VERY WONDERFUL.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 622, 27 September 1909, Page 9

VERY WONDERFUL.

. '—— — -e ——— ; ft THE EDUCATION OF THE PUP. ' ~'lt is a very wonderful experience to watch tho devolopment of.a puppfs mind.M writes Mr. Hutohinson in a delightful article m .the Gazette."•."At'.the very first ho was just that stupid, unintelligent roll of canine. flesh that you would expect him to be." Ho hardly possessed tho sense to be frightened; you might brandish over him tho most appalling cudgel, and. ho would show: -no apprehension. Then, by degrees, m. his mind, you could porceivo tho birth and the development of the sense of fear—from nothing, as it seemed, until it became an entirely unreasonable sentiment, possessing the whole nature of" tho pup'andhavrng the .whole world for its object. Under its mfiuencehe began to go about with the most hang-dog and tail-depressed aspect, deeming not only every living thing, but even every stock and stono that caught his eye with any,suddenness, to be an enemy •■ *■' L-t ■, rt.'.WlPart, no doubt, of tho /reason (,f tnis. state of terrible fear, that he had no knowledgo of his possession of teeth that could inflict a pain and inspire terror on his own account; and, further, ' all, tho world' was strange, and had .all the terror of tho, unknown. He flow from other dog 3, when chance encounters , happened, until one great ,•> and : epoch-making,,doy,,in..his. lifo, on which ho met ono that, overtook him as ho fled, and cornered., him ; hopelessly. ' Then, snapping furiously his ,teeth'>et in tho flesh : of the other, which gave'a yowl of pain, and from henceforth the pup had found himself—ho had becomo a do ff . But many things had happened in tho long course of the becoming, and all this last is out of its duo place, i As, he grew to, assume,any coherent;shnpo and, attitude at all in his lyings down, so that he was not meroly a'roll of fat with self round, head to tail. 'And then, for no reason in particular-at least, nono-visible to ™m'„i ? n " er -> O , °«o day walked round and round in n circle, onco or. hvico repeated, be 4°whj»;h.is coil-,.There was no doubt-there could bo nono ;in tho mind of any who saw the act and , tho way it ■ was donn-tliat ho was here obeying an instinct commg to him from a habit formed by Wcestors .long ago, before the dog had :becoVne n domestir-atecf = creature (and \% know "that his -domesticity t began at V a -very early stage of tho human, story), of turning himself round ".-*»*«-.in, the' grass before settling so ns to form, for himself a bed fitted nicefy to colhin^ IIaPD : i / , > Udl . ;h0 -WM.WiiJto ."Thi'ii, oil another day, equally for no rcafi pr WP Hn S V«M first-come on this'day rather than yesterday or to-iriorrow M .tmini " hme - hich hB found and •loemjng, as may.be supposed, that hfi-had f n ° rwW nc , od > f f V craped a little hole bone therein. But he did not then go the length of burying t^'?S i'? ,i r at ' , S ßst how ' l should describe S.™™- & d ~fr he ;°ntentod himself with ther? n 1 " and P ladne • ' tte '' bon O

."Ho merely laid it on the baro earth.' But ht tiZ "'• d ?? th > at -W to bo had made the first step in tho direct on of burying and hiding, H s instinct had taken him To far as the digging of the hole, but not to the vXfi 01 !' '\ h ' ch a l onc - e01, . 1d .nake,th. nnto.i i j i •!• to ?'?' of CoT <!ring over the bone bo safe for hi Si own use and enjoyment when he,should need-.it. That fulii men? ■of tho action useful or/the preservation of his kind! was to come later, when the call of the ih stinct was louder: and more-definite"