Lola Part 4

I often put my question thus: "7 4 = ?" and the reply would be--left paw 2, right paw 8: then: "9 3 = ?" Answer: left paw 2, right paw 7; and again, "6 6 = ?" Answer: left paw 3, right paw 6. How accurate a test this was might be gathered from the sure and quiet way in which she tapped the palm of my hand, first with her left paw three times, and then with the right, six. I held my hand quite flat, slantingly and immovable--there was nothing about it that could convey any sort of sign to her, otherwise she would not sometimes have rapped either less or more than I expected, as has happened both in her spelling and at her sums.

My thoughts now turned to the business of spelling and the replies to be here obtained. A total of figures from 1-40 would suffice in order to give expression to all the letters, while the same degree of comprehension of my spoken word was all I required. Then I began to tell Lola some four or five letters of her alphabet daily, questioning her as to each. Every day I repeated the lesson learnt on the previous one, and added four or five more letters. Her alphabet sounds as follows:

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+------+------+ | a | e | i | o | u | au | ei | | - | - | - | - | - | - | -- | | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | +-------|-------|-------|-------|-----|------|------+ | b & p | d & t | f & v | s & k | ch | u | h | | ----- | ----- | ----- | ----- | -- | -- | -- | | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 20 | 21 | 24 | +-------|-------|-------|-------|-----|------|------+ | l | m | n | r | s | w | z | | -- | -- | - | - | -- | -- | -- | | 25 | 26 | 27 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | +-------|-------|-------|-------|-----|------|------+ | | | ja | nein | | | | | | | -- | ---- | | | | | | | 2 | 3 | | | | +-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+------+------+

It is particularly to be observed that the letters were p.r.o.nounced as follows: K as k,' not as ka ( = kay); H as h,' not as ha ( = aitch); R as r, not as er ( = ar;) L as l,' not as el: this was so as to free her "writing" of any extraneous difficulties. Rolf of Mannheim rapped out the "e" in "w" ( = _vay_ being the German p.r.o.nunciation of "w"), as also in "g" ( = _gay_ being the German p.r.o.nunciation of "g"); thus, if he wanted to write "wegen," he simply rapped "w g n." Now, I wanted Lola to learn to rap the entire word--"wegen," for instance, for this simplification of expression, as put into practice by Rolf, would be of no use to her in view of the method of p.r.o.nunciation I was adopting with the consonants. Those who had taught Rolf understood his spelling quite as well as I in time came to understand Lola's, but with regard to their system the objection was frequently put forward (more especially by persons bent on maintaining an unfriendly att.i.tude) that "any construction might be placed on these answers," and, I must admit, that there was some truth in this. Not that this objection could always be justified, yet there were sufficient grounds for it. The great value of Rolf's mode of expressing himself was shown in the way in which he added letter to letter in accordance with their sounds (and I doubt whether any mechanical aids or accessories would have been likely to achieve the same results), thus giving proof that he was capable of independent expression. Their system proved incidentally to have what I might call a "side value," for Lola's mode of expression, due to my own method of teaching led to quite different results--_yet on the same level_.

Lola now practised her alphabet in the morning and in the afternoon we continued multiplications; rather more slowly than at first, but we ultimately reached a hundred. New work was then added in the form of division and subtraction. She soon had this all so firmly fixed in her little head that I was able to put her to easy sums and ask: "What is 3 x 3 + 10 - 5?" The answer after a few seconds being "14." A hundred was rapped out with her left paw = ten raps.

As soon as she had mastered the entire alphabet I proceeded to contract the letters into words. I said: "Lola, now attend; you are going to learn to spell: you must rap out a word made of the letters you have learnt; now--Wald (wood or forest) is w, a, l, d," and I accentuated each letter very distinctly. "How many letters are there in this word?"

I added, and the answer was "4."

"Good," I said, adding: "What is the first letter?" and she tapped in reply: "36/w"; "and the next?" "4/a"; "and then?" "25/l"; "and further?"

"4/a." "Lola now listen to all the words I am going to say: essen ( = to eat, also "food"), e, s, s, e, n; gut ( = good), g, u, t; milch ( = milk), m, i, l, c, h"; and so on. For many days I continued to name the words which lay nearest to her understanding, and each day I got her to do a little spelling, after first having divided the letters. But at the end of eight days I no longer took the words to pieces merely saying, very distinctly: "rap Ofen" ( = stove), and she would tap: "7 16 5 27" = o f e n. "Rap Haus" ( = house). This answer was: "24, 4, 9, 35"

= h, a, u, s. Whenever she rapped I jotted down the figures in order to translate them later on into letters, for it was some time before I could sufficiently memorize their equivalents, and was constantly making mistakes after Lola had become an "expert." Indeed, one's memory is easily liable to play tricks here in a way that may lead to endless confusion, for the sequence of the numbers is so at variance with what one is accustomed to.

Once I asked--by way of experiment--"What is this?" touching her nose.

At first she seemed uncertain, but then came the reply: "3" = nein (no); so I said: "Lola, that is your _nose_; tap nose!" and she tapped--"27, 4, 35, 5" = nase (nose). "Good!" I said, "and what is _this_?" and I touched her eye, to which she at once replied with--"9, 17" = aug (auge = eye); she had apparently not been quite sure of what I wanted when I touched her nose.

And so we went on practising--sometimes doing too much, and this would give her a headache, but she had also learnt how to communicate this fact to me and would rap: "36, 5" = we (weh = pain, or hurt); nor was this malingering, for she worked willingly, doing so, indeed, to the utmost limits of her strength, when it would become apparent, alas! to anyone who saw her that her head was aching. This tendency to "keep going" is common to all our faithful domestic animals: more particularly is it the case with draft-animals, who will go on till they drop. There are very few that consciously resist work, or who humbug us by pretending they are ill. Yet, as I had told Rolf, we had one of these exceptions at the farm; it was an ox that would always lie down and sham dead, if not in the mood to work; he then stretched out his limbs and looked at his last gasp ... but no sooner did we leave him to himself than he was on his legs again and off to his stall. No amount of chastis.e.m.e.nt brought him to reason. And it was this immoral action that had jumped with Rolf's views when--without having been asked--he at once remarked: "Hat recht, lol sagen Bauchweh!" an excuse he is reported to have made very often of late.

I now tried to teach Lola to read the numbers, for she was thoroughly at home in all we had practised so far, so it did not seem too much of a venture. I cogitated, therefore, how best to begin; and finally I wrote on a sheet of paper as follows:

1 2 3 4 5 6 . .. ... .... ..... ......

and so on up to 10.

I then held this a few inches (40 centimetres) from her eyes and, pointing to each, said: "_One_ dot looks like 1," etc. And then I wrote a 2 on a slip of paper and asked her what number it stood for. At the start this gave her a good deal of trouble, and I had to do a great deal of talking. She saw the dot right enough, but would give no attention to the figure. I helped her twice to compare the two, and then set the sheet up near the place where she usually lay, taking for granted that in the course of the day her eye would be bound to rest on it so frequently that she would probably have retained the impression by the next day. And something of this kind must have happened; for on the following morning after having gone through the explanation once more, and put the sheet aside, I wrote the figures at random all over another sheet of paper when she actually "spotted" them all--with the exception of "7," and a comparison of the two sheets soon enabled her to put this right, too. There could be no doubt but that she had really mastered her lesson, for the replies were rapped out with absolute certainty. I next attempted two-figured numerals; nor was this very difficult, for in 32, for instance, the 3 was rapped by the left--the "decimal" paw--and therefore meant "30," while the "2" was added by two raps from the right paw; in fact, she memorized this without any trouble--and for a few days we practised "reading numbers" a.s.siduously, so as to get her perfect.

Here is an example:

20 + 14? Answer: 34. 24 + 32? Answer: 56.

11 + 15 + 2? Answer: 28

Here again the most surprising thing was the celerity with which the replies were given. I was at first inclined to _make_ her look at the paper attentively, but she would merely glance over it, then came a moment of quick thought--and the answer was ready. (I propose to return to this point again in the chapter on "Seeing.")

In the course of such exercises it is no exaggeration to say that one does actually _see_, by an alteration in the eye, that the dog is thinking; the gaze is withdrawn, so to speak, as it is in the eye of a person engaged in the process of thinking; and then brightens when the result has been attained. I have often been so absorbed in contemplating this process in Lola that I have almost forgotten to continue the work we were engaged on.

As the lessons progressed it became easy to teach her to read the letters, for she now knew what it was all about, and she soon picked up the figures requisite for any given letter. Personally, I always use the Latin script for writing, and it was therefore more convenient to teach her this form rather than the Gothic, but for the sake of simplicity I made use of the small characters only. I wrote these out on a sheet of paper, taking care to make them very large, and with the equivalent figure under each--thus:

a e i o u au ei 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

and so on.

I then gave a short explanation and stood the sheet on the floor again--just as I had done in the case of the figures.

The next day I questioned her, taking the precaution to write out a few letters on another piece of paper, so as to be able, by comparing the two, to know what the word was at once. In a few instances the right answers were given immediately, but there was still a great deal of uncertainty. I suppose the entire alphabet at one dose had been too much for her! But I tried her again in the afternoon--going over the letters carefully, and set up the card once more, to "jog her memory."

And the next morning she knew it nearly to perfection, and was able to follow with her raps such words as--h, o, l, z, (holz = wood), for I took care to separate the letters, fearing she would otherwise get confused. Whenever she seemed in doubt over some letter I had recourse to her alphabet card, and made her look it up herself.

I began to feel that the foundation for all that was most important had now been laid, and that at no distant future I should be able to ask her all kinds of questions, and my joy was great. For now the moment was at hand when I might hope to gain insight into the very being of this dog, get into touch with its thinking and its feeling--all of which was so immeasurably strange to me. Yet what I here antic.i.p.ated was not to be reached in so short a span of time as had hitherto sufficed for her other studies. For the present Lola spelt out no more than I told her to, and I continued practising her diligently, for I felt sure that as long as it gave her any trouble a more lengthy answer--and more especially, a _spontaneous_ one--would not be forthcoming. It had taken one month of study to accomplish all I have here set down, and I felt both grateful, happy, and not a little awed--and, indeed, I did my best to thank her by my sympathy and consideration. It was only later that I came to see my own inconsistency!

The elementary tuition, the form of which I had tentatively evolved was now at an end; and constant practice in the four modes of arithmetic, as well as in reading and spelling, kept her perfect. But it became important to make occasional experiments of longer or shorter duration; such tests might be either in support of, or in opposition to, each other, and of these I now propose to treat in the following pages, for they represent the "digest" of what had so far been learnt.

SENSE OF TIME

We often hear that dogs whose masters lead a very regular life get to know the time and the hours of the day's routine--such as walks and meals showing this by their behaviour. It might be easy to account for their intimate acquaintance with the hours of meals, since their stomach is practically their clock. But that a dog should know to a "tic" the time for his master's departure from the house--whatever the season of the year, tugging him by his coat--should he not be ready, or fetching his stick--allows of no other explanation than that of a canine sense of time.

This consideration led me to try and teach Lola our divisions of time on the clock in order to make my experiment in this direction. I took a clock on which the figures were inscribed in Arabic, and of which the dial--measuring 5 centimetres across (2 inches), was sufficiently plain to read. I then explained to her that a day and a night were divided into 24 parts: I said to her: "The day-time is light, and people can then go about, and eat and work; at night it is dark, and people and animals sleep--do you understand me?" She replied: "Yes!" (two raps). I said: "Into how many parts are the day and night divided?" and she answered: "24," "These portions," I continued, "are called hours, and one hour is again divided into sixty parts, and these are called minutes; and so as always to know what are the hours, and what are the minutes, people have made a clock--now look here: so as not to make it too big they have written only twelve hours on it and this thick little pointer goes round slowly and points to the number of the hours: now, how often must it go round in a day, if a day has 24 hours?" She replied: "2."

"You see, the little thick pointer is now pointing to _nine_, so it is 9 o'clock; what time will it be when it points to 4?" She answered: "4." "You remember that I told you that the hour is divided into 60 minutes?" "Yes." "Now--see! the big pointer goes round more quickly and points out the minutes: when _that_ pointer has been round _once_, 60 minutes are gone--that means one hour. This big pointer starts at 12, and you see that there are five little strokes up to 1, and how many up to 2?" Lola rapped "10." "And where is the big pointer now?" "(At) 14."

"What is 14--is it an hour?" "No." "Then what is it called?" "Minute."

And after this Lola rested!

In an hour and a quarter I fetched the clock again and said: "Look!

what does the little thick pointer say now?" She tapped an uncertain "no." So I explained once more and then said: "Now tell me!" and she answered this time, "50."

I stood the clock on the ground in front of her and questioned her twice more in the course of the day--correct replies being given. I also left the clock standing near her for the rest of the day, for I wanted the flight of time to become impressed on her, and her eye was bound to rest on the dial now and again during the course of the day.

Her answers were invariably right now for, by way of test, I inquired: "How many minutes are there in half an hour?" And she replied: "30."

And again: "How many minutes has a quarter of an hour--that is, an hour divided by 4?" And she answered: "15." She also showed much interest in all this, for she sat as still as could be, listening attentively to all my explanations. And I kept her interest alive by always telling her "what nice new things Lola would be able to learn," and at this she was visibly pleased.

The next day I made casual remarks as to the time of day out loud, and all this day's answers were equally good. I now saw that she had grasped the essentials--so that I could put the clock away, and there is not another in my rooms, the nearest being a big one standing in the kitchen which is on the ground floor. I never carry my watch, leaving it in a drawer--and generally forgetting to wind it up, so that if I do not ask, I seldom know what the time is. I have no sense of time whatever myself, so that to me it may seem either long or short--according to what I may be doing. I have always envied people who possessed this sense of absolute certainty in guessing the time--it is not a common gift. I make this remark "parenthetically" in my desire for trying to elucidate the causes which lie at the back of the "feeling for time."

On the third day after my first explanations I said to Lola in the course of the morning: "Tell me what time it is. I daresay you know without seeing the clock!" To which she answered "Yes!" "Then tell me the hour first," I said, and she rapped: "10;" "And now the minutes?"

"35." I then went downstairs and found that the kitchen clock pointed to 10.30, but I was told that it was not quite exact, so I telephoned to the Post Office, and inquired the correct time--asking again in the afternoon when it was 4.17. I then said to Lola: "Tell me the hour?"

"4," said she. "And the minutes?" "18." I made this test several times more, and as the replies were invariably right I could regard this experiment as successful. After this I allowed her to show off her accomplishment to various people, and as long as the novelty appealed to her Lola always told the time correctly and earned much praise. In the presence of Dr. Ziegler and others she gave a most excellent account of herself, and I frequently made practical use of her as my "timepiece." The change-over to "summer-time" created some slight confusion, but this was only temporarily, and was soon overcome. Later, however, she frequently _gave the wrong time_!--it was only the charm of novelty that spurred her on to her best endeavours!

Since then I have not questioned her as often--perhaps only once a week, and her replies have varied, some being very good. Only to-day (I am writing on 31 December, 1916) I asked her the time; it was very dusk, and I thought it must be nearly 5 o'clock, but Lola rapped out: "4"--"And how many minutes?" I inquired. "No!" came the reply.

"Nonsense!" I cried, "there must be some minutes as well?" "No!" she insisted. So I went and a.s.sured myself, believing Lola to have been obstinate, but no, it was actually only just four!

It may be taken for granted, I presume, that all dogs have this time-sense in a greater or lesser degree, and not only all dogs, but other animals also, for there are sufficient proofs to justify this a.s.sertion. Sportsmen, in particular, will be able to furnish examples in support of the theory. That Lola was able to "tell the time" was, of course, merely a matter of tuition, this having awakened her latent consciousness, and enabled her to master the signs.

In the summer of 1916 I purchased a grey parrot with the object of further studies. This bird, being very tame, was allowed to sit on the back of my chair and enjoy a few t.i.t-bits at meal times. I always, carried him on my hand from his cage to the chair, as he would not come down from the cage--preferring to clamber about without and within. One evening I had been delayed, and did not appear as punctually as usual.

My maid told me, however, that the parrot had left his cage at eight o'clock, gone straight to my chair, climbed up, and was even at that moment sitting on the back-rail waiting for me!

How sensibly animals are equipped as to the requisites of life!

Probably man was, too--at one time; at a time when he stood nearer to Nature, and before his inventions and manifold accessories had weaned him from so much that was inherent and inborn knowledge.

CALCULATING TIME

At first I proposed to achieve this by building on the foundations I had already laid, on the dog's fairly reliable comprehension of the value of figures, and her knowledge of spelling. So I wrote on a large sheet of paper and in small characters:[14]