I clearly remember the first old photograph of a dog that captured my heart and sparked my dog picture collecting interest.

The face that launched a collection. My Darling Ed ... or is it?

It was a real photo postcard (RPPC) of a dog so similar to a dog of my own I was astounded.

It was as if Ed (my dog) had a secret life!

The photo was a black-and-white image from another era. One in which Ed displayed that same splayed-leg sit; the enthusiastic open-mouthed grin that always seemed to say: "That was great! What's next?"

Did Ed really have another existence where the glint in his eye and lust for a life tackled at speed were just as apparent as his life with me?

Of course not. It wasn't Ed in that picture. The photograph I was looking at had been made around 1910.

Prince a most patient Newfoundland, dressed in what can only be described as pyjamas and balanced on a wicker piece. c1908.

And so I wondered — who was this dog? Who owned him? How long did he live? And what was his relationship with a family that loved him enough to have him posed in a studio and photographed so that they would always remember him?

Clearly these questions couldn't be answered so I simply bought the photo, decided it looked lonely, and bought a whole lot more!

Real Photo Postcard c1912, Boston Terrier on a crate, smoking a pipe and wearing a stunning leather and brass broad dog collar.

Apart from a desire to own old pictures of dogs which looked similar to my own, I became fascinated by the way the people in Victorian and Edwardian times dressed their dogs, taught them tricks, let them smoke and have a beer, and soon I began to collect photos of dogs doing the most un-canine things.

Edwardian chap with his delightful scruffy terrier in a photographer's studio.

On the following pages I would like to share a few of these old dog pictures and just maybe you too will find a familiar face in the collection.

Old photographs come in a number of formats and without getting too bogged down with the technicalities, the article linked to below gives a brief outline of the more common types of antique photographs you are likely, as a collector, to come across.