By all accounts, Henry Beresford was a brat.

Super-rich, the recipient of an extensive education, and insufferably arrogant, Henry would elicit the description, “jerk” were most of us to meet him at a party today.

Henry was just a teenager of just 17 when he inherited a title and a ton of money, and his good fortune seemed to make him driven to live up to his nickname, “the Mad Marquis.” The next few years saw Henry elevate the act of partying to high art. With his drinking, cavorting and roistering, Henry had become the consummate rake.

Henry was 24 years old in 1835 when he took his mates to New York City on his yacht. Accounts vary on what happened next. In one version, the group spent the day at the racetrack, then stumbled out of the venue to continue their revelry in the city. At the town’s outskirts, they encountered a toll road and instead of paying the toll, they nailed the collector inside his booth and doused the structure with red paint intended for repairs.

In another version,  Henry collected some of his mates and sailed to New York City on his yacht. After a night of drinking, the group went on a “spree” (the newspaper called it) which included the attack of an innocent passer-by. As they stumbled their way to a nearby pub called the “Old White Swan,” Henry stood on the shoulders of his pals and painted the swan red with paint they had found. From there, they splattered red paint all over several buildings throughout the town.

Whichever version is true, Henry and his group’s disturbances birthed a description we still use today to describe a night of wild revelry: “Painting the town red.”

Frustratingly, while there really was a Henry Beresford (aka the Marquess of Waterford), there is some doubt on the authenticity of his association with the expression. In fact, there are other theories about the phrase’s exact origins. Some sources point to early uses of the expression that typically referred to intoxicated cowboys threatening to “paint the town red” with blood if anyone tried to stop them from having a good time. Another source cites that the earliest documented use of the phrase actually appeared in the Omaha Daily Republican in 1874 where it was used to describe the celebration of future railroad developments.

We leave it to historians to pick through history to learn the truth. For our part, we never miss an opportunity to take a tortured path towards posting about purebred dogs, and it will surprise no one that “red” is the topic of this one.

Many breeds have red as their primary color, and as far as we can tell as of this writing, most (save one) include nuances of red including mahogany, chestnut, ginger, golden, wheaten, rust, orange, and so on.

That one breed is the only breed that lists “red” and only red as its accepted color.

No shade or nuances of red.

Just red.

That breed is the Redbone Coonhound.

Its glorious red coat is primarily determined by the E Locus: Redbones typically carry the e/e genotype which allows for the expression of red pigment. The intensity of the red color can vary because of the I Locus which affects the intensity of phaeomelanin. Redbones with the I/I or I/i genotype will have a darker, richer red coat, while those with i/i may have a lighter red coat. But ultimately, the breed’s color is simply “red.”

In its early days, some Redbones had black saddle-like markings leading these dogs to be called “saddlebacks,” but the Redbone’s color was refined over time. Today, the breed standard allows for a dark muzzle and a small amount of white on the chest and feet (markings thought by some to be due to residual influence from an Irish Foxhound ancestry), and through selective breeding, the black saddle was eliminated and we have the exquisite solid red coat seen today.

Image: Redbone Coonhound by Denise LeMoine/iStock Photos