Part 3

“There appears in this instance to have been a clear process of reasoning, accompanied by acute feeling, going on in the dog’s mind from the moment he bit me until he hit upon a plan of showing his regret and making reparation for his fault. It evidently occurred to him that I attached great importance to this footbath, and if he could convince me that his contrition was sincere, and that he was willing to submit to the process without a murmur, I should be satisfied. The dog, in this case, reasoned with perfect accuracy, and from his own premises deduced a legitimate conclusion which the result justified.”

I like to read of the dog who waited on the town clerk of Amesbury for his license. “The possessor of the dog in question is red-headed George Morrill, and red-headed George Morrills never (hardly ever) lie, and from him we learn the following facts: It appears that Mr. Morrill, who was busy at the time, and desired to have his pet properly licensed, wrote on a slip of paper as follows: ‘Mr. Collins, please give me my license. Charlie.’ Inclosing this, with two dollars, in an envelope, he gave it to the dog, telling him to go to Mr. Collins and get his license. On arriving at the town clerk’s office he found Mr. Collins busy, and being a well-bred dog waited until the gentleman was at liberty, when he made his presence known. Mr. Collins, observing the envelope in his mouth, took it, and immediately the dog assumed a sitting posture, remaining thus until the officer made out the proper license, and, inclosing this in an envelope, handed it to his dogship, who instantly raised himself to his full length, making a bow with his head, and, coming down to his natural position, wagged his tail satisfactorily and departed for home. The dog is well known on the street for his sagacity and intelligence, but this has rather capped any of his previous performances.”

One of the best stories about the intelligence of dogs which has been told for some time was repeated a few days ago by an officer of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. He said that one of the men in the passenger department had a dog that could tell the time of day. The owner of the dog had a fine clock in his office, and he got into the habit of making the dog tap with his paw at each stroke of the clock. After a while the dog did so without being told, and as the clock gave a little cluck just before striking, the dog would get into position, prick up his ears, and tap out the time. If the clock had struck one and a little while afterward his owner imitated the preliminary cluck of the clock, the dog would give two taps with his paw, and so on for any hour. He knew just how the hours ran and how many taps to give for each one.

We must of course believe a clergyman’s story of a dog, the Rev. C. J. Adams, in The Dog Fancier:

“Not ‘Tige,’ concerning whom I have told a number of stories in this department. Tiger is another dog, and a fine fellow he is. His hair is short, and he is as black as night. I have met him but once, and that was at a clericus at the house of his master—the Rev. Peter Claude Creveling, at Cornwall, N. Y. He is probably four feet and a half long as to his body. He stands nearly as high as an ordinary table. He has a fine head—wonderfully large brain chambers. His eyes are extremely intelligent and expressive. His master loves him with a great, boisterous love characteristic of the man—who will be a great, attractive, lovable boy when he is eighty. I greet him, and hope that he may abide in the flesh till he is one hundred and eighty. But I took up my pen to write about the dog—not the master. The dog and the master are well mated. Tiger is the dog for the master, and Mr. Creveling is the master for the dog. We hardly ever meet but before we are through shaking hands Mr. Creveling begins telling me something about Tiger. This occurred, as usual, at a hotel where I was entertaining the clergy a month or so ago. The story was wonderful, and is vouched for by reliable witnesses.

“Tiger occupies the same room with Mr. and Mrs. Creveling at night. A sheet is spread for him on the floor beside the bed. They think as much of him as they would of a child. When he is restless during the night, Mr. Creveling will put his hand out and pat his head, speaking to him soothingly. During the day the sheet on which Tiger sleeps ‘o’ nights’ is kept under a washstand. This much, that what follows may be understood. Now, on a certain Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Creveling, the young lady, and all other members of the household were away—excepting Tiger. He was left locked in the house. When they returned, and Mrs. Creveling went to her room, she found that Tiger had spent a good portion of the time of his incarceration in that room and on the bed. The bed was in a very tumbled and not very clean condition—the condition in which the occupancy of such a dog would naturally leave it—a condition which any careful housewife can easily imagine—and which she can not imagine without a shudder. Mrs. Creveling cried out. Mr. Creveling came running. After him came Tiger. Mr. Creveling said: ‘Tiger, Tiger, see what you have done! You have ruined your missie’s bed. Tiger, Tiger, I feel like crying!’ Tiger’s head and tail both dropped. Without saying another word, Mr. Creveling went down stairs and into his study, threw himself on a large sofa, and covered his face and pretended to cry. Tiger, who had followed him, threw himself down on a rug beside the sofa and cried too. Mr. Creveling had faith in the dog’s intelligence. He believed that he had learned a lesson.

“Within a few days the family were all away again. Again Tiger was left in the house alone. When the family returned, Mrs. Creveling again went to her room. Tiger had been there again in her absence. He had again been on the bed. But Tiger’s sheet—the one upon which he slept at night was there too. And the sheet was spread out, covering the bed. And there had been no one to spread out the sheet for Tiger. He had spread it out for himself. Is not here a display of intelligence—of intelligence in activity in employment—of reason? What had Tiger done? He had put his nose under the washstand and pulled the sheet out. He had put the sheet on the bed. He had spread the sheet out over the bed. What had been Tiger’s train of thought? This, or something very much like it: ‘I want to lie on that bed because it reminds me of my absent master and mistress. But I don’t dare to do so. I will give offence if I do so. I will be punished. Why am I not wanted to lie on the bed? Because I soil it. What shall I do? There is the sheet—my sheet. They don’t care if I lie on that. I will spread the sheet over the bed. What a great head I have!’ The reader understands, of course, that I am not claiming that Tiger has sufficient command of the English language to even subjectively express himself as I have represented him. I have only tried to bring as strongly as possible to the reader’s mind the fact that a train of thought must have passed through the dog’s mind. And a train of thought could not pass through his mind if he hadn’t a mind. Having a mind, then what? He thinks. He reasons. What else? If my mind is immortal why not Tiger’s? And remember that I can prove the truth of every detail of this story by three witnesses—Mr. Creveling, his wife, and his wife’s friend. No court would ask more.”

Jules Janin’s dog made him a literary man. His favourite walk was in Luxembourg Garden, where he was delighted to see his dog gambol. The dog made another dog’s acquaintance, and they became so attached to each other that their masters were brought together and became friends. The new friend urged him to better his fortunes by writing for the newspapers, and introduced him to La Lorgnette, from which time he constantly rose. In 1828 he was appointed dramatic critic of the Journal des États, and his popularity there lasted undiminished for twenty years.

London has a home for lost and starving dogs, for the benefit of which a concert was recently given. Had Richard Wagner been alive, he would have doubtless bought a box for this occasion. One of the greatest sorrows of his life was the temporary loss of his Newfoundland dog in London.

Here is a quaint story which shows the gentle Elia in a most characteristic way: “Just before the Lambs quitted the metropolis,” says Pitman, “they came to spend a day with me at Fulham and brought with them a companion, who, dumb animal though he was, had for some time past been in the habit of giving play to one of Charles Lamb’s most amiable characteristics—that of sacrificing his own feelings and inclinations to those of others. This was a large and very handsome dog, of a rather curious and sagacious breed, which had belonged to Thomas Hood, and at the time I speak of, and to oblige both dog and master, had been transferred to the Lambs, who made a great pet of him, to the entire disturbance and discomfiture, as it appeared, of all Lamb’s habits of life, but especially of that most favourite and salutary of all—his long and heretofore solitary suburban walks; for Dash—that was the dog’s name—would never allow Lamb to quit the house without him, and when out, would never go anywhere but precisely where it pleased himself. The consequence was, that Lamb made himself a perfect slave to this dog, who was always half a mile off from his companion, either before or behind, scouring the fields or roads in all directions, up and down ‘all manner of streets,’ and keeping his attendant in a perfect fever of anxiety and irritation from his fear of losing him on the one hand, and his reluctance to put the needful restraint upon him on the other. Dash perfectly well knew his host’s amiable weakness in this respect, and took a doglike advantage of it. In the Regent’s Park, in particular, Dash had his _quasi_-master completely at his mercy, for the moment they got within the ring he used to squeeze himself through the railing and disappear for half an hour together in the then inclosed and thickly planted greensward, knowing perfectly well that Lamb did not dare to move from the spot where he (Dash) had disappeared, till he thought proper to show himself again. And they used to take this walk oftener than any other, precisely because Dash liked it, and Lamb did not.”

Beecher said that “in evolution, the dog got up before the door was shut.” If there were not reason, mirthfulness, love, honour, and fidelity in a dog, he did not know where to look for them, And Huxley has devoted much attention to the study of canine ability. He once illustrated, by the skeleton of the animal being raised on hind legs, that in internal construction the only difference between man and dog was one of size and proportion. There was not a bone in one which did not exist in the other, not a single constituent in the one that was not to be found in the other, and by the same process he could prove that the dog had a mind. His own dog was certainly not a mere piece of animate machinery. He once possessed a dog which he frequently left among the thousands frequenting Regent’s Park to secrete himself behind a tree. So soon as the animal found that he had lost his master, he laid his nose to the ground and soon tracked him to his hiding place. He believed there was no fundamental faculty connected with the reasoning powers that might not be demonstrated to exist in dogs. He did not believe that dogs ever took any pleasure in music; but this seems not to be always the case. Adelaide Phillips, the famous contralto, told me that her splendid Newfoundland Cæsar was quite a musician. She gave him singing lessons regularly. “I see him now,” she said, “his fore paws resting on my knee. I would say: ‘Now the lesson begins. Look at me, sir. Do as I do.’ Then I would run down the scale in thirds, and Cæsar, with head thrown back and swaying from side to side, would really sing the scale. He would sing the air of The Brook very correctly. But it was the best sport to see him attempt the operatic.” Here her gestures became showy and impressive, as if on the stage, and her mimicking of the dog’s efforts to follow her were comical in the extreme. Sometimes (so quickly did he catch all the tricks of the profession) he would not sing until urged again and again. Sometimes he would be “out of voice,” and make most discordant sounds. He has an honoured grave at her country home in Marshfield, where Webster also put up a stone in memory of his horse Greatheart.

Charlotte Cushman loved animals, especially dogs and horses; and her blue Skye terrier Bushie, with her human eyes and uncommon intelligence, has a permanent place in the memoirs of her mistress. Miss Cushman would say, “Play the piano, Bushie,” and Bush knew perfectly well what was meant, and would go through the performance, adding a few recitative barks with great gravity and _éclat_. The phrase “human eyes” recalls what Blackmore, the novelist—who has a genuine, loving appreciation of our dear dumb animals—says of a dog in Christowell: “No lady in the land has eyes more lucid, loving, eloquent, and even if she had, they would be as nothing without the tan spots over them.”

Patti has many pets, and always takes some dog with her on her travels, causing great commotion at hotels. She also leaves many behind her as a necessity. She has an aviary at her castle in Wales, and owns several most loquacious parrots.

Miss Mitford’s gushing eulogy upon one of her numerous dogs is too extravagant to be quoted at length: “There never was such a dog. His temper was, beyond comparison, the sweetest ever known. Nobody ever saw him out of humour, and his sagacity was equal to his temper.... I shall miss him every moment of my life. We covered his dead body with flowers; every flower in the garden. Everybody loved him, dear saint, as I used to call him, and as I do not doubt he now is. Heaven bless him, beloved angel!”

Mr. Fields writes: “Miss Mitford used to write me long letters about Fanchon, a dog whose personal acquaintance I had made some time before while on a visit to her cottage. Every virtue under heaven she attributed to that canine individual, and I was obliged to allow in my return letters that since our planet began to spin nothing comparable to Fanchon had ever run on four legs.”

Mrs. Browning was fond of pets, especially of her dog Flush, presented by Miss Mitford, which she has immortalized in a sonnet and a long and exquisite poem:

FLUSH OR FAUNUS.

You see this dog. It was but yesterday I mused forgetful of his presence here; Till thought on thought drew downward tear on tear; When from the pillow, where wet-cheeked I lay, A head as hairy as Faunus’ thrust its way Right sudden against my face, two golden, clear, Great eyes astonished mine; a drooping ear Did flap me on either cheek to dry the spray. I started first; as some Arcadian Amazed by goatly god in twilight grove; But as the bearded vision closelier ran My tears off, I knew Flush, and rose above Surprise and sadness; thanking the true Pan Who by low creatures leads to heights of love.

The poem is equally beautiful:

TO FLUSH, MY DOG.

Other dogs may be thy peers Haply in these drooping ears And this glossy fairness.

But of _thee_ it shall be said, This dog watched beside a bed Day and night unweary; Watched within a curtained room, Where no sunbeam brake the gloom Round the sick and weary.

Roses gathered for a vase In that chamber died apace, Beam and breeze resigning; This dog only waited on, Knowing that when light is gone Love remains for shining.

Other dogs in thymy dew Tracked the hares and followed through Sunny moor or meadow; This dog only crept and crept Next a languid cheek that slept, Sharing in the shadow.

Other dogs of loyal cheer Bounded at the whistle clear, Up the woodside hieing; This dog only watched in reach Of a faintly uttered speech, Or a louder sighing.

And if one or two quick tears Dropped upon his glossy ears, Or a sigh came double, Up he sprang in eager haste, Fawning, fondling, breathing fast In a tender trouble.

And this dog was satisfied If a pale, thin hand would glide Down his dewlaps sloping, Which he pushed his nose within, After platforming his chin On the palm left open.

This dog, if a friendly voice Call him now to blither choice Than such chamber keeping, “Come out,” praying from the door, Presseth backward as before, Up against me leaping.

Therefore to this dog will I, Tenderly, not scornfully, Render praise and favour; With my hand upon his head, Is my benediction said, Therefore and forever.

· · · · ·

Mrs. Browning said in a note to this poem: “This dog was the gift of my dear and admired friend, Miss Mitford, and belongs to the beautiful race she has rendered celebrated among English and American readers.”

Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, addressed a long poem to his dog, ending:

When my last bannock’s on the hearth, Of that thou canna want thy share; While I ha’e house or hauld on earth, My Hector shall ha’e shelter there.

Another favourite was honoured by Dr. Holland, the essayist, lecturer, magazine editor, and poet:

TO MY DOG BLANCO.

My dear, dumb friend, low lying there, A willing vassal at my feet, Glad partner of my home and fare, My shadow in the street.

I look into your great brown eyes, Where love and loyal homage shine, And wonder where the difference lies Between your soul and mine!

For all of good that I have found Within myself or human kind, Hath royally informed and crowned Your gentle heart and mind.

I scan the whole broad earth around For that one heart which, leal and true, Bears friendship without end or bound, And find the prize in you.

I trust you as I trust the stars; Nor cruel loss, nor scoff of pride, Nor beggary, nor dungeon bars, Can move you from my side!

As patient under injury As any Christian saint of old, As gentle as a lamb with me, But with your brothers bold;

More playful than a frolic boy, More watchful than a sentinel, By day and night your constant joy To guard and please me well.

I clasp your head upon my breast— The while you whine and lick my hand— And thus our friendship is confessed, And thus we understand!

Ah, Blanco! did I worship God As truly as you worship me, Or follow where my Master trod With your humility—

Did I sit fondly at his feet, As you, dear Blanco, sit at mine, And watch him with a love as sweet, My life would grow divine!

Maria Edgeworth wrote to her aunt, Mrs. Ruxton, in 1819, “I see my little dog on your lap, and feel your hand patting his head, and hear your voice telling him that it is for Maria’s sake he is there.”

What a pathetic friendship existed between Emily Brontë and the dog whom she was sure could understand every word she said to him! “She always fed the animals herself; the old cat; Flossy, her favourite spaniel; Keeper, the fierce bulldog, her own constant dear companion, whose portrait, drawn by her own spirited hand, is still extant. And the creatures on the moor were all in a sense her pets and familiar with her. The intense devotion of this silent woman to all manner of dumb creatures has something almost inexplicable. As her old father and her sisters followed her to the grave they were joined by another mourner, Keeper, Emily’s dog. He walked in front of all, first in the rank of mourners, and perhaps no other creature had loved the dead woman quite so well. When they had laid her to sleep in the dark, airless vault under the church, and when they had crossed the bleak churchyard and had entered the empty house again, Keeper went straight to the door of the room where his mistress used to sleep, and laid down across the threshold. There he howled piteously for many days, knowing not that no lamentations could wake her any more.”

Dogs were supposed by the ancient Gaels to know of the death of a friend, however far they might be separated. But this is getting too gloomy. Do you know how the proverb originated “as cold as a dog’s nose”? An old verse tells us:

There sprang a leak in Noah’s ark, Which made the dog begin to bark; Noah took his nose to stop the hole, And hence his nose is always cold.

No one has expressed more appreciation of the noble qualities of dogs than the abstracted, philosophic Wordsworth.

INCIDENT

_Characteristic of a Favourite Dog._

On his morning rounds the master Goes to learn how all things fare; Searches pasture after pasture, Sheep and cattle eyes with care; And, for silence or for talk, He hath comrades in his walk; Four dogs, each pair of different breed, Distinguished two for scent and two for speed.

See a hare before him started! Off they fly in earnest chase; Every dog is eager-hearted, All the four are in the race: And the hare whom they pursue, Hath an instinct what to do; Her hope is near: no turn she makes; But, like an arrow, to the river takes.

Deep the river was, and crusted Thinly by a one night’s frost; But the nimble hare hath trusted To the ice, and safely crost; She hath crossed, and without heed All are following at full speed, When, lo! the ice, so thinly spread, Breaks—and the greyhound, Dart, is over head!

Better fate have Prince and Swallow— See them cleaving to the sport! Music has no heart to follow, Little Music, she stops short. She hath neither wish nor heart, Hers is now another part: A loving creature she, and brave! And fondly strives her struggling friend to save.

From the brink her paws she stretches, Very hands as you would say! And afflicting moans she fetches, As he breaks the ice away. For herself she hath no fears, Him alone she sees and hears, Makes efforts and complainings; nor gives o’er Until her fellow sank, and reappeared no more.

TRIBUTE

_To the Memory of the Same Dog._