62 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



Some years later I bought a dog in Coronation Gulf which had 

 been brought up mainly on seal. On the north coast of Alaska 

 the following spring we were for a few days in a position where 

 we could get only geese for food. This dog refused for more than 

 a week to taste goose, and I was never able to force him to it. 

 We had to give up the experiment because of lack of time. As 

 noted below in the case of the wolf meat, it is even possible the 

 dog might have preferred to die of starvation though goose meat was 

 before him. 



At another time we had a dog brought up on the Booth Islands, 

 near Cape Parry. Inland on Horton River this dog, which had 

 been used to seal meat only, refused at first to eat caribou and 

 had to be broken to it through hunger, for this was in the winter 

 time when it was not practicable to get the meat to decay. 



In Banks Island the summer of 1914 we undertook to teach the 

 dogs to eat wolf. This experiment was conducted ''under laboratory 

 conditions." The dogs were kept tied in one place and supplied 

 each day with a dish of fresh water. A piece of wolf meat was 

 placed every day beside the dish and allowed to remain all that 

 day. This meat was then destroyed, for we were afraid it might 

 begin to putrefy and we wanted to see how long the team would 

 go hungry before eating meat that was quite fresh and still retained 

 the full wolf odor. During the second week five of the six dogs 

 gave in one by one, but at the end of the fourteenth day the last 

 dog had not yet touched it. He was the oldest of the team, which 

 was doubtless why he was the most conservative. He had been 

 the fattest of the lot at the beginning of the experiment and at the 

 end of the second week he was practically a skeleton. 



At this point I had to stop the test, for we had to begin travel- 

 ing and needed the strength of this dog along with that of the 

 others. It is quite possible that he might have chosen to starve. 

 I have found by experience as well as inquiry that a man fasting 

 does not get any hungrier after the second, some say the third, day, 

 and long before the fourteenth day the craving for food loses its 

 sharpest edge. 



This is a synopsis of only some of my experiments and experi- 

 ences with the food tastes of dogs, from which I have drawn the 

 following generalized conclusions: 



Dogs brought up around ships and used to foraging in refuse- 

 piles and eating highly-seasoned food will eat any food offered to 

 them. It seems therefore that a dog used to many sorts does not 

 mind eating one sort more. 



