The Dog Megapack

by Robert Reginald

  It is, I believe, a fact, and if so, it is a curious one, that the dog in a wild state only howls; but when he becomes the friend and companion of man, he has then wants and wishes, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, to which in his wilder state he appears to have been a stranger. His vocabulary, if it may be so called, then increases, in order to express his enlarged and varying emotions. He anticipates rewards and punishments, and learns to solicit the former and deprecate the latter. He bounds exultingly forth to accompany his master in his walks, rides, and sports of the field. He acts as the faithful guardian of his property. He is his fireside companion, evidently discerns days of household mirth or grief, and deports himself accordingly. Hence, his energies and his sensibilities are all expanded, and what he feels he seeks to tell in various accents, and in different ways. For instance, our little dog comes and pulls his mistress’s gown and makes significant whines, if anyone is in or about the premises whom he thinks has no right to be there. I have seen a dog pick up a stick and bring it in his mouth to his master, looking at the water first and then at his master, evidently that the stick might be thrown into it, that he might have the pleasure of swimming after it. In my younger days, I was in the habit of teasing a favorite dog by twitching his nose and pretending to pull his ears. He would snap gently at me, but if, by accident, he gave me rather a harder bite than he had intended, he became instantly aware of it, and expressed his regret in a way not to be mistaken. Dogs who have hurt or cut themselves will submit patiently while the wound is being dressed, however much the operation may hurt them. They become instantly sensible that no punishment is intended to be inflicted, and I have seen them lick the hand of the operator, as if grateful for what he was doing. Those who are in the habit of having dogs constantly in the room with them, will have perceived how alive they are to the slightest change in the countenance of their master; how gently they will touch him with their paw when he is eating, in order to remind him of their own want of food; and how readily they distinguish the movements of any inmate of the house from those of a stranger. These, and many other circumstances which might be mentioned, show a marked distinction between a domesticated dog and one that is wild, or who has lived with people who are in an uncivilized state, such as the Esquimaux, &c. Both the wild and domestic dog, however, appear to be possessed of and to exercise forethought. They will bury or hide food, which they are unable to consume at once, and return for it. But the domestic dog, perhaps, gives stronger proofs of forethought; and I will give an instance of it. A large metal pot, turned on one side, in which a great quantity of porridge had been boiled, was set before a Newfoundland puppy of three or four months old. At first, he contented himself by licking off portions of the oatmeal which adhered to the interior, but finding this unsatisfactory, he scraped the morsels with his fore-paws into a heap, and then ate the whole at once. I had a dog, who, having once scalded his tongue, always afterwards, when I gave him his milk and water at breakfast, put his paw very cautiously into the saucer, to see if the liquid was too hot, before he would touch it with his tongue.

  Dogs have frequently been known to hunt in couples; that is, to assist each other in securing their prey: thus associating together and admitting of no partnership.

  At Palermo, in Sicily, there is an extraordinary quantity of dogs wandering about without owners. Amongst the number, two more particularly distinguished themselves for their animosity to cats. One day they were in pursuit of a cat, which, seeing no other place of refuge near, made her escape into a long earthen water-pipe which was lying on the ground. These two inseparable companions, who always supported each other, pursued the cat to the pipe, where they were seen to stop, and apparently to consult each other as to what was to be done to deceive and get possession of the poor cat. After they had stood a short time they divided, taking post at each end of the pipe, and began to back alternately, thus giving the cat reason to suppose that they were both at one end, in order to induce her to come out. This maneuver had a successful result, and the cheated cat left her hiding-place. Scarcely had she ventured out, when she was seized by one of the dogs; the other hastened to his assistance, and in a few moments deprived her of life.

  The memory of dogs is quite extraordinary, and only equaled by that of the elephant. Mr. Swainson, in his work on the instincts of animals, gives the following proof of this. He says that “A spaniel belonging to the Rev. H. N., being always told that he must not follow his master to church on Sundays, used on those days to set off long before the service, and lie concealed under the hedge, so near the church, that at length the point was yielded to him.” My little parlor dog never offers to go with me on a Sunday, although on other days he is perfectly wild to accompany me in my walks.

  In my younger days I had a favorite dog, which always accompanied me to church. My mother, seeing that he attracted too much of my attention, ordered the servant to shut him up every Sunday morning. This was done once, but never afterwards; for he concealed himself early every Sunday morning, and I was sure to find him either under my seat at church, or else at the church-door. That dogs clearly distinguish the return of Sunday cannot be doubted.

  The almost incredible penetration and expedition with which dogs are known to return to their former homes, from places to which they have been sent, or carried in such a recluse way as not to retain a trace of the road, will ever continue to excite the greatest admiration.

  A dog having been given by a gentleman at Wivenhoe to the captain of a collier, he took the dog on board his vessel, and landed him at Sunderland; but soon after his arrival there the dog was missing, and in a very few days arrived at the residence of his old master, in Essex. A still more extraordinary circumstance is upon record, of the late Colonel Hardy, who, having been sent for express to Bath, was accompanied by a favorite spaniel bitch in his chaise, which he never quitted till his arrival there. After remaining there four days, he accidentally left his spaniel behind him, and returned to his residence at Springfield, in Essex, with equal expedition; where, in three days after, his faithful and steady adherent arrived also, notwithstanding the distance between that place and Bath is 140 miles, and she had to explore her way through London, to which she had never been, except in her passage to Bath, and then within the confines of a close carriage.

  In the small town of Melbourne, in Derbyshire, cocks and hens may be seen running about the streets. One day a game cock attacked a small bantam, and they fought furiously, the bantam having, of course, the worst of it. Some persons were standing about looking at the fight, when my informant’s house-dog suddenly darted out, snatched up the bantam in his mouth, and carried it into the house. Several of the spectators followed, believing that the poor fowl would be killed and eaten by the dog; but his intentions were of a more benevolent nature. After guarding the entrance of the kennel for some time, he trotted down the yard into the street, looked about to the right and left, and seeing that the coast was clear, he went back again, and once more returning with his protégé in his mouth, safely deposited him in the street, and then walked quietly away. How few human beings would have acted as this dog had done!

  Here is another curious anecdote from Mr. Davy’s work. He says that the cook in the house of a friend of his, a lady on whose accuracy he could rely, and from whom he had the anecdote, missed a marrow-bone. Suspicion fell on a well-behaved dog—a great favorite, and up to that time distinguished for his honesty. He was charged with the theft; he hung down his tail, and for a day or two was altered in his manner, having become shy, sullen, and sheepish, to use these expressions for want of better. In this mood he continued, till, to the amusement of the cook, he brought back the bone and laid it at her feet. Then, with the restoration of her stolen property, he resumed his cheerful manner. How can we interpret this conduct of the dog, better than by supposing that he was aware he had done amiss, and that the evil doing preyed on him till he had made restitution? Was not this a kind of moral sense?

  If a dog finds a bone whi
le he is accompanying his master in a walk, he does not stay behind to gnaw it, but runs some distance in advance, attacks the bone, waits till his master comes up, and then proceeds forward again with it. By acting in this manner, he never loses sight of his master.

  A dog has been known to convey food to another of his species who was tied up and pining for want of it. A dog has frequently been seen to plunge voluntarily into a rapid stream, to rescue another that was in danger of drowning. He has defended helpless curs from the attacks of other dogs, and learns to apportion punishment according to the provocation received, frequently disdaining to exercise his power and strength on a weaker adversary. Repeated provocation will, however, excite revenge. For instance, a Newfoundland dog was quietly eating his mess of broth and broken scraps. While so employed, a turkey endeavored to share the meal with him. The dog growled, and displayed his teeth. The intruder retired for a moment, but quickly returned to the charge, and was again “warned off,” with a like result. After three or four attempts of the same kind, the dog became provoked, gave a sudden ferocious growl, bit off the delinquent’s head, and then quietly finished his meal, without bestowing any further attention on his victim.

  The celebrated Leibnitz related to the French Academy an account of a dog he had seen which was taught to speak, and could call in an intelligible manner for tea, coffee, chocolate, &c.

  The dog was of a middling size, and the property of a peasant in Saxony. A little boy, the peasant’s son, imagined that he perceived in the dog’s voice an indistinct resemblance to certain words, and was, therefore, determined to teach him to speak distinctly. For this purpose he spared neither time nor pains with his pupil, who was about three years old when his learned education commenced; and at length he made such progress in language, as to be able to articulate no less than thirty words. It appears, however, that he was somewhat of a truant, and did not very willingly exert his talents, being rather pressed into the service of literature, and it was necessary that the words should be first pronounced to him each time before he spoke. The French Academicians who mention this anecdote, add, that unless they had received the testimony of so great a man as Leibnitz, they should scarcely have dared to relate the circumstance.

  An invalid gentleman, who resided for some years on Ham Common, in Surrey, had a dog which distinctly pronounced John, William, and two or three other words. A medical friend of mine, who attended this gentleman, has frequently heard the animal utter these words; and a female relative of his, who was often on a visit at his house, assures me of the fact. Indeed it need not be doubted.

  These are the only two instances I have met with of talking dogs, but my brother had a beautiful little spaniel, named Doll, who was an indefatigable hunter after woodcocks and snipes. Doll would come home in the evening after a hard day’s sport, wet, tired and dirty, and then deposit herself on the rug before the fire. Happening one day to pull her ear gently when in this state, she expressed her dislike to be disturbed by a sort of singing noise. By repeating this from day to day, and saying “Sing, Doll,” she would utter notes of a somewhat musical tone, and continue for some time after I had ceased to touch her ear, to the amusement and surprise of those who heard her. Poor Doll! I shall never see your like again, either for beauty or intelligence. If she was affronted she would come to me, at a distance of four miles, remain some time, and then return to her master.

  A small cur, blind of one eye, lame, ugly, old, and somewhat selfish, yet possessed of great shrewdness, was usually fed with three large dogs. Watching his opportunity, he generally contrived to seize the best bit of offal or bone, with which he retreated into a recess, the opening to which was so small that he knew the other dogs could not follow him into it, and where he enjoyed his repast without the fear of molestation.

  Early habits predominate strongly in dogs, and indeed in other animals. At the house of a gentleman in Wexford, out of four dogs kept to guard the premises, three of them would always wag their tails, and express what might be called civility, on the approach of any well-dressed visitors; manifesting, on the other hand, no very friendly feelings towards vagrants or ill-dressed people. The fourth—a sort of fox-hound—which, as a puppy, had belonged to a poor man, always seemed to recognize beggars and ill-dressed passengers as old familiar friends, growling at well-attired strangers, barking vehemently at gigs, and becoming almost frantic with rage at a four-wheeled carriage.

  The olfactory nerves of a dog are quite extraordinary, and it is said that, making allowance for difference of corporeal bulk, they are about four times larger than those of a man. Some dogs, however, seem to excel in acuteness of hearing, and others in peculiar powers of vision.

  We quote the following from the Percy Anecdotes:—

  “One day, when Dumont, a tradesman of the Rue St. Denis, was walking in the Boulevard St. Antoine with a friend, he offered to lay a wager with the latter, that if he were to hide a six-livre piece in the dust, his dog would discover and bring it to him. The wager was accepted, and the piece of money secreted, after being carefully marked. When the two had proceeded some distance from the spot, M. Dumont called to his dog that he had lost something, and ordered him to seek it. Caniche immediately turned back, and his master and his companion pursued their walk to the Rue St. Denis. Meanwhile a traveler, who happened to be just then returning in a small chaise from Vincennes, perceived the piece of money, which his horse had kicked from its hiding-place; he alighted, took it up, and drove to his inn, in the Rue Pont-aux-Choux. Caniche had just reached the spot in search of the lost piece when the stranger picked it up. He followed the chaise, went into the inn, and stuck close to the traveler. Having scented out the coin which he had been ordered to bring back in the pocket of the latter, he leaped up incessantly at and about him. The traveler, supposing him to be some dog that had been lost or left behind by his master, regarded his different movements as marks of fondness; and as the animal was handsome, he determined to keep him. He gave him a good supper, and on retiring to bed took him with him to his chamber. No sooner had he pulled off his breeches, than they were seized by the dog; the owner conceiving that he wanted to play with them, took them away again. The animal began to bark at the door, which the traveler opened, under the idea that the dog wanted to go out. Caniche snatched up the breeches, and away he flew. The traveler posted after him with his night-cap on, and literally sans culottes. Anxiety for the fate of a purse full of gold Napoleons, of forty francs each, which was in one of the pockets, gave redoubled velocity to his steps. Caniche ran full speed to his master’s house, where the stranger arrived a moment afterwards, breathless and enraged. He accused the dog of robbing him. ‘Sir,’ said the master, ‘my dog is a very faithful creature; and if he has run away with your breeches, it is because you have in them money which does not belong to you.’ The traveler became still more exasperated. ‘Compose yourself, sir,’ rejoined the other, smiling; ‘without doubt there is in your purse a six-livre piece, with such and such marks, which you have picked up in the Boulevard St. Antoine, and which I threw down there with the firm conviction that my dog would bring it back again. This is the cause of the robbery which he has committed upon you.’ The stranger’s rage now yielded to astonishment; he delivered the six-livre piece to the owner, and could not forbear caressing the dog which had given him so much uneasiness, and such an unpleasant chase.”

  A gentleman in Cornwall possessed a dog, which seemed to set a value on white and shining pebble stones, of which he had made a large collection in a hole under an old tree. A dog in Regent Street is said to have barked with joy on hearing the wheels of his master’s carriage driven to the door, when he could not by any possibility see the vehicle, and while many other carriages were at the time passing and repassing. This, I believe, is a fact by no means uncommon.

  My retriever will carry an egg in his mouth to a great distance, and during a considerable length of time, without ever breaking or even cracking the shell. A small bird having escaped from its
cage and fallen into the sea, a dog conveyed it in his mouth to the ship, without doing it the slightest injury.

  A DOG OF FLANDERS, by Ouida

  Nello and Patrasche were left all alone in the world.

  They were friends in a friendship closer than brotherhood. Nello was a little Ardennois—Patrasche was a big Fleming. They were both of the same age by length of years, yet one was still young, and the other was already old. They had dwelt together almost all their days: both were orphaned and destitute, and owed their lives to the same hand. It had been the beginning of the tie between them, their first bond of sympathy; and it had strengthened day by day, and had grown with their growth, firm and indissoluble, until they loved one another very greatly. Their home was a little hut on the edge of a little village—a Flemish village a league from Antwerp, set amidst flat breadths of pasture and corn-lands, with long lines of poplars and of alders bending in the breeze on the edge of the great canal which ran through it. It had about a score of houses and homesteads, with shutters of bright green or sky-blue, and roofs rose-red or black and white, and walls white-washed until they shone in the sun like snow. In the center of the village stood a windmill, placed on a little moss-grown slope: it was a landmark to all the level country round. It had once been painted scarlet, sails and all, but that had been in its infancy, half a century or more earlier, when it had ground wheat for the soldiers of Napoleon; and it was now a ruddy brown, tanned by wind and weather. It went queerly by fits and starts, as though rheumatic and stiff in the joints from age, but it served the whole neighborhood, which would have thought it almost as impious to carry grain elsewhere as to attend any other religious service than the mass that was performed at the altar of the little old gray church, with its conical steeple, which stood opposite to it, and whose single bell rang morning, noon, and night with that strange, subdued, hollow sadness which every bell that hangs in the Low Countries seems to gain as an integral part of its melody.