Animal Intelligence Part 42

When vessels with live stock arrive at any of the West India harbours, these animals, some of which are nearly as large as mastiffs, are wonderfully efficient in a.s.sisting to land the cargo. The oxen are hoisted out with a sling pa.s.sing round the base of their horns; and when an ox, thus suspended by the head, is lowered, and allowed to fall into the water, so that it may swim to land, men sometimes swim by the side of it and guide it, but they have often dogs of this breed which will perform the service equally well; for, catching the perplexed animal by the ears, one on each side, they will force it to swim in the direction of the landing-place, and instantly let go their hold when they feel it touch the ground, as the ox will then naturally walk out of the water by itself.[267]

That this sagacity need not be due to special tuition, may be inferred from a closely similar display spontaneously shown in the following case. It is communicated to me by a correspondent, Mr. A. H. Browning.

This gentleman was looking at a litter of young pigs in their sty, and when he went away the door of the sty was inadvertently left unfastened.

The pigs all escaped into his garden. My correspondent then proceeds:--

My attention was called to my dog appearing in a great state of excitement, _not_ barking (he seldom barks), but whining and performing all sorts of antics (in a human subject I should have said 'gesticulating'). The herdmen and myself returned to the sty; we caught but one pig, and put him back; no sooner had we done so than the dog ran after each pig in succession, brought him back to the sty by the ear, and then went after another, until the whole number were again housed.

In Lord Brougham's 'Dialogues on Instinct' (iii.) there is narrated the story told to the author by Lord Truro of a dog that used to worry sheep at night. The animal quietly submitted to be tied up in the evening, but when everybody was asleep he used to slip his collar, worry the sheep, and, returning before dawn, again get into his collar to avoid suspicion. I allude to this remarkable display of sagacity because I am myself able fully to corroborate it by precisely similar cases. A friend of mine (the late Mr. Sutherland Murray) had a dog which was always kept tied up at night, but nevertheless the neighbouring farmers complained of having detected him as the culprit when watching to find what dog it was that committed nightly slaughter among their sheep. My friend, therefore, set a watch upon his dog, and found that when all was still be slipped his collar, and after being absent for some hours, returned and slipped his head in again.

A precisely similar case is given further back, and others are communicated to me by two correspondents (Mr. Goodbehere, of Birmingham, and Mr. Richard Williams, of Buffalo). The latter says:--

And here let me ask if you are aware of the cunning and sagacity of these sheep-killing dogs, that they never kill sheep on the farm to which they belong, or in the immediate vicinity, but often go miles away; that they always return before daylight, and before doing so wash themselves in some stream to get rid of the blood.

In Germany I knew a large dog that was very fond of grapes, and at night used to slip his collar in order to satisfy his propensity; and it was not for some time that the thief was suspected, owing to his returning before daylight and appearing innocently chained up in his kennel.

A closely similar case is recorded in Mr. Duncan's book on 'Instinct' of a dog belonging to the Rev. Mr. Taylor, of Colton. The only difference is that the delinquent dog slipped and afterwards readjusted a muzzle instead of a collar.

In connection with sly sagacity I may also give another story contained in my correspondence, although in this case I am specially requested by my correspondent not to publish his name. I can, therefore, only say that he occupies a high position in the Church, and that the dog (a retriever) was his own property:--

The dog was lying one evening before the kitchen fire where the cook had prepared a turkey for roasting. She left the kitchen for a few moments, when the dog immediately carried away the turkey and placed it in the cleft of a tree close to the house, but which was well concealed by the surrounding laurels. So rapid were his movements that he returned to his post before the cook had come back, and stretching himself before the fire, looked 'as innocent as a child unborn.'

Unfortunately for him, however, a man who was in the habit of taking him to shoot, saw him carrying away his prize and watched his progress. On coming into the kitchen the man found the dog in his old place pretending to be asleep. Diver's conduct was all along dictated by a desire to conceal his theft, and if he were a man I should have said that he intended, in case of inquiry, to prove an alibi.

Mr. W. H. Bodley writes me of a retriever dog that belonged to him:--

Before he came to me he lived where another dog of similar size was kept, and on one occasion they fought. Having been chastised for this, on future occasions when they quarrelled they used to swim over a river of some breadth, where they could not be interfered with, and fight out their quarrel on the other side. What seems to me noteworthy in this conduct is the _self-restraint_ manifested under the influence of _pa.s.sion_, and the mutual understanding to defer the fight till they could prosecute it unmolested; like two duellists crossing the Channel to fight in France.

It is, of course, a well-known thing that dogs may easily be taught the use of coin for buying buns, &c. In the 'Scottish Naturalist' for April, 1881, Mr. j.a.pp vouches for the fact that a collie which he knew was in the habit of purchasing cakes with coppers without ever having been taught the use of coin for such purposes. This fact, however, of a dog spontaneously divining the use of money requires corroboration, although it is certain that many dogs have an instinctive idea of giving peace-offerings, and the step from this to the idea of barter may not be large. Thus, to give only two ill.u.s.trations, Mr. Badc.o.c.k writes to me that a friend of his had a dog which one day had a quarrel with a companion dog, so that they parted at variance. 'On the next day the friend appeared with a biscuit, which he presented as a peace-offering.'

Again, Mr. Thomas D. Smeaton writes to me of his dog that he 'has an amusing practice when he is restored to favour after some slight offence, of immediately picking up and carrying anything that is handiest, stone, stick, paper: it is a deliberate effort to please, a sort of good-will offering, a shaking hands over the past.'

I am indebted for the following to Mr. Goodbehere, of Birmingham; it may be taken as typical of many similar cases:--

My friend (Mr. James Canning, of Birmingham) was acquainted with a small mongrel dog who on being presented with a penny or a halfpenny would run with it in his mouth to a baker's, jump on to the top of the half-door leading into the shop, and ring the bell behind the door until the baker came forward and gave him a bun or a biscuit in exchange for the coin. The dog would accept any small biscuit for a halfpenny, but nothing less than a bun would satisfy him for a penny. On one occasion the baker (being annoyed at the dog's too frequent visits), after receiving the coin, refused to give the dog anything in exchange, and on every future occasion the latter (who declined being _taken in_ a second time) would put the coin on the floor, and not permit the baker to pick it up until he had received its equivalent.

Mr. R. O. Backhouse writes to me:--

My dog is a broken-haired rabbit-coursing dog, and is very intelligent. I took him one day to an exhibition of pictures and objects of interest, among which were statues and a bust of Sir Walter Scott. It was a local exhibition, and as there was jewellery, some one had to sit up all night with it as guard. I volunteered, and as we were looking about and sitting on a stand of flowers, my dog suddenly began to bark, and made as if he had found some one hiding. On looking round I found that it was the bust of Sir Walter Scott standing among the flowers, and in which he evidently recognised sufficient likeness to a human being to think the supposed man had no business there at so late an hour.

I adduce this instance because it serves as a sort of introduction to the more remarkable faculty which I cannot have the least doubt is manifested by some dogs--the faculty, namely, of recognising portraits as representing persons, or possibly of mistaking portraits for persons.

Mr. Creh.o.r.e, writing to 'Nature' (vol. xxi., p. 132), says:--

A Dandie-Dinmont terrier, after the death of his mistress, was playing with some children in a room into which was brought a photograph (large) of her that he had never previously seen. It was placed upon the floor leaning against the wall. In the words of my informant, who witnessed it, the dog, when he suddenly caught sight of the picture, crouched and trembled all over, his whole body quivering. Then he crept along the floor till he reached it, and, seating himself before it, began to bark loudly, as if he would say, 'Why don't you speak to me?' The picture was moved to other parts of the room, and he followed, seating himself before it and repeating his barking.

Mr. Charles W. Peach also gives an account in 'Nature' (vol. xx., p.

196) of a large dog recognising his portrait:--

When it (the portrait) was brought to my house, my old dog was present with the family at the unveiling; nothing was said to him, nor invitation given to him to notice it. We saw that his gaze was steadily fixed on it, and he soon became excited and whined, and tried to lick and scratch it, and was so much taken up with it that we--although so well knowing his intelligence--were all quite surprised--in fact, could scarcely believe that he should know it was my likeness. We, however, had sufficient proof after it was hung up in our parlour. The room was rather low, and under the picture stood a chair: the door was left open, without any thought about the dog; he, however, soon found it out, when a low whining and scratching was heard by the family, and on search being made, he was in the chair trying to get at the picture. After this I put it up higher, so as to prevent its being injured by him. This did not prevent him from paying attention to it, for whenever I was away from home, whether for a short or a long time--sometimes for several days--he spent most of his time gazing on it, and as it appeared to give him comfort the door was always left open for him. When I was long away he made a low whining, as if to draw attention to it. This lasted for years--in fact, as long as he lived.

From this account it appears that when in the first instance the dog's attention was drawn to the picture it was on the floor in the line of the dog's sight; the behaviour of the animal then and subsequently was too marked and peculiar to admit of mistake.

Another correspondent in 'Nature' (vol. xx., p. 220), alluding to the previous letter, writes:--

Having read Mr. Peach's letter on 'Intellect in Brutes,' as shown by the sagacity he witnessed in his dog, I have been asked to send a similar anecdote, which I have often told to friends. Many years ago my husband had his portrait taken by J. Phillips, R.A., and subsequently went to India, leaving the portrait in London to be finished and framed. When it was sent home, about two years after it was taken, it was placed on the floor against the sofa, preparatory to being hung on the wall. We had then a very handsome black-and-tan setter, which was a great pet in the house. As soon as the dog came into the room he recognised his master, though he had not seen him for two years, and went up to the picture and licked the face. When this anecdote was told to Phillips, he said it was the highest compliment that had ever been paid him.

Similarly, in the same periodical (vol. xx., p. 220), Mr. Henry Clark writes:--

Some years ago a fine arts exhibition was held at Derby. A portrait of a Derby artist (Wright) was thus signalised:--'The artist's pet dog distinguished this from a lot of pictures upon the floor of the studio by licking the face of the portrait.'

Again, I learn from Dr. Samuel Wilks, F.R.S., that a friend of his, whom I shall call Mrs. E., has a terrier which recognised her portrait. 'The portrait is now (1881) hanging in the Royal Academy. When it first arrived home the dog barked at it, as it did at strangers; but after a day or two, when Mrs. E. opened the door to show the portrait to some friends, the dog went straight to the picture and licked the hand. The picture is a three-quarter length portrait of a lady with the hand at the bottom of the picture.'

Lastly, my sister, who is a very conscientious and accurate observer, witnessed a most unmistakable recognition of portraits as representative of persons on the part of a small but intelligent terrier of her own. At my request she committed the facts to writing shortly after they occurred. The following is her statement of them:--

I have a small terrier who attained the age of eight months without ever having seen a large picture. One day three nearly life-sized portraits were placed in my room during his absence. Two were hung up, and one left standing against the wall on the floor awaiting the arrival of a picture-rod. When the dog entered the room he appeared much alarmed by the sight of the pictures, barking in a terrified manner first at one and then at another. That is to say, instead of attacking them in an aggressive way with tail erect, as he would have done on thus encountering a strange person, he barked violently and incessantly at some distance from the paintings, with tail down and body elongated, sometimes bolting under the chairs and sofas in the extremity of his fear, and continuing barking from there. Thinking it might be merely the presence of strange objects in the room which excited him, I covered the faces of the portraits with cloths and turned the face of the one on the floor to the wall. The dog soon after emerged from his hiding-place, and having looked intently at the covered pictures and examined the back of the frame on the ground, became quite quiet and contented. I then uncovered one of the pictures, when he immediately flew at it, barking in the same frightened manner as before. I then re-covered that one and took the cover off another. The dog left the covered one and rushed at the one which was exposed. I then turned the face of the one on the floor to the room, and he flew at that with increased fierceness. This I did many times, covering and uncovering each picture alternately, always with the same result. It was only when all three paintings were uncovered at the same time, and he saw one looking at him in whatever direction he turned, that he became utterly terrified. He continued in this state for nearly an hour, at the end of which time, although evidently very nervous and apt to start, he ceased to bark. After that day he never took any more notice of the pictures during the three months he remained in the house. He was then absent from the house for seven months. On his return he went with me into the room where the portraits were hung, immediately on his arrival. He was evidently again much startled on first seeing them, for he rushed at one, barking as he had done on the first occasion, but he only gave three or four barks when he ran back to me with the same apologetic manner as he has when he has barked at a well-known friend by mistake.

It will have been observed that in all these cases the portraits, when first recognised as bearing resemblance to human beings, were placed on the floor, or in the ordinary line of the dog's sight. This is probably an important condition to the success of the recognition. That it certainly was so in the case of my sister's terrier was strikingly proved on a subsequent occasion, when she took the animal into a picture-shop where there were a number of portraits hanging round the walls, and also one of Carlyle standing on the floor. The terrier did not heed those upon the walls, but barked excitedly at the one upon the floor. This case was further interesting from the fact that there were a number of purchasers in the shop who were, of course, strangers to the terrier; yet he took no notice of them, although so much excited by the picture. This shows that the pictorial illusion was not so complete as to make the animal suppose the portrait to be a real person; it was only sufficiently so to make it feel a sense of bewildered uncertainty at the kind of life-in-death appearance of the motionless representation.

If, notwithstanding all this body of mutually corroborative cases, it is still thought incredible that dogs should be able to recognise pictorial representations,[268] we should do well to remember that this grade of mental evolution is reached very early in the psychical development of the human child. In my next work I shall adduce evidence to show that children of one year, or even less, are able to distinguish pictures as representations of particular objects, and will point at the proper pictures when asked to show these objects.

Coming now to cases more distinctly indicative of reason in the strict sense of the word, numberless ordinary acts performed by dogs indisputably show that they possess this faculty. Thus, for instance, Livingstone gives the following observation.[269] A dog tracking his master along a road came to a place where three roads diverged. Scenting along two of the roads and not finding the trail, he ran off on the third without waiting to smell. Here, therefore, is a true act of inference. If the track is not on A or B, it must be on C, there being no other alternative.

Again, it is not an unusual thing for intelligent dogs, who know that their masters do not wish to take them out, to leave the house and run a long distance in the direction in which they suppose their masters are about to go, in order that when they are there found the distance may be too great for their masters to return home for the purpose of shutting them up. I have myself known several terriers that would do this, and one of the instances I shall give _in extenso_ (quoted from an account which I published at the time in 'Nature'); for I think it displays remarkably complex processes of far-seeing calculation:--

The terrier in question followed a conveyance from the house in which I resided in the country, to a town ten miles distant. _He only did this on one occasion_, and about five months afterwards was taken _by train_ to the same town as a present to some friends there.

Shortly afterwards I called upon these friends in a different conveyance from the one which the dog had previously followed; but the latter may have known that the two conveyances belonged to the same house.

Anyhow, after I had put up the horses at an inn, I spent the morning with the terrier and his new masters, and in the afternoon was accompanied by them to the inn. I should have mentioned that the inn was the same as that at which the conveyance had been put up on the previous occasion, five months before. Now, the dog evidently remembered this, and, reasoning from a.n.a.logy, inferred that I was about to return. This is shown by the fact that he stole away from our party--although at what precise moment he did so I cannot say, but it was certainly _after_ we had arrived at the inn, for subsequently we all remembered his having entered the coffee-room with us. Now, not only did he infer from a single precedent that I was going home, and make up his mind to go with me, but he also further reasoned thus:--'As my previous master lately sent me to town, it is probable that he does not want me to return to the country; therefore, if I am to seize this opportunity of resuming my poaching life, I must now steal a march upon the conveyance.

But not only so, my former master may possibly pick me up and return with me to my proper owners; therefore I must take care only to intercept the conveyance at a point sufficiently far without the town to make sure that he will not think it worth his while to go back with me.'

Complicated as this train of reasoning is, it is the simplest one I can devise to account for the fact that slightly beyond the _third_ milestone the terrier was awaiting me, lying right in the middle of the road with his face towards the town. I should add that the second two miles of the road were quite straight, so that I could easily have seen the dog if he had been merely running a comparatively short distance in front of the horses. Why this animal should never have returned to his former home on his own account I cannot suggest, but I think it was merely due to an excessive caution which he also manifested in other things. However, be the explanation of this what it may, as a fact he never did venture to come back upon his own account, although there never was a subsequent occasion upon which any of his former friends went to the town but the terrier was seen to return with them, having always found some way of escape from his intended imprisonment.

The Rev. J. C. Atkinson gives an account ('Zoologist,' vol. vii., p.

2338) of his terrier, which, on starting a water-rat out of reeds into the running stream, would not plunge directly after it, knowing that the rat would beat him at swimming. But the moment the rat plunged, the dog ran four or five yards down the bank, and there waited till the water-rat, being carried down stream, appeared upon the surface, when he pounced upon it successfully.

Cases of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely, and they appear to show a true faculty of reason or inferring.

Professor W. W. Bailey, writing from Brown University to 'Nature'

(xxii., p. 607), says:--

A friend of mine, a naturalist, and a very conscientious man, whose word can be implicitly trusted, gives the following, to which he was an eye-witness. His grandfather, then a very old but hale and hearty man, had a splendid Newfoundland. There was a narrow and precipitous road leading from the fields to the house. It was regarded as a very dangerous place. One day when the old gentleman was doing some work about the farm his horse became alarmed, and started off with the waggon along this causeway. The chances were that he would dash himself and the empty waggon to pieces. At once the dog seemed to take in the situation, although until that time he had been impa.s.sive. He started after the horse at full speed, overtook him, caught the bridle, and by his strength arrested the frightened creature until help could reach him. My friend gives many other stories of this fine dog, and thinks he had a decided sense of humour.

I will repeat that both of these tales come to me well authenticated, and I could, by seeking permission, give names and places.

Couch gives the following, which is worth quoting, as showing the intelligence of dogs in attacking unusual prey:--

On the first discovery of the prey (crabs) a terrier runs in to seize it, and is immediately and severely bitten in the nose. But a sedate Newfoundland dog of my acquaintance proceeds more soberly in his work. He lays his paw on it to arrest it in its escape; then tumbling it over he bares his teeth, and, seizing it with the mouth, throws the crab aloft. It falls upon the stones; the sh.e.l.l is cracked beyond redemption, and then the dainty dish is devoured at his leisure.[270]

I myself know a large dog in Germany which used to kill snakes by dexterously tossing them in the air a great number of times, too quickly to admit of the snake biting. When the snake was thus quite confused, the dog would tear it in pieces. This dog can never have been poisoned by the bite of a snake; but he seems to have had an instinctive idea that the snake might be more harmful in its bite than other animals; for while he was bold in fighting with dogs, and did not then object to receiving his fair share of laceration, he was extremely careful never to begin to tear a snake till he had thoroughly bewildered it by tossing it as described.

The reasoning displayed by dogs may not always be of a high order, but little incidents, from being of constant occurrence among all dogs, are the more important as showing the reasoning faculty to be general to these animals. I shall therefore give a few cases to show the kind of reasoning that is of constant occurrence.

Mr. Stone writes to me from Norbury Park concerning two of his dogs, one large and the other small. Both being in a room at the same time,