"Get up in the morning as soon as the birds begin to sing, and if you're
not on chain, take a good run round the garden. Always sleep in the
open air. Don't eat more breakfast than is good for you, and take the
same amount of dinner. Don't eat at all if you're not hungry. Eat
plenty of grass, or green vegetables, if you like that better. Take
plenty of exercise. Running is best; but if you don't run, walk, and
walk, and walk till you're tired; you will sleep all the better for it.
One hour's sleep after exercise is deeper, and sweeter, and sounder, and
more refreshing than five hours induced by port-wine negus. Don't
neglect the bath; I never do. Whenever I see a hole with water in it, I
just jump in and swim around, then come out and dance myself dry. Do
good whenever you can; I always do. Be brave, yet peaceful. Be
generous, charitable, and honest. Never refuse a bit to a beggar, and
never steal a bone from a butcher; so shall you live healthfully and
happy, and die of the only disease anybody has any right to die of--
sheer old age."
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I never saw a dog appreciate a joke better than did poor Nero. He had
that habit of showing his teeth in a broad smile, which is common to the
Newfoundland and collie.
Here is a little joke that Nero once unintentionally perpetrated. He
had a habit of throwing up the gravel with his two immense hinder paws,
quite regardless of consequences. A poor little innocent mite of a
terrier happened one day to be behind master Nero, when he commenced to
scrape. The shower of stones and gravel came like the discharge from a
_mitrailleuse_ on the little dog, and fairly threw him on his back.
Nero happened to look about at the same time, and noticed what he had
done.
"Oh!" he seemed to say as he broke into a broad grin, "this is really
too ridiculous, too utterly absurd."
Then bounding across a ditch and through a hedge, he got into a green
field, where he at once commenced his usual plan of working off steam,
when anything extra-amusing tickled him, namely, that of running round
and round and round in a wide circle. Many dogs race like this, no
doubt for this reason: they can by so doing enjoy all the advantages of
a good ran, without going any appreciable distance away from where
master is. _Apropos_ of dogs gambolling and racing for the evident
purpose of getting rid of an extra amount of animal electricity, I give
an extract here from a recent book of mine [Note 1]. The sketch is
painted from real life.
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