REASON IN DOGS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1069, 20 October 1882, Page 4

REASON IN DOGS.

(Prom the Australasian.) Op the dtv' ns being aide to distinguish a likeness to theh”rr>-" c -m in works of art. we have, on the mthority of Mr, R. A. "Rackhous . the faci that ■once when ho had vobmi "it- d to watch all night at a local exhibition nf pie. tnres. statuary, etc., lie was awakened by (he barking of the dog accompanying him. who had met with a bust of ■Sir Walter Scott, partially concealed behind some evergreens ; and thinking perhaps, that such an intruder had no business on the premises at saeh an hour. at once save the alarm in the usual manner. Anent dogs recognising pictures, Mr instances a Dandle Dinmont teirier, who suddenly catching ■eight of a large photograph of h's mis Less that had been left standing on the ground leaning against a chair, ■-crouched and trembled all over, his whole body qnrve ing Then he crept along the floor until he reached the picture, and seating himself before it began to bark loudly, as if he would say, “Why don’t you Apeak to me?” "The picture was moved to other paita -of the room, and he followed, seating himself before it, and repeated h;s barking As we were reading this a largo black retriever was lying snugly sleeping on the hearthrug, while a pn-ian marb’e bust of ST- Walter Scott was standing on the mantlepiece We took down the latter and placed t mar the dog, without waking him ' Thia done, we called out “ Carlo,” and and the dog awoke. The first thing meeting his eyes was necessarily the bust, seeing which he sprang backward some feet, as though he wus confronted with a ghost, and then commenced to bark furiously. Nothing would induce him to approach the fannied appariation, and he would only return to his sleeping-place when the ' bust was restored to its old localitv on the mantelpiece. Upon replacing the same on fhe floor', Carlo displayed the same terror as before. This exhibition of terror at seeing ■ strange objects has often been displayed by the same dog on previous occasions. He has evidently an abject fear of a soap-bubble rolling on the ground, or even floating near him in 'he air ; while if shown an inflated indiaruhber haloon,he generally bolts from the room precipitately. A mysteriously moving object also similarly affects him, and for a long time nothing would induce him to touch a well■■C' vered bone which was being dragged slowly by means of a piece of black ■thread over the 'floor. It was only ■ after we on-selves picked up the -dainty morsel, and handed it to him ♦'that he seemed reconciled to the fact '-that he behe’d nothing supernatural, "This conclusion arrived, at he took the bone, and was as evidently determined ■ to hold and defend the same as dogs usually are Mr. George Co k relates that he recently had a pointer, which, one morning when the grass was covered with frost, dragged a mat out of his kennel to the lawn tv-neath the house windows, and utilised it as a bed Here, again, Carlo isnot outdone. He •generally sleeps upon a rug under the kitchen table. AVe have often seen him drag the rug out into the yard during the summer morphs, a> d lie • quietly down upon it. Once or twice, however, during the winter season he -seemed to ha» e business on hand that •oadi d him away from the premises for & time, the. result, as he came ho aviate, being that the door was shut against him A few nights afterwards ■we noticed that he dragged the mat Into the yard,and under a table standing there, previous to setting forth upon his travels. As the door was left open for him on his return, he -dragged the mat back again to its old place in the kitchen. Concerning the cleverness of dogs in finding their way by train, Miss C "Young tells us of a dog with a strong ’proclivity for railway riding. He tjumped into a carriage, following the ranrsemaid on a journey, and at the rend of a few mi ! es jumped out accidentally at a roadside station. Ma- y dogs ’Would have found their way home • easily ; hut Spot did not. On the contrary, he seems To have -caused no •Alight, anxiety in the household as to Ibis fate, unt’i the arrival of the last • evening train, out of which he jumped '-evidently dead beaten. The explanation given is, that the animal had tried vainly to "find hl« way home, but seeing fha’ all his efforts to do so were ’fruitless, he had as a last resource lan ’to the railway station, whereat he •waited till the carriages arrived, w i’hin one of which he ensconced him■flelf, thinking, there is no doubt, that «teara transit was a ' leasing, even to members of the canine species. It is on record, I believe, that there «sed to be a dog resident at the Spencer street station who was in the habit of taking daily trips into the country t>y train, either In the guard’s van or on the tender ot the engine. The peculiarity of the dog’s practice was sEhnt neither did he stick to one guard ■or driver, patronising all and all fines ■alike, nor did he generally ride the full journey. His general practice was to get out at some intermediare station, rush oft at full speed, as if on special \ usiness, which, having accompli.died, lie would return to the station later in ■the day, and calmly await the coming of the down train, into which ho would straight wav spring, and so return to •Melbourne in the usual way.

This was out' first acquaintance with “ I!oni>h” on the beach near Brighton some 27 years ago. . w e had sat down upon a stone, when suddenly wo were c> n'routed with a Scotch collie, who, lie i •/ a piece of stick at onr feet, be ■gun to bark furionaly, as if desire -is that we should throw it into the sea. For a time we paid no attention and hj caught us by the sleeve and tried thus more forcibly to attract our a' tent ion. Upon this we acceded to h's request, and for the rest of the day Bough and ourselves were inseparable companions. Save when he was in the water he was by our side all the way to St Kilda, at which place he evidently intended to cut our acquaintance, as, after a few wags of the tail he turned round as if about o make towards home. 's no calls of our own would induce him to more dum turn his head, as if to give us a parting glance, our firm belief was that we had lost sight of Roogh for ever. Hut it was not so. For months aftei wards we met Roi'gh waiting for ns on the beach, eve y Sunday; whether he made the journey from Brighton, whereat he lived, on other days does not appear. Rough was evidently an amateur swimmer madly fond of acqnatic exercise, of which he never seemed to have enough, save on one occasion, when, after , fetching out sticks about a hundred times, he positively refused to fetch out another, but, after barking for some time, caught hold of and tugged violently at our umbrella. Fancying he wished to carry it, wo allowed him t > take the evidently coveted article, and he did take it, but it was straight into the sea, into which he ran and swam for about 200 yards. He then dropped the umbrella, and commenced to bark again. Eventually he came on shore, but left the umbrella behind him in the water.and again commenced to bark around us. After some time we induced him to enter the sea once m re, and he swam towards the umbrella—as we hoped, to redeem it. Not so, however he simply lifted it in his mouth, as if to show us its whereabouts, and dropping it, again returned to the shore. Our opinion is that he wanted us to do a little fetch-and-carrying work for him, as he had done it for us. At any rite ho seemed disgusted at, something, since he straightway started oil' at a full trot and we never saw him again We subsequently heard that the dog had been stolen, and, having been taken to Sydney by steamer, had been sold to a station on the New South Wales side of the Murray. He had scarcely arrived there, however, when he to >k his departure, and after a time arrived ac his old master’s residence, foots re and weary, having, there is no doubt made an overland journey alone of over 300 miles. The.sagacity of these collie dogs is wonderful. Their skill in harking up stragglers that they never bite is well known. Mr Romanes gives an instance of a collie that, when a sheep was on its back, would straightway set the sheep on its legs again, if his master only said <l Cast, cast,” the pastoral term for such a predicament. Another dog of the same breed would watch for “ casts,” and amend matters othiso.vn accord. Another strange thing is told of these dogs. A gent'em.m, accompanied by a friend’s collie, went to look after his cattle. He found the ence between his farm and that of a neighbour broken down, and that the cattle had got intermixed through a gap in the fence. By the help of the dog the cattle were s-pe-rated. Next night the same person went out to look after his herd, but could not find the dog, so he set off without him. The surprise of the gentleman was somewhat great on finding that the dog lv>d preceded him, and hj id voluntarily taken up office as sentinel at the gap, so that not a single beast could pass. In Lord Brougham’s Dialogues on Instinct it is related that a dog that used to worry sheep was for the offeuce tied up at night. He submitted quietly to the operation, but when all in the house were asßep would slip his collar, and starting off would commit his usual depredations ; the wonder of the thing being that he would return, slip his head into the collar, and so sta d. looking innocent enough of anything like malpractices. More strange still, it is said that, sheepworrying dogs never worry the flock of their masters, but depart to a distance, and before they return wash themselves of all bloodstains, so as to avert discovery. The dog of the Rev Mr Taylor, of Colton, not only slipped his collar, but afterwards put on and readjusted a muzzle so as to avoid detection. Dogs are, it seems, not always to,be scared by apparently monstrous adversaries. A gentleman once said to me, as we, being trespassers on forbidden ground, were assailed by a tierce bull tender, “ I can alw i\ s frighten a dog by bending down, and looking at him with my head between my legs The experiment, was tried, hut the dog. instead of running away from the sin gnlar apparition, ran straight at it. The experimenter left the scene with a large piece of his coat tail in the month of the cm my. Generally speaking, a dog will bolt incontinently if the person he at tacks stoops down as if to pick up a stone. We once saw this dod e resorted to 1 y a poi son who had every confidence in his ultimate sue cess The manoeuvre, however, failed entirely. The stoopi g attitude was taken advantage of by the dog, who