Nobody can persuade a gamekeeper that dogs lack reasoning powers. We
were watching a terrier at work, and she gave us a pretty example of
something very like intelligence. A pheasant was winged, fell on a bare
field, and ran for a thick dell--the terrier in pursuit. She made one
or two ineffectual attempts to gather the bird, until within a score
of yards of the dell--then she raced ahead. She seemed to realise
that there was so much cover in the dell that direct attempts to take
the bird were risky--and she proceeded to work the pheasant to a safe
distance from the cover before tackling it again, this time effectively.
When this little terrier has marked a rabbit or a rat in a patch of
grass or brambles, her common sense tells her that if she dives in
after her quarry it may dash out unseen by her, by reason of the grass
or brambles. So she stands by, and stamps, and otherwise tries to make
her game bolt, in a way which will allow her to see the direction; and
she is seldom baffled. It is difficult to decide whether this terrier
is more or less reasonable than her kennel companion, a retriever, when
feeding-time comes. If at feeding-time the retriever has a biscuit
left over from the last meal, which she has lightly buried, on her
master's approach she will promptly disinter the treasure, holding it
out as much as to say: "Thank you, I need no biscuit." But experiments
with the terrier show that she will ever refuse to give the slightest
indication of a buried hoard. Whether she needs a biscuit or not, she
always takes one when offered, as though she desired nothing better in
the world.
A good story in proof of a retriever's reasoning powers is told by an
old-time sportsman. He was shooting beside a frozen stream, and winged
a mallard, which fell in mid-stream. His dog crashed on to the ice,
broke through it, and fought her way to the middle, where the ice only
skimmed the water. She swam round for a moment, then broke her way to
the opposite bank, paused to give a knowing look at the thin ice, and
went down stream at full speed for about eighty yards. Running down the
bank, she broke a hole in the ice with her fore-paws, then crouched
back, watching the hole. In a few moments she made a spring and plunged
in, reappearing in mid-stream with the mallard in her mouth. There was
no doubt, at least in her master's mind, that she had broken the hole
for the purpose of catching the bird when he came up to breathe.
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