INDEX 269
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Bandy _Frontispiece_
The Child of the House _Facing page_ 4
The Diplomatist “ “ 32
The Professor “ “ 46
The Soldier of Fortune “ “ 70
The Artistic Thief “ “ 96
Suspicion “ “ 120
Mr. Guest’s Hounds, 1900 “ “ 134
“Conscience Makes Cowards of us” “ “ 150
The Invalid and his New Friend “ “ 166
Bobbie “ “ 180
Billy “ “ 188
“Are they Coming?” “ “ 198
Bobbins “ “ 204
Boy “ “ 208
Bettina Corona “ “ 212
A Sunday Morning’s Work “ “ 232
Bosky “ “ 244
Jimmy “ “ 248
INTRODUCTION
“That creature’s best that comes most near to man” may in truth be
spoken of the dog. Nearest to man in the daily experiences of domestic
life, he shares the joys and disappointments that are the lot of his
owner. Under man’s influence the dog’s intelligence has been trained
to meet the requirements of the environment that is now his. In what a
wonderful way he responds to the demands of the civilised conditions of
his life, those know who bring the light of their higher intelligence
to bear on the study of his character. The more we study the dog,
the better we shall understand his kinship to us in the realms of
mental and moral feeling, and the more clearly we shall appreciate the
barriers that cut him off from the experiences of our own higher life.
In the Life Histories of five dogs I have gathered facts that give the
distinctive characteristics that marked each one off from his fellows.
With these dogs I have had exceptional advantages of learning from
their owners the special marks of character that distinguished them.
The results of this study I have made the groundwork of my book. The
anecdotes of many other dogs, that are given to illustrate more fully
individual traits of character, have all been collected at first hand,
and, so far as I know, have never before appeared in print.
The only exceptions are those I have taken from Miss Serrell’s book
“With Hound and Terrier in the Field.” As editor of this book I am
able to vouch for the truth of the many and charming stories that are
scattered broadcast through it, and with the author’s permission I have
given a few that bear on the subject of my own work. Two other stories,
one of which is taken from the delightful study of the first Earl of
Lytton, written by his daughter, Lady Betty Balfour, and a quotation
from Mrs. Draycott’s interesting Sketches of Himalayan Folk Lore, are
the only ones that have been already given to the public.
We know that long ages of companionship with man have made the dog our
fellow in sympathy and intelligence in a way that is impossible to any
other member of the brute creation. Yet even he has not lost the marks
of the old wild life that was once his. But it is a long step back
from the inmate of our twentieth century home, where the surroundings
given by advancing civilisation and moral development have the marks
of ages of progress, to the primeval conditions of the life of our
favourite’s ancestors. Far be it from me to dogmatise as to what those
old conditions of life were. They are lost in the obscurity of the
past, and we listen with respect when men of science tell us of the
conditions that obtained in bygone ages, though not always with entire
acceptance of the inferences they draw.
Few, however, will dispute the probability that the ancestor of the
dog--wolf, jackal, or of whatever type he may have been--lived in a
pack and thus had the aids of community life to train his intelligence
and fit him for the struggle of existence among his fellows. It is
only the question of his mental development that concerns us here, and
we have authority for saying that a higher development of intelligence
obtains among the members of a community than among those who in
solitary freedom meet the dangers and fight the difficulties of life
without such help from others of their kind.
In the study of jackals, of wolves and of hounds that hunt in packs, we
see the clearest traces of the old life lived in the forests and the
plains, where man had not as yet entered into a struggle with nature on
his own account. We find now, as in the past, evidence of the sympathy
that is at the root of all social instincts, governing the life of the
community. Without the loyalty to a recognised code of conduct and
morals, that may be said to be the foundation of social life, no body
of animals living a common life could survive. Where there is community
of interests there must be a common working for the general good, or
the band will be scattered and fall a prey to its enemies. But the
sympathy that is quick to warn of coming trouble and give assistance
when misfortune has fallen, to help the weak and to encourage the
wavering, links the members of a society together in the strongest
possible bonds. It is this that will strengthen them collectively to
withstand attacks against which individually they will have no chance.
Such a tie must have enabled the ancestors of our domestic dogs to
preserve life and to hand on a position in the tribal company to their
offspring.
The training the dog had received as a member of the pack, when man
rough and uncivilised as he then was, became his companion in the
struggle for life, was the source of his value to the human. In
hunting, in the guarding of his master’s property, the dog found
his place in the life of his owner, and since those early days of
association in the wilds, the rise and progress of the human race
has marked the gradual amelioration of the condition of the dog. It
is sounding a high note, perhaps, to say that the history of the
development of canine intelligence has advanced step by step with the
history of the civilisation of the human race. Yet I venture to think
that the facts bear out the statement.
In the rude life of our forbears the dog was primarily valuable in the
daily quest for food, and as the conditions of life were rough and
uncertain for his master, so also were they for him. Yet the dog had
reached another stage of life from the days when in the primeval pack
he had roved the forests untouched by the influence of man. Obedience
to the customs of the canine clan had given place to the service and
companionship of the human master, and from this point his history is
closely woven with the fortunes of the human race.
Not only were his speed and scenting powers made use of in the chase,
but his courage and fidelity were recognised and valued in the
protection of his master’s home. A step further in the course of the
domestication of the dog, and we find that his mental development is
subject to varying influences as his powers are used primarily as a
guardian or as a hunter. The sheep dog and the guardian of the house
are brought more directly under the influence of their owner’s home
life, while the dog used chiefly for hunting remains more under the
conditions of his primeval state. Yet the hunting dogs, of which the
hounds of to-day are the representatives, were also subject to the will
and to a certain extent followed the rise in fortune of their masters.
It is among these members of the canine race that we must look for
the community life that is the modern rendering of their old tribal
conditions.
With the spread of civilisation, and above all with the rise of
Christianity, the dog came gradually to be recognised as having claims,
not only on his master’s forbearance, but as possessing rights of his
own in the common life of master and servant. The faithful creature
who showed such wonderful aptitude in guarding his master’s flock in
the field, and was such a sympathetic and intelligent companion in his
home, had a claim to be treated with the kindness and consideration
that was due from his owner to all--whether man or beast--who gave him
faithful service.
We have only to compare the position of the dog among Mohammedans or
Hindoos in the present day with the conditions of his life in England
and America to see what Christianity has done for him indirectly. He is
saved from needless suffering, tended in sickness, and housed and fed
so that his physical and mental powers can reach their highest point
of development. He thus attains a far higher level in the life history
of his race than is possible to his half-starved, cowed, and miserable
brothers in Eastern lands.
To the Mohammedan he is an unclean creature, and by him is treated with
a disregard of the amenities of intercourse between man and beast that
goes far to make him the outcast in mind and manners that he is in the
conditions of his outward life. The tumultuous troop of pariahs that
rush out from an Indian village, to the discomfort of the English rider
enjoying his morning gallop, show in appearance and disposition marks
of the neglect in which their life from its earliest day is passed.
With the Hindoo the dog is safe from active ill treatment, and while in
health and strength may share the conditions of his master’s life. But
when sickness, or accident, or old age overtakes him, not a hand will
be lifted in his service. Though some simple, timely aid might save
the poor brute nameless suffering, and even give him years in which to
serve his master in the future as he has done in the past, his Hindoo
owner will show the fatalistic indifference to his sufferings that is
one of the marks of the followers of his strange creed. The dog’s time
has come, and the man who will vex his soul if inadvertently he crush
the life from the tiniest of creeping insects, will show a perfect
disregard of the claims of the animal who has served him with all the
love and fidelity of his heart and the strength of the best years of
his life.
But in Western lands where Christian ethics have put the finishing
touch to the gentler influences of a progressive state of civilisation,
the dog’s rights as a living, sentient being are regarded as they
never have been in the course of the world’s history. True, there are
bright spots in the past as there are direful blemishes in the present,
that on the one hand bring discredit on the vaunted progress of human
development, and on the other throw the glamour of a strange acceptance
of moral responsibility to the dumb creation on the men of far-off
days, but these are the exceptions that go to prove the truth of the
general statement.
As man advances in civilisation and grows more restrained in the habits
and manners of his life, his mind develops, and one of the first
signs of his progress is his respect for life as such. The dog, as his
constant companion, feels most, in the realm of animal life, the change
in his masters outlook. He is treated with ever increasing gentleness
and comprehension. For as one sign of a mind of low type, or of a low
order of development is an incapacity for sympathy with an intelligence
either lower or higher than its own, so with the expanding powers of
man’s mind he is able more and more to enter into the workings of his
dog’s mind. As his own powers of sympathy and insight grow larger and
deeper, he awakens an ever increasing response from the answering
echoes in the dog’s mind. Here then we may bear in mind that if the dog
had not the inherent capacity to respond, there could be no channel of
communication with the larger outlook of the human mind as developed in
man.
But if the development of human and canine intelligence has each in its
degree and order followed the same line, the mental characteristics of
the two races must be akin. It is only, indeed, from the starting-point
of reading our own processes of mind into the mind of our humble
friend that we can form the slightest conception of the meaning of his
actions, which in their expression so closely resemble our own under
the same conditions. Surprise, anger, joy, grief, resentment, and the
emotions that go to make up the round of our own daily experience, find
their counterparts in the dog. It is from analogy with the states of
mind that in our own case evoke these expressions that we reason of
the feelings and impulses that stir the mind of the dog and give rise
to similar manifestations of feeling. On no other ground can we even
attempt to fathom the workings of his mind.
If then the dog be our kinsman in the realm of mind, though his
standing be on a lower level than our own, are we not bound, in
return for the unwavering devotion he shows us, to give him the best
guardianship and care that our own higher powers give us the means of
using for his benefit? It is to the realisation of this truth that I
hope my studies of the dog may help.
Having thus stated the views with which I approach the study of the
dog’s mind and character, I must turn for a moment to the sources from
which I have drawn the anecdotes that have given me the materials on
which I have worked.
Of the five Life Stories that form the First Book, “The Child of the
House” was my own devoted companion for over twelve years. Of the other
dogs that I have selected for fuller notice, Bruce, “The Diplomatist,”
was the property of Mr. T. F. Dale, whose writings on animals and sport
are well known both in England and America. Bandy, “The Professor,”
belonged to Mr. H. Richardson, who was senior master at Marlborough
School, where Bandy’s merry little life, though not untouched by
tragedy, was passed. Jack, “The Soldier of Fortune,” was owned by Miss
Serrell, whose life-long love of dogs and horses is shown in her book
“With Hound and Terrier in the Field.” Miss Helen Dale was the mistress
of Jet, “The Artistic Thief,” one of a long line of fascinating little
spaniels that have been among her home friends.
When I come to the subject of the many shorter anecdotes that have
been given me so freely, not only by my personal friends, but by many
whom I have never had the pleasure of meeting, I can only say that my
gratitude is very great for the kindly help afforded me from all sides.
Without the numberless stories told me by Miss Serrell, I could never
have hoped to collect enough for the purposes of the book. To her and
to Miss Helen Dale I also owe special thanks for reading the proofs for
me and making many valuable suggestions.
Miss Dale has also given me many shorter stories, and her brother,
Mr. T. F. Dale, has done the same. Others who have contributed to my
little store, and have most kindly lent me photographs of many of the
dogs mentioned, are Mrs. Arthur Dugdale, Miss Rose Southey, Mrs. Bruce
Steer, and Miss Edith Gilbertson, and through these friends I would
convey my thanks to the strangers who have helped me at their request.
FRANCES SLAUGHTER.
MARCH, 1907.