A Training School for Dogs.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 210, 9 July 1887, Page 5

A Training School for Dogs.

An institution of this kind is to be found in Vienna, and a writer in the " Queen " thusdescribes a visit :— " The establishment was complete in every particular, and consisted of a large general school-room and class-rooms for separate lessons, bathrooms, gymnasium, airy dormitories, spacious recreation grounds, and a large and commodious dining-hall. After some preliminary explanation the proprietor led me through the different schoolrooms, where the pupils were at work, and I heard with regret that my favourite dogs, the mastiff and the greyhound, were on the lowest form ; it seems they have neither emulation nor ambition. The schoolmaster in passing cast a severe look on a quarrelsome group of pupils who were waiting their turn for rehearsal. We then passed on to the room for beginners, when be further explained his plan of education. The physical and moral faculties are | cultivated . simultaneously, though in many cases the latter are necessarily much neglected. Each pupil spends a couple of months in the college, and after the term he passes an examination, at which he nearly always obtains his certificate of proficiency. The corporal exercises commence with the difficult performance of \vlking on a rolling cask, and extend to the high art of dancing. For mental exercise, especial attention is given to arithmetic as the basis of all real science. While I was there an assistant teacher was just explaining to an attentive class the first rules of addition ; and many a hound would be vainly grinding over a simple figure, whilst a shrewd little pug put together with astonishing quickness different bits of paper on which were written the numbers his professor asked for."

The favourite spice of convicts ought to be sinnerman.