REVIEW.—DOG LIFE.*

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4565, 6 November 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

REVIEW.—DOG LIFE.*

(From the Aryus.) Probably a good many staid, serious, slowthinking, sober-minded people received a severe shock about three yearn ago by the publication in so respectable and orthodox a periodical as the Quarterly Review of an article on the consciousness of dogs, designed to show that there is a real correspondence and similarity between the mental feelings and processes of the lower animals and our own, and that this similarity is more especially obvious when we come to compare canine with human thoughts and actions. The reviewer succeeded in demonstrating—at any rate to the entire satisfaction of all who have had plenty of opportunities of studying dog nature—that this intelligent animal is susceptible of gratitude, regret, oxief, fear, pride, and shame \ that he exhibits courage, fortitude, faith, hope, obedience, chivalry, and magnanimity ; that he has a sense of propriety, and is alive to humor ; and that he possesses the histrionic faculty in a very high degree ; and a truly religious sentiment, i.e., affection for his fellow-creatures, and the capacity of selfsacrifice for others to an extraordinary extent. He has memory, judgment, and imagination ; and he conducts his mental processes with the disadvantage of being unable to “ think in words although this is a mere gratuitous assumption on the part of his human observer's, for there is no fact more solidly established than this—that dogs have the power of communicating ideas to each other, and must possess some method of narrating a whole series of events, as well as of concerting a detailed plan of operations. A mastiff and a terrier have been known to confederate together for poaching purposes, the large dog lying perdu, at a point previously agreed upon between them. The terrier would start a hare, and chase it in the direction of his more powerful friend, who would take up the running just when puss was becoming weary, would capture and kill her, and then divide the spoil amicably with his small comrade. And these proceedings were systematically pursued for some time before the culprits were detected. Again, it would be unreasonable to conclude that animals which are capable of understanding the human language are unable to understand each other. The fact is, we know so little of our own sensorial organs, that it would be the height of rashness to dogmatise concerning those of the creatures below us. One thing, however, has forced itself upon the attention of naturalists, and that is, that in many of the lowest forms of life the tactile supplies the place of the visual sense. Numberless molluscs see with their feelers, while the ants appear to converse with their antennae, and as the utmost range of human hearing is only nine octaves, we may well believe that there are numberless articulate sounds outside of this compass to which we are altogether deaf ; just as there may be colors other than those which are comprehended by the solar spectrum, to which we are entirely blind. In fact, we are constantly reminded not only of the imperfection of our faculties, but of the extremely narrow bounds within which they are circumscribed.

As regards the dog's familiarity -with human language, it is almost superfluous to cite proofs, because abundant evidence of it is forthcoming from our daily experience. But one or two striking instances deserve to be adduced. Jas. Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, had a sheep-dog named Hector, in whose presence one day he casually remarked to his mother—" I'm going to Bower-hope for a fortnight, but I shan't take Hector, for he is always quarrelling with other dogs." Next morning the dog disappeared ; and when Hogg arrived at Bower-hope, Hector was there, placidly couched on a knoll. The river was' so swollen that the shepherd had to walk up to St. Mary's Lake, and take a boat there. "Yet, large as the stream was," he observes, " Hector swam across, and was sitting composedly, awaiting my appearance." Hogg also mentions that a friend of his, a farmer, " had a dog which, on his absences from home, always met him on his return, never mistaking the day. But the dog could not possibly have known the day, except by listening to what was said in the family circle." The Rev. J. G. Wood speaks of a French dog in his neighborhood who was in a very uneasy state of mind for some time after he came to England. "He did not know English, and was as puzzled as if he had been a human being under similar circumstances. If addressed in French he seemed quite delighted and at his ease, but it it was not for some time that he learned English sufficiently to be comfortable." A precisely similar incident is related by Elourens in his treatise X)e Vlnstinct et dc I Intelligence des Animaux. The Kev. Csesar Otway has recorded the particulars of a murder having been frustrated by a mastiff, which, on a particular night, rushed into his master's bedroom, took refuge under the bed, and resisted every effort to draw him thence. In the middle of the night the sleeping man was aroused by a violent disturbance in the chamber, occasioned by the dog flying at the throat of a ruffian armed with a dagger. He turned out to be the gentleman's coachman, who afterwards confessed that, "seeing his master receive a large sum of money, he aHd the groom conspired together to rob and murder him, and that they plotted the whole scheme leaning over the dog's kennel." This incident, which is not more extraordinary than many wellauthenticated cases of similar character, proves inconte3tably that the vigilant listener inside the kennel must have comprehended a considerable portion of the conversation which waß taking place between the conspirators, must have formed a plan in his own mind to foil them, and must have executed it with a sagacity and a determination which could not have been excelled by a human being. The Kev. J. G. Wood, who agrees with Bishop Butler in regarding the dog as a candidate for a future life, records many striking illustrations of: the animal's capacity to understand human language." Most of these refer to that marvel of intelligence the Scotch coolie. A noted sheep-stealer named Baldie Tait was in the habit of directing his dog to go to Heriot Mnir, a distance of several miles, to pick out the" fattest sheep he could find, and conduct them to Hangingshaw, a wayside publichouse on the way to Edinburgh, there to await the coming of his master, who drove the booty into the city for sale ; and these orders wero faithfully and repeatedly obeyed. In the same city there lived, not many years ago, a wellknown character named Hastie, a drunken mole-catcher, who owned a terrier whom he called his " blessed Susie." When he was in straits for food, and had no money, he would go past a butcher's shop, point to a piece of meat, and say quietly, " Susie, I waut that." His faithful friend watched her opportunity, purloined the meat, and followed him. In course of time Susie became old and aick ; and " the la3t I heard of the poor waif," says the narrator of the story, " was that he was seen with the dying object of his affection in his arms, hugging her and pressing her to his heart; The man was weeping like a child, and dreading the swiftly-coming moment, when he and his beloved Susie were to be parted." " In the anecdote which follows we have a corroboration of Oscar Schmidt's assertion that " well-trained dogs have seusations of conscientious shame far superior to the animal terror of savage cannibals," while the incident is also important in its bearing on the acquaintance which these animals possess with human language. A farmer of Eilchristcleugh, in Lanarkshire, had a watch-dog named "Help," who was usually kept chained up. The farmer lost many of his wheep, which were found mutilated and mangled and only partially devoured. " Walking one day on the banks of a little river which flowed at the foot of the pasture hill, his attention was attracted by seeing his dog, whom he supposed to be safely chained near the house, running down the hill. As the dog drew near, it was seen that his mouth and fangs were covered with blood. His master concealed himself, so that he might watch unobserved what would

'•"Bog-Life." Illustrated by L'andseer. London: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday. "Man and Beast, Hero and Hereafter." By the Itev. J. G. Wood. London: Dalby, Isbister, and Co. " Habit and Intelligence." By J, J. Murphy. London ; Maciuillan and. Co.

follow. The dog walked into the river, dipped his faee in the water, and shook his head backwards and forwards, until he thought that all traces of his guilt were removed. He then came out at the side next the house, towards which he proceeded, his master following at a little distance. The dog went to his kennel, and, with the help of his paws, put on his collar, which was lying with his chain on the ground. The master walked up to him and said, ' Help, my poor fellow, there is no help for you.' He then went away, and gave the necessary orders for the dog's execution. But when the servant came to lead him to his doom, the collar was once more empty, and Help was never more heard of in the county." How can we deny such an animal the possession of a "moral sense," or refuse to recognise in the complex operations of his mind an intelligence far higher than we find exercised among the lower tribes of humanity ? Nor must we omit to take into consideration, when instituting a comparison between the biped and the quadruped, the brevity of the dog's existence. As it has been well observed "The oldest dog only attains the age when a boy begins to acquire his higher powers, and dies before reason and conscience, or even the stronger affections are fairly developed in his hiunan contemporary. We blame our ' stupid old dog' at ten year's of age when we should excuse our son's folly with the observation, ' Poor little child !' What wisdom a dog would attain who should live to the length of our span, and could celebrate a 'golden' anniversary of devotion to his master, it is almost painful to think." Why it should be " painful," is not altogether clear. We should have thought the observation of so many admirable qualities as the dog possesses, undergoing such a lengthened process of development as would ultimately place him on a higher plane of intellectual growth than that which is arrived at by a good many of our human acquaintances, would be an occasion of unqualified admiration and pleasure. The Quarterly Reviewer, who makes the foregoing remark, also calls attention to the fact that the dog has no tradition, oral or written, and is cut off from those sources of information which are supplied to us by teachers, preachers, and books. " When we think," he adds, "of all that this implies, and what an infimtesimally small store of facts or reflections the most intelligent man could acquire on such terms in 70 yeai-s, the wonder becomes rather how much than how little is known by a dog who has but 10 or 12 years in which to learn everything." But as a set-off against these disadvantages, if disadvantages they be, dogs are gifted with a mysterious sense or faculty, which the word "instinct" designates but does not explain, and which more nearly resembles inspiration than anything else. What is it that enables a dog to find its way in a bee line from one part of the country to another, lying scores and even hundreds of miles apart, by a track over which he has never travelled ! What is it that guides the same animal in the selection of one ship out of many lying at a foreign port which is bound for the country to which he wishes to. return ? This has been known to occur with respect to dogs which have been conveyed from England to India, and have found their way back again without assistance. The late Lord Stowell is the authority given by the author of "Dog-Life" for the following narrative:—" Mr. Edward Cook, after having lived some time with his brother at Tugsten, in Northumberland, went to America, taking with him a pointer dog, which he lost soon afterwards while shooting in the forest near Baltimore. Some time after, Mr. and Mrs. Cook, who continued to reside at Tugsten, were roused by the cries and scratching of a dog in the night. They opened the door, and found that it was the dog that had gone with their brother to America. He stayed with them till his master returned from America, when they mutually recognised each other. But how the dog could have found his way back from Baltimore to Northumberland they never were able to discover."

Three years ago, the Archduchess Marie Kegnier, of Austria, was staying at the Grand Holel at Mentone, in Italy, for the benefit of her.health, and became much attached to a fine dog named Pietrino, the property of the landlord, from whom she begged it on her departure. But soon after reaching "Vienna, the dog began to pine for his old home, and suddenly disappeared. Ten days afterwards he crept into the Hotel at Mentone, having travelled for 800,miles through countries he had never seen before, and laid himself down exhausted at his master's feet. Pietrino died five days afterwards, and a column was erected to his memory in the grounds of this well known hotel.

But even more surprising than eiiher of the foregoing is an incident related in the Animal World for January, 1874, by Mr. Richard Guilding, of Hanley Castle, Worcestershire. The family, which had lived at Quedgeley, near Gloucester, sailed from Bristol for New York in May, 1834. " They took with them a white-haired terrier. The distance from Quedgeley to Bristol is twenty-seven miles. On reaching New York they proceeded by steamboat up the Hudson to Albany, 190 miles, then by railroad fifteen miles, and then by tow-boat to Syracuse, 140 miles. In the hurry of disembarking at Syracuse the dog was missed, and no trace of it could be found. Some time after, on arriving at the place of their destination, one of the party wrote home to his father in Gloucestershire, and, among other things, mentioned the loss of the dog. When the letter arrived at Quedgeley, the dog was quietly lying by the kitchen fire, having been absent from its Gloucestershire home nearly ten months." Now, to appreciate canine intelligence under such circumstances we have only to imagine a child of the same age as the dog, deaf and dumb from birth, and unable to ask questions or to receive information through the medium of signs, losing his friends 345 miles from a seaport, and yet finding his way back there unassisted, and selecting from a swarm of vessels of all nations one bound for England, and then stowing himself away on board of it, and exercising a variety of ingenious devices for the purpose of procuring the means of subsistence during his voyage home. Such a child would be looked upon as a prodigy ; and yet Mr. Wood's book teems with instances of the exercise of this marvellous intelligence on the part of dogs ; while their _ reasoning powers are too obvious to be denied. The late Mr. Nassau Senior was an eye-witness of an incident which illustrates the ratiocinative action of a dog's reasoning. He saw a terrier endeavoring to obtain entrance into the forbidden precincts of Merton Common Room by pretending to be engaged in a violent quarrel with another (imaginary) dog at the door—a real quarrel, on the day previous, having resulted in his being taken in, to save his life, by his master. The Rev. J. S. Watson, in a work, on "The Reasoning Power in Animals," describes a dog belonging to a convent in France as observing " that each of the twenty paupers fed at the tour rang a bell for his dinner, which was pushed to him through tho hole. The dog regularly rang the bell, and obtained a pauper's portion for himself for a long time, till the mystery of the twenty-first applicant caused a watch to be set, and the impostor to be detected." In consideration of his cleverness ho was allowed to become a permanent recipient of the daily dole. In fact, the more carefully and systematically we study dog-lifo, the stronger becomes the conviction that the difference between the canine and the human mind is one of degree only ; and that the dog remembers, reflects, discriminates, infers, associates ideas, and reasons from cause to effect, just as we do But above and beyond the powers and capacities which he shares with us, he appears to exhibit an amenability or obedience to some higher intelligence outsido of liimnelf ; and this amenability seems to differentiate the dog from the man ; although there is something closely akin to it in those actions of the savage which, bein<» unable to account for, we characterise as " instinctive," and which can only be regarded a 3 proceeding from a direction or instruction, for which, as yet, no satisfactory name has been found.

It is only necessary to add that while " Dog Life " is merely a collection of interesting and authentic anecdotes systematically arranged, "Man and Beast" aims at a higher object—that of showing that as the lower animals sluiro

with man the attributes of reason, language, memory, and a sense of responsibility, all of which belong to the mind and not to the body, there is every reason to believe that these animals will also participate with him in the life hereafter. In short, the Kev. J. G. Wood is of the same opinion as Pope's Indian : Ho thinks, admitted to that equal sky. His faithful dog shall bear him company.