vernepator Cur | KQED. www.kqed.org.
- The Sad, Strange History of Turnspit Dogs. Mental Floss, Mar 18, 2025.
- The turnspit dog: The extinct breed that once powered every kitchen in the UK before modern appliances. ZME Science, Mar 12, 2024.
- Turnspit dog - Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org.
Written by TimeWalkies EditorialLast updated How we research