276 MODERN TRAINING. 



cation of this knowledge, with a perception of means to ends, 

 can only be referred to a rational organization. By no pos- 

 sibility could he show abstract knowledge derived from ex- 

 perience if his faculties were limited to the senseless instinct- 

 ive acts. Certain tones on the whistle, commands, signals, 

 expressions of countenance of the owner, changes of route, 

 etc., are understood, and are succeeded and responded 

 to by certain rational acts. This branch, although treated 

 briefly herein, is of great scope in physiology, and includes 

 memory, association of ideas, cause and effect, etc. The 

 saddling or harnessing of a horse, any unusual preparation, 

 or energy of action, the preparation for meals, the pur- 

 poses of methods in hunting and the multitude of details 

 of domestic life, are remembered and understood if the dog 

 has had opportunities to note their purposes if novel, they 

 excite his curiosity. Any unusual occurrence, even if tri- 

 fling, will entirely change the current of the dog's thoughts 

 and actions; acts which are many times repeated become 

 habitual he has favorite places to sleep in daytime, others 

 at night, others again for sunning himself, favorite ways of 

 working his grounds, circumventing the birds, etc. He 

 quickly discerns such acts as are pleasurable to him, and 

 such objects as are worthy of pursuit. Such as are pleas- 

 urable he will perform voluntarily; others he will refuse to 

 perform, or perform because they are less painful than re- 

 fusal with punishment. 



If, when hunting in the field with another dog, the latter 

 false points a few times, he will refuse to back his points 

 thereafter, showing conclusively that he observed the points 

 were purposeless, and the refusal to back showed a high de- 

 gree of perception and reflection. In the case of the dog 

 false pointing, and the other one refusing to back, the latter 

 had a perception of subject and object attributes which re- 

 quired a process of ratiocination. It was a combined act 



