The Pooch Punching Velo Dog

Imagine pedaling your Velocipede on the streets of late 1800s Paris and along comes a pack of local street-wise pooches, bent on chasing your big-wheeled bicycle and making sport of your progress–or worse.

What to do!?

René Galand, the son of prosperous gunsmith Charles-Francois came up with an idea based on revolvers already in production at Galand, sometimes called France’s equivalent of America’s Colt.

Galand’s Tue Tue and Le Novo, were long in production and served as his model for the Velo Dog, one of the first tiny pocket guns that fired a cartridge (as opposed to cap-and-ball).

This special little wheel gun and oddball cartridge were reportedly designed as a strong defense but mostly less-than-lethal deterrent against dog attacks–and presumably any other close-quarters attacker.

The name is a contraction of vélocipède (bicycle) and dog. Velocipede was the name for predecessors of today’s bicycles that, before gears and chains, used pedal power and a larger front wheel.

At least one advertiser back in the day touted it as the, “Revolver de Poche.”

Today the name refers to a cartridge and a variety of pocket-sized wheel guns made for turn-of-the-century bicyclists, whose bone-rattling bikes began to outnumber horses on the cobblestone streets of Paris at the turn of the century.

The original 5.5 mm (.22 caliber) centerfire Velo-dog cartridge was known to be slightly less potent than a .22 Long (not long rifle). Later models, made after 1900, were chambered in .22 Long or .25 ACP. Some alternative early ammo options existed in the day, loaded with cayenne pepper, wax, wood or cork.

Many, as the model shows here, incorporated nifty features like folding triggers to avoid annoying pocket snags and a manual safety switch.