The Indian dogs, of which every family had several, are as fond
of the acorn food as their owners. These dogs are made useful in
treeing wild-cats, California lions and gray squirrels, and are
very expert in catching ground squirrels by intercepting them
when away from their burrows, and when the Indians drown them out
in the early spring by turning water from the flooded streams
into their holes.
As far as can be learned, dogs were about the only domestic
animals which the Yosemites, and other adjacent tribes of
Indians, kept for use before the country was settled by the white
people.