used in their pursuit have learned to beware of assaulting the pack
which they have brought to bay, and instead of indulging in the
instinct which leads them into that way of danger and of certain
death, they circle round the assemblage, compelling them to show front
on every side and so to remain stationary until the hunters come up.
Perhaps a score of similar specializations in the modes of action of
our dogs which are employed in the chase could be recited; but as they
all lead us to one conclusion--which is to the effect that these
creatures are, as far as their mental powers are concerned, like clay
in the hands of the potter--we may pass them by for some
considerations which appear to have escaped the attention of writers
who have discussed the problems of canine intelligence.
The singular elasticity as regards both mental and physical qualities
which the dog exhibits, may well be compared with the other conditions
which we find in certain of our domesticated animals, as, for instance,
in the horse, where the mind shows but slight changes, and where the
body has proved far less plastic than among dogs. The readiness with
which the proportions of the dog may, by the breeder's art, be made to
vary, is probably due to the fact that the group to which this creature
belongs is one of relatively modern institution. It has the plasticity
which we note as a characteristic of many other newly-established forms.
The flexibility of mind is a concomitant of the carnivorous habit where
creatures obtain their prey by the chase. Such an occupation tends to
develop agile minds as well as bodies, and where exercised as it
doubtless was by the ancestry of the dog, in the manner of pack hunting,
where many individuals share in the chase, it is well calculated to
insure a certain free and outgoing quality of the mind.
[Illustration: Dutch Dogs used in Harness]
So long as our dogs were employed in the labor or the organized
recreations of man, the tendency of the association with the superior
being was in a high measure educative. They were constantly submitted
to a more or less critical but always effective selection which
tended ever to develop a higher grade of intelligence. With the
advance in the organization of society the dog is losing something of
his utility, even in the way of sport. He is fast becoming a mere
idle favorite, prized for unimportant peculiarities of form. The
effort in the main is not now to make creatures which can help in the
employments of man, but to breed for show alone, demanding no more
intelligence than is necessary to make the animal a well-behaved
denizen of a house. The result is the institution of a wonderful
variety in the size, shape, and special peculiarities of different
breeds with what appears to be a concomitant loss in their
intelligence. We often hear it remarked by those who are familiar
with dogs that the ordinary mongrels are more intelligent and more
susceptible of high training than the carefully inbred varieties,
which are more highly prized because they conform to some thoroughly
artificial standard of form or coloring. This is what we should
expect from all we know concerning the breeding. Where for
generations the dog-fancier has selected for reproduction with
reference to the trifling and often injurious features of shape he
seeks to attain, he naturally and almost necessarily neglects to
choose the creatures in regard to their mental peculiarities. The
result is that the breed tends to fall back in these regards to below
the level of the ordinary cur, who makes his place in the affections
of his owner because he has attractive or useful qualities of mind.
It appears to me, in a word, that our treatment of this noble animal,
where he is bred for ornament, is in effect degrading.
Although the formation of our fancy breeds does not serve to advance the
development of those intellectual features which are the most
interesting part of our dogs, the experiments have served to show the
amazing physical plasticity of this species under the conditions of long
domestication. The range in size between a tiny spaniel, such as those
which are bred in Chihuahua, in northern Mexico, and the great Danes or
mastiffs of northern Europe, is, perhaps, the greatest which has ever
been attained in any mammal. In some cases the larger individuals
belonging to the mastiff breed probably weigh nearly thirty times as
much as their smaller kinsmen. Great as are these variations, they are
only in form and bulk. They involve none of those curious changes in the
number of bones of the skeleton which we may trace among the
domesticated pigeons. We therefore turn from these results of breeders'
fancy to consider certain of the mental qualities of dogs which have not
come in our way in our review of the history of its relations to man.
First of all, we may note the fact that the friendly relations which
dogs have become accustomed to form with men vary exceedingly in their
range and activity. Perhaps in no other regard does the dog exhibit
such distinctly human characteristics as in the way in which he meets
the individuals of the mastering species. The gamut of their social
relations with men is almost exactly parallel with our own. With from
one to a dozen persons a dog may maintain an attitude of almost equally
complete sympathy and mutual understanding. He may be on terms of
acquaintanceship in varied degrees of familiarity with a few score
others with whom he comes in frequent contact. Toward the rest of
mankind he maintains a position of more or less complete distrust,
which with experience may attain the indifference which men commonly
show toward perfect strangers. If we observe a dog going along a
much-frequented street, we may note that his relations to the people
are substantially those which the folk have to each other. He shows as
they do a certain consideration for the individuals he encounters,
gives them their due place, and yet holds to his own. It is
particularly noticeable that he avoids all contact with the other
passers--in fact a dog has to be much beside himself with rage or fear,
or insane from disease, before he will break those bounds of
personality which civilization has set up to guide the conduct of life.
[Illustration: King Charles Spaniel]
The social culture of dogs appears to have gone to the point where
they recognize the meaning of an introduction--at least as far as the
sympathetic relations of that understanding are concerned. Almost any
well-bred dog will submit to be presented by his master, or even by
persons whom he knows but is not accustomed to obey, to a stranger to
whom he has already exhibited some dislike. During the introduction
he will submit to those formal exchanges of courtesy which he is
accustomed to recognize as the indices of friendship. The impression
of this understanding seems to be so permanent that on subsequent
meetings the dog, though he may maintain his original dislike of the
man who has been forced upon his acquaintance, will continue to treat
him with a certain consideration, though it is often easy to see that
it is a difficult matter for him to conform to the requirements of
society. When we compare the conduct of dogs in these regards with
the behavior of other animals, even highly domesticated forms, we
perceive how marvellously successful has been man's unconscious
effort to mould this creature on his own nature.
Another extremely human characteristic of our canine friends is shown
in their susceptibility to ridicule. Faint traces of this quality are
to be found in monkeys and perhaps even in the more intelligent horses,
but nowhere else save in man, and hardly there, except in the more
sensitive natures, do we find contempt, expressed in laughter of the
kind which conveys that emotion, so keenly and painfully appreciated.
With those dogs which are endowed with a large human quality, such as
our various breeds of hounds, it is possible by laughing in their faces
not only to quell their rage, but to drive them to a distance. They
seem in a way to be put to shame and at the same time hopelessly
puzzled as to the nature of their predicament. In this connection we
may note the very human feature that after you have cowed a dog by
insistent laughter you can never hope to make friends with him. A case
of this kind is fresh in my experience. A year or two ago I was
imprudent enough to laugh at a very intelligent dog in my neighborhood,
he having unreasonably assailed me at my house-door, where he had been
left for a long time to wait while his owner was within and had thereby
been brought into an unhappy state of mind. Sympathizing with his
situation, I preferred to laugh him out of his humor rather than to
beat him with my stick. I regret I did not take the other alternative,
for I made the poor brute my implacable enemy by my pretence of
contempt for him. I am inclined to think that if I had beaten him the
matter could have been arranged afterward in a friendly way.
[Illustration: The Pounce of a Terrier]
Another very remarkable and I believe hitherto unnoticed likeness
between the mind of dogs and that of man is found in the fact that
these dumb beasts, unlike all other inferior animals, except, perhaps,
some of the more intelligent species of monkeys, will learn lessons
from isolated experiences. In this regard they are indeed quite as apt
as the lower kinds of men. Thus a dog who has had an unsavory or
painful experience with a skunk or a porcupine is apt to keep away
from these creatures for a long time thereafter. Where, as is not
infrequently the case, a cur takes to eating eggs, a single dose of
tartar emetic concealed in an egg which is placed where he can readily
find it, is apt to effect an immediate and complete reform. This ready
learning from experience is almost the gist of our human quality--at
least on the intellectual side of it.
Perhaps the greatest success to which man has attained in his education
of the dog is to be found in the measure in which he has overcome the
fierce rage which clearly characterized the ancestors of this creature
when they first felt the mastering hand. The reader cannot understand
the intensity of the rage motive in the carnivora unless he has studied
some of these brutes in their wild state, where from the time in the
remote ages when they first began to take on the qualities of their
species they have survived and won success by the fury of their assault.
In almost all our breeds of dogs this primal ferocity has been overlaid
by the various motives of rationality, sympathy, and conventional
demeanor, until one may live half a lifetime with well-bred dogs without
a chance to see the demon which we have buried in their breasts, as we
have in our own, beneath a host of civilizing influences. It is rare
indeed in our day that a dog, unless insane, will bite a human being.
The most of their assaults are pure bluster, mere pretence of fury, as
is shown by the fact that if, carried away by their pretence, they are
led to use their teeth, it is usually a mere sham assault, having no
semblance of the effectiveness of true combat.
Something of the pristine fury of the primitive dogs may still be noted
in a certain brutal variety of watch-dogs which are still to be found in
parts of continental Europe. The best types of this breed which I have
ever seen are to be found among the dogs which are kept to guard the
quarries of Solenhofen, in Bavaria, whence come all the fine
lithographic stones which are so extensively used in printing. These
quarries are scattered over several square miles of untilled country,
and the separate pits are to be numbered by the score. As much valuable
stone is necessarily left over night in the quarries, their care is
confined to packs of watch-dogs which are turned loose at night and
appear as if by instinct to spend the hours of darkness in prowling over
the territory. Such is their size and ferocity that it takes a sturdy
beggar to face them. I remember inadvertently disturbing one of these
brutes from sleep, in the strong cage where he was confined, and I have
never beheld such a picture of blind fury as he exhibited. I had not
come within twenty feet of him, and was merely moving past his place of
confinement; yet he sprang to the grating and strove with his teeth to
break his way through the bars. I thought the animal must be mad, but
his keeper assured me that such was his ordinary state of mind and that
the humor was common to all the breed; even the masters dwelt in fear of
them. Ordinarily the only exhibitions of the innate ferocity of our dogs
are to be seen in their combats with each other, when for a time the
creatures return to their primitive state of mind. Even these occasional
exhibitions of fury are not found among all breeds of dogs, and among
many individuals even of the combative strains of blood the motive of
battle appears to have quite passed away.
[Illustration: Pomeranian or "Spitz"]
In antithesis to the old Ishmaelitic humor of our primitive dogs, man
has developed a singular, sympathetic, and kindly motive in these
creatures. From the point of view of the dog's education we must not
set too much store by his affection for his master. This kind of
devotion of one being to another is displayed elsewhere in the animal
kingdom, though it is more common among birds than among mammals. We
find traces of it in the greater part of our domesticated creatures or
in those which we have individually adopted from the wilderness. It is a
part of the great sympathetic motive, which, originating far down in the
series of animals, increases as they gain in the scale of being, until
it reaches the highest level it has yet attained in spiritually minded
men. The eminent peculiarity in the case of a dog is that the very
centre of his life is formed of the affections, which are evidently the
same as those which rule the days of the most cultivated men. To him
these elements of friendliness are absolutely necessary to a comfortable
existence. If by chance he becomes separated from his master and the
other people with whom he is familiar, his bereavement is intense; but
in most cases, at the end of a day or two, he is compelled to form new
bonds, and he sets about the task in an exceedingly human way. I dwell
in a town where dogs abound and where the frequent coming and going of
the people puts many of the creatures astray. Perhaps as often as once a
week, almost always late in the evening, one of these unhappy lost ones
seeks to make friends with me. His advances toward this end always begin
by his dogging my footsteps at a little distance. If I do not repulse
him he will come nearer until he has made sure of my attention. A
friendly word will bring him to my hand; but his behavior is never
effusive, as it would be if he had found his rightful owner, but mildly
propitiative and with a touch of sadness. There is, it seems to me, no
other feature in the life of the dog which tells so much as to his moral
nature as his conduct under these unhappy circumstances.
[Illustration: Poodles]
In the long catalogue of human qualities which characterize our
thoroughly domesticated dogs, we must not fail to take account of
their sense of property. In this the creature differs from all other
of our domesticated animals. It is a common characteristic of mammals,
both in their wild and tame state, that they feel a motive of
ownership in the food which they have captured or in the den which
they have made their lair; but beyond these narrow personal limits we
see no evidence of any sense of ownership in land or effects. We
readily observe, however, that our household dogs not only know the
chattels of their master and distinguish them from those of other
people, but they also learn to recognize the bounds of their house-lot
or even of a considerable farm. When a dog, even of a militant
quality, enters on territory which he does not feel to belong to him,
he is at once a very different creature as compared to his condition
when he is on his own land. He treads warily and will accept without
dispute an order to take himself off. A perception of this sort
indicates an extraordinary amount of sympathy and discernment. It
requires us to assume that the creature has a good sense of topography
and that he observes closely the various acts, none of them perhaps
very indicative, which go to show the limits of his master's claims.
Although the mental qualities of our highly domesticated dogs are
singularly like those of their masters, the likeness going to the
point that the household pet is apt to have acquired something of the
general character of the people with whom he dwells, there are many
suggestive differences arising from failures of development which are
in the highest measure interesting to those who study the species. We
note, in the first place, that although for ages in contact with the
constructive work which occupies his masters, the dog shows no
tendency whatever to essay any undertakings of this nature. He is
quite alive to considerations of personal comfort and is particularly
fond of a warm bed; yet, except for a few unverified stories, we may
say that there is no evidence whatever to show that they ever try to
improve their conditions by deliberately providing themselves with warm
bedding. In no well-attested case has a dog shown any sense as to the
nature of any mechanical contrivance. They will learn which way a door
opens, and rarely if ever do they undiscerningly close it when it is
slightly ajar and they wish to pass through the opening; but I have
never been able to observe or obtain evidence to show that they would
without teaching pull down a latch in the way in which a cat readily
learns to do. Much as dogs have had to do with guns, they display no
kind of interest in the arms except so far as they are tokens of sport
to come. They connect the explosion with the capture of game, and will
search for it in the direction toward which the barrel was pointed. I
have not, however, been able to find that they know, as they might
readily do, and as a crow would surely do, when the weapon was loaded
and when empty. They show no interest in it, such as monkeys readily
display toward any mechanical contrivance to which their attention has
been directed. All these negative features indicate that the mechanical
side of the canine mind is entirely undeveloped.
[Illustration: Collie]
Although there is some evidence that the sense of number attains a
measure of development in dogs, the ability to form mathematical
conceptions of any kind appears to be very weak in this species. The
fact that shepherd-dogs, in a way, keep an account of considerable
flocks so that they will know when one is gone astray, can readily be
explained on the supposition that they know their charges individually
and not in sum. The absence of arithmetical capacity is, however, less
important than the lack of mechanical sense, for the reason that such
incapacity is also common in the lowest races of men. Although dogs, as
before noted, quickly and clearly acquire a notion of property rights in
all which pertains to their owner's holdings, they appear never to
extend their sense of their own personal possessions beyond the original
limit to which they had attained when the species was domesticated. The
creature feels a sense of personal property in his food and in his
sleeping-place, but appears not to extend his conception of individual
rights beyond these primitively established limits.
All our well-bred household dogs quickly learn certain bodily habits
which are necessary to make them acceptable members of a household.
These habits are not well affirmed by inherited instinct, but the ease
with which the instruction is acquired shows that they have become prone
to submit to such regulations. Culture on this line rests upon a primal
instinct, originating we know not how, which leads a number of wild
animals to conceal their excrement. On the other hand, these creatures
exhibit no sense of modesty, though that, in a more or less complete
measure, is characteristic of all human tribes whatsoever.
As regards the memory, dogs appear to have a considerably greater
measure of capacity than is observable in any other group of
domesticated animals. There is no question that they can recall their
associations with people from whom they have been separated for a year
or more. Some trustworthy anecdotes appear to establish the fact that
the recollections may endure for two or three years. I have observed
an instance in which the memory seems perfectly clear after an
interval of eighteen months, and this concerned a person who had been
with the dog for a period of not more than four days. It is
interesting to note the behavior of a dog when he has failed to
recognize a person whom he has known well, but from whom he has been
long separated. I have a shepherd-dog that has known me well, but the
friendship is often interrupted by partings of some months' duration.
When, after one of these absences, I appear to him in the distance, he
comes furiously towards me, quite possessed by his enmity. At a certain
point in his charge a doubt begins to beset him; he moderates his pace;
his roaring bark passes into a whine; and as the full measure of his
blunder is borne in upon him by my voice, he becomes the picture of
shame. In his perplexity, he always finds relief in endeavoring with
his paw to scrape a supposititious fly from the side of his nose. He
then deals with what I suppose to be an equally imaginary flea; after
he has thus gained a few seconds for readjustment, he welcomes me
joyously. All this is so thoroughly human-like, that even the
naturalist, the professional doubter, is forced to believe that the
dog's mind works substantially as his own, and that the feelings
connected with the action are essentially the same.
While in the case of the elephant and the pig, and in a less measure
in several other of the lower animals, we have indices of as high or
even higher intelligence than the dog, no other brute shows anything
like the same measure of what we may term human quality. So far as the
field of the emotions is concerned, we are driven to believe that it
has been bred into the kind by the ages of intimate associations,
supported by the selective process which has led people to preserve
the individual of the species with which they found themselves the
most in sympathy. I repeat the suggestion, and shall repeat it yet
again, for the reason that just here--how effectively the reader's
imagination will suggest--we find a basis for the hope that, with
time and care, man may bring his subjects of the lower realm into a
more intimate, affectionate, and helpful relation than is dreamed of
by those who look upon them as mere brutes.