Modern dog button, 'scrimshaw' on plastic.

Modern Buttons

Modern buttons, or those made after 1918, are made both by commercial manufacturers and individual studio artists. During the 1930s and 1940s, Scottish Terriers were extremely popular subjects due to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt's pet Scottie, Fala.

There are beautiful plastic buttons with scrimshaw-like designs of many different breeds. Lovely hand-painted buttons are imported from Russia, showing detailed breed portraits.

Gundog button - modern papier-mâché pointer.

Studio artists have worked to create dogs from glass, enamel, porcelain, metal, papier-mâché and even shrink-art plastic. Modern dog buttons have included animated characters, like the puppies from the 101 Dalmatians movie.

Most of the buttons pictured for this article are considered dressmakers buttons, meaning they were used on men's and women's regular clothing. However, dogs were also pictured on several other types of buttons and related collectibles.

Antique silver plate hunt button - Golden's Bridge Hunt, foxhound hunt from New York state.

Sporting and Hunt Buttons

Both gun dogs and hounds often appear on sporting buttons. These were worn on the coats of hunters and other sportsmen, and usually issued in sets of six or eight.

Sets generally included a dog (or dogs), a horse, birds, deer, fox and other wildlife. One lovely 18th century English sporting button set included 28 hounds, with each dog hand engraved on the silver button, along with his or her name.

Silver engraved livery button showing a sprinting hound and initials.

A related category is hunt buttons. These buttons were presented to and worn by members of local hunt clubs. While most hunt buttons feature only the hunt's initials, some also show a fox, rabbit, badger or other prey. Hunt buttons occasionally show a hound, though these are harder to find. Even though dogs are not always featured on hunt buttons, they are still often coveted by dog button collectors, as the hounds are so integral to the hunt.

Livery and Uniform buttons

Livery buttons were worn by the servants of noble families. Each noble family had their own coat of arms, which were shown on the livery (or uniform) of the servants. The livery buttons often featured the family crest. Talbot hounds, greyhounds, and whippets are all fairly commonly used as crests.

Modern (20th century) Greyhound Bus Company uniform button.

Uniform buttons were used on all branches of military uniforms, as well as civilian uniforms like police, fire, and transportation. So far, I have found a dog on only one military uniform button. A lovely husky appears on the Yukon Regiment button from Canada (in service from 1962-1968). The Greyhound Lines bus company in the US features a running greyhound on their older buttons.

Bridle buttons

Antique (horse) bridle rosette button with mastiff-type dog.

Bridle Rosettes, or Bridle buttons, were used on horse bridles as decoration. They are usually fairly large, often with the design under domed glass, and have a heavy rectangular shank on the back for the leather straps to go through. Dogs were a popular design on these neat items.

I hope you will be encouraged to start a dog button collection of your own!

© 2005 by Diana L. Hefti Buttons pictured for this, and the other button articles are owned by Barbara Johnson, Judy Schwenk, and the author. The author (and readers!) wish to thank both Barbara and Judy for kindly sharing some of their beautiful buttons with the rest of the world.