Dog Stories from the "Spectator" Part 11

[_Feb. 2, 1895._]

Having derived much pleasure from reading the frequent natural history notes which from time to time appear in the _Spectator_, I venture to send you two instances of what seems to me the working of the canine mind under quite different circ.u.mstances. The first refers to an incident which happened a great many years ago. It was this. One day, when a lad, I was walking with my father accompanied by a strong, smooth-haired retriever called Turk. We were joined by the bailiff of the farm, and in the course of our walk Turk suddenly discovered the presence of a rabbit concealed in what in Scotland is called a "dry-stane d.y.k.e." After a little trouble in removing some stones, poor bunny was caught and slaughtered, being handed to the bailiff, who put it in his coat pocket. Shortly afterwards we separated, the bailiff going to his home in one direction, and we to ours in an opposite one.

Before we reached home we noticed that Turk was no longer with us, at which we were rather surprised, as he was a very faithful follower. Some time after we got home, perhaps an hour, I chanced to see a strange object on the public road which puzzled me as to what it was. It raised a cloud of dust as it came along, which partly obscured the vision. What was my surprise when I found it was Turk dragging a man's shooting-jacket, which proved to be the bailiff's, with the rabbit still in the pocket. We afterwards learnt that the dog, to the surprise of the bailiff, quietly followed him home, and lay down near him. Presently the man took off his coat, and laid it on a chair. Instantly Turk pounced upon it, and dashed to the door with it in his mouth. He was pursued, but in vain, and succeeded in dragging the coat from the one house to the other, a distance of one mile and three-fourths. It was evident the dog had a strong sense of the rights of property. He believed the rabbit belonged to his master, so he set himself to recover what he thought stolen goods.

The other anecdote refers to quite a recent date, and the only interest it has, is that it shows how perfectly a dog can exhibit facial expression, and also read at a glance the slightest indications of feeling in the human face. I had a well-broken Irish setter, which was perfectly free of hare or rabbit as to chasing, but he was a sad rascal for all that. I also had at the time a rough Scotch terrier, and the two dogs were great chums. The moment they got the chance they were off together on a rabbit-hunt. Like idiots, they would spend hours in vainly trying to dig rabbits out of their burrows. One day as I was returning home I met the pair in the avenue. They were the very picture of happiness. At first they did not see me, and came joyously on at a trot.

The instant they observed me they came to a full stop, some forty yards off. The setter gently wagged his tail, and looked at me with an expression of anxious inquiry. Taking heart, he slowly advanced to within about thirty yards, and then came the varying play of feature which so interested me. He was in great doubt as to whether I had guessed what tricks he had been up to; but as I made no sign, he was gradually looking more comfortable and gaining confidence. Suddenly I noticed a patch of mud above his nose, and I must have unconsciously shown him I had made a discovery of some kind, for that instant he turned tail and bolted home at the utmost speed of which he was capable.

Without uttering a single word, or making a single gesture, the dog and man understood each other perfectly. It was the language of faces.

R. SCOT SKIRVING.

A DOG OBEYING A SUMMONS

[_Jan. 18, 1890._]

The enclosed may interest you. I received it this morning. I have no doubt Dr. Barford, of Wokingham, would verify it, but I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. The following is the story:--

"Dr. Barford's dog at Wokingham was put into a muzzle; he objected to it, took it off, and hid it somewhere, no one knows where. Policeman saw him; summoned Dr. B.; case was to come off one Sat.u.r.day. The children told dog how wicked _he'd_ been: Dr. B. would have to appear at the Court, and he too, as it was his doing; he'd lost the muzzle. Case was postponed (I think policeman witness had influenza). Dr. B. was told of postponement by letter; forgot to tell children or dog. At Sat.u.r.day's Bench, Magistrates much astonished by the dog appearing in Court and sitting solemnly opposite them."

ALYS M. WOOD.

A PUG'S INTELLIGENCE.

[_Feb. 1, 1890._]

Several newspaper cuttings have been sent to me with the story of my dog which appeared in the _Spectator_ of January 18th, and one or two of them suggest a doubt as to the veracity of the story. I write, therefore, to tell you that it is literally true, only that the policeman was away for his holiday instead of having influenza, and the case came off on Tuesday instead of Sat.u.r.day. My dog is a pug, a very choice specimen of his kind, and was given to me by the late Dr. Wakley, editor of the _Lancet_, who was a great connoisseur in dogs. His intelligence is really marvellous, and he has done many things as extraordinary as the one related by Miss Wood.

He is devotedly attached to my baby, and always accompanies me in my morning visit to the nursery. On one occasion the child (who is just as fond of him as he is of her) was very ill, and for three weeks was unconscious. As soon as this was the case, the dog ceased to go near the nursery, as if by instinct he knew he would not be noticed. Mr.

Walters from Reading was attending the baby, and the dog soon got to know the time he paid his visits. He would watch him upstairs, and when he came down listen most attentively to his report. At length the child was p.r.o.nounced out of danger. The very next morning, up went master Sam, made his way straight to the child's cot, and stood on his hind legs to be caressed. Although she had taken no notice of any one for some time, she seemed to know the dog, and tried to move her hand towards him to be licked. He quite understood the action, licked the little hand lovingly, and then trotted contentedly away. After this he went up to see her regularly, as he had been accustomed to do. He is quite a character in the town, and nearly every one knows Sammy Weller.

Before I had this dog, I always thought I understood the difference between reason and instinct, but his intelligence has quite puzzled me.

MARY H. BARFORD.

ARE DOGS "COLOUR-BLIND"?

[_Jan. 12, 1884._]

Your correspondent, "W. H. O'Shea," has found several dogs "colour-blind," If black is a colour, I can give several instances in which a black retriever dog of mine was certainly _not_ "colour-blind."

He had the greatest antipathy to sweeps and coalheavers, and would fly at them if not fastened up or carefully watched. He would even bark at a pa.s.sing hea.r.s.e! In all other respects, he was the best-tempered dog in the world, and I can only imagine that when very young he must have been ill-used by either a sweep or a coalheaver.

C. R. T.

LUCKY AND UNLUCKY.

[_April 28, 1877._]

As letters telling of dogs and their doings occasionally appear in the _Spectator_, perhaps the following rather pathetic anecdote of a dog I know well may also find a place there. Two or three weeks ago, Lucky--so called from having, when an outcast, found its present happy home--perhaps by way of showing its grat.i.tude to its benefactors, presented them with five small Luckys, or rather, with one exception, Unluckys, as the melancholy process always resorted to with these too-blooming families had to be carried out in this instance, and the five were reduced to one. Poor Lucky was inconsolable, looking everywhere for them, and looking, too, with such appealing eyes into the faces of her friends, and asking them so plainly where they were. Near her kennel was an inclosed piece of ground for pigeons, and as it was discovered that rats were carrying off the young pigeons, and as Lucky had carried off one or two rats, it was decided one night to leave the door of the pigeons' house open, that Lucky might have the run of it; and the next morning, side by side with the puppy, was found a baby pigeon, looking quite bright and at home, but hungry, and poor Lucky, proud of the addition it had made to its family, was looking more contented than it had done since the loss of its puppies. The pigeon must have fallen from its nest, some distance from the ground, and Lucky, while on the look-out for rats, must have found it, and carefully carried it to her kennel, with the vague feeling, perhaps, that it was one of her own lost little ones "developing" a little curiously.

Unfortunately the arrangement could not be a permanent one, and the famished little pigeon was put back into its own nest, to be found again the next morning in Lucky's bed, but this time dead. The old birds seem to have deserted it, and it had died of starvation. If Lucky could give this account herself, it might be much more interesting, for it was thought not at all improbable that she had actually rescued from a rat the bird she was so anxious to adopt, as a small wound was found upon it such as a rat might have made, and as a young pigeon had been taken the night before from the same nest; but this is only conjecture, and Lucky only could tell us the facts; how often it would be interesting, if our humble friends could tell us their adventures! A friend who is staying with me tells me that a few months ago her dog was lost for a week, and at the end of that time it came back one night in a scarlet ruff and spangles, and looking altogether dreadfully dissipated.

Evidently it had been the "performing dog" in some show, "Punch and Judy" perhaps; being naturally a clever dog, it would quickly have learnt the part of "Toby" in that delightful and time-honoured exhibition. If it could only have written also an article ent.i.tled "A Week of My Life," with what pleasure the _Spectator_ would have published it!

S.

THE COURAGE OF ANIMALS.

[_Feb. 11, 1893._]

In the _Spectator_ of December 31st, which, although a regular subscriber to your valuable paper, I only happened to see to-day, owing to absence from home, I notice a reference in the article ent.i.tled "The Courage of Animals," to the fact that the wild dogs of India attack and destroy tigers. I have no personal knowledge of the matter, but I have been told by an Indian officer that the _modus operandi_ of the "red dogs" is as follows:--Having found their tiger they proceed, not to attack him at once, as might be inferred from your article, but to starve him until they have materially reduced his strength. Night and day they form a cordon round the unfortunate beast, and allow him no chance of obtaining food or rest; every time the tiger essays to break the circle, this is widened as the pack flies before him, only to be relentlessly narrowed again when the quarry is exhausted. After a certain period of this treatment the tiger falls a comparatively easy prey to his active and persevering enemies. This theory of their plan of attack, while it may detract somewhat from the wild dogs' reputation for courage, must add considerably to our estimate of their intelligence.

EDWARD PAUL, Jun.

SOME FACTS OF MATERNAL INSTINCT IN ANIMALS.

[_Oct. 1, 1892._]

I lately met some friends who had with them a little dog, called Vic, who had adopted the family of a cat in the house, and, while in possession, would not let the mother come near her kittens. The kittens were kept in a very tall basket, and Vic would take them in her mouth, and jump out with them one by one, and then carry them into the garden and watch over them, carrying them back in the same way after a time; at other times, lying contentedly with them in the basket. Of course Vic had to be forcibly removed when the adopted family required their mother's attention for their sustenance. I also have met a friend who saw a hen-hawk, who was in a cage, mothering a young starling. Three young, unfledged starlings were given the hawk to eat. She ate two, and then broodled the other, and took the utmost care of it. Unhappily, the young starling died; and from that moment the hawk would touch no food, but died herself in a few days.

The same friend was on a mountain one day, when a sheep came up to him, and unmistakably begged him to follow her going just in front, and continually looking round to see if he was following. The sheep led him at last to some rocks, where he found a lamb fast wedged in between two pieces of rock. He was able to liberate the lamb, to the evident joy of the mother.

I myself once saw a cat "broodling" and taking care of a very small chicken, which, being hatched first of a brood, had been brought into a cottage and placed in a basket near the fire. It managed to get out of the basket, and hopped up to the cat, who immediately adopted it.

WM. WALSHAM WAKEFIELD.

HAVE ANIMALS A FOREKNOWLEDGE OF DEATH?

[_April 30, 1892._]

In a recent _Spectator_ there is a quotation from Pierre Loti to the effect that "animals not only fear death, but fear it the more because they are aware that they have no future." Pierre Loti is a brilliant novelist, but I am not aware that he is a scientific naturalist, and I trust his idea is a mere chimera. Loti would take from the brutes the one privilege for which men may envy them, and endows them with a knowledge of the aftertime that we have only by revelation. However, two common-sense naturalists have published their belief that the lower animals have a foreknowledge of death, and one of them goes so far as to give an account of an old horse committing suicide. He says the animal frequently suffered from some internal disease, and that it deliberately walked into a pond, and, putting its nostrils under water, stood thus till it dropped dead from suffocation. The incident, I think, is easily explained. Many horses drink in the manner described, and in old horses heart-disease is not uncommon. I imagine the stoppage of respiration caused a sudden and natural death from heart-disease.

I should like to ask naturalists who think animals know that they must die, where they draw the line. They must stop somewhere between a dog and a dormouse. Poets have made far more frequent allusion to the subject than naturalists, and they may be quoted on both sides. Philip James Bailey, in ill.u.s.tration of his contention that hope is universal, says: "and the poor hack that sinks down on the flints, upon whose eye the dust is settling, he hopes to die." But we have on the other hand Sh.e.l.ley's Skylark, with its "ignorance of pain," because it differs from men who "look before and after." Wordsworth's little girl of eight knew less than her dog, if she had one, for, says the poet, "what could she know of death?" I admit that when the carnivora have crushed their prey to death they cease to mangle them; but I fancy that is only because there is no more resistance; and a bull will trample on a hat and leave it when it becomes a shapeless ma.s.s. The nearest thing I ever saw to an apparent foreknowledge of death, was in the case of that least intelligent of dogs, a greyhound. I had to shoot it to prevent useless suffering from disease. It followed me willingly, but when I led it to a pit prepared as its grave it instantly rushed off at its best speed. I suggest that it saw instinctively something unpleasant was about to happen, but it does not follow that death was present to its mind.

Domestic poultry will furiously attack one of their number that struggles on the ground in its death-agony. They do not dream of death; they think its contortions are a challenge to combat.

R. SCOTT SKIRVING.

OUR FOUR-FOOTED FRIENDS, BIG AND LITTLE.

[_Nov. 8, 1873._]

May I be permitted to question, in the most friendly way, the a.s.sumption of "Lucy Field," in your last issue, that the lives of small dogs are in constant jeopardy from "a race of giant dogs, and exceptionally large dogs," at Muswell Hill? If it be so, then, surely the "giant dogs" of that region are exceptions. My experience goes to confirm the truth taught by Sir Edwin Landseer's "Dignity and Impudence," a fine print of which adorns my portfolio. I had a broken-haired friend, weight about eight pounds, learned in two languages, canine and English, who rejoiced in the name of Teens, given him by babes with whom he condescended to play, because he was a "tiny, teeny dog." I must confess that my late friend--alas! that I should say late--who was chivalrically brave in killing rats and carrying on war with cats, was a very bully, a kind of Ancient Pistol towards big dogs. To see him meet a Newfoundland or large retriever was as good as a play. Teens, with his tail curled like the spring of an ancient watch, his broken-haired back stiffened with indignation, would stand and give the pa.s.s-word all dogs seem to know, and be overhauled and examined as he walked round the giant like an English gunboat by a Spanish fifth-rate; but when once the enemy turned his back, Teens exploded like a cracker, running under the big dog's nose, and often springing at his lip. His gigantic, but generous foe (or friend) always fled, or walked away, followed by a torrent of abusive barks, which, from their peculiar intonation, I took for dog-slang, and Teens returning with an impudent smile on his countenance, wiped his feet on the pavement as a sign of triumph. I have seen him do this a hundred times, and never saw a big dog attempt to punish his impudence.

Jeems, a black-and-tan of smaller weight, who seemed to walk upon springs, and who on work-a-days was called Jim, and James on Sundays, which day he perfectly well knew, was more like Parolles. He bullied big dogs at a distance, and seldom stood up to them like the truculent Teens, and, although he ran away, was seldom pursued and never hurt, while the Claimant (he was for his size unwieldly in fatness as a pup), who (or which) still lives with me, is now bullying a shambling retriever pup, full-grown, but, like Cousin Feenix, uncertain as to his gait, who good-naturedly submits to it. Here, perhaps, there is danger; for very big pups will pursue any little thing that runs away, and one of their large paws, which they put down as if they wore heavily clumped boots, might certainly crush the life--a very noisy, fussy, busy life it is--out of my small and impertinent, pretentious Tichborne. This dog, by the way, brings down his mistress her boots, as a hint for her to take a walk, and blows like a trumpet or young walrus under the door to be let in, having been corrected for scratching the panel. I end as I began, by a.s.suring you that my experience, no less than that of my friends, lies in the direction of extreme generosity exhibited by large dogs towards small ones; I would not deny that a large dog may now and then punish an impudent and aggressive toy-terrier, but, as a rule, we can only wonder at the providential wisdom which makes them so generous and forbearing; having a giant's strength, they seldom indeed use it like a giant.