William Henry Trood was a painter and sculpture who specialized in painting dogs. His work is characterized by a highly finished, sympathetic quality with great attention to detail, yet it is rarely sentimental. From his youth Trood lived and studied dogs. Trood said: "I have painted them since I was four years old, but not until I was twenty could I paint one properly."

At one time he kept a menageries in the back garden of his Chelsea studio until the neighbors complained of the noise. Afterwards he kept a fox, a badger and an otter running loose in his room with his dogs. He once tried hypnotism on a dog to try and keep it to stay still but its eyes looked unnatural.

Trood exhibited regularly in England but mainly at...