THE COLLIES 155 



There is no dog that excels the Collie in good looks, high 

 intelligence, and unswerving loyalty to his master or his mistress, 

 and to these qualities does he owe his high position as a general 

 favourite with the public, whilst his practical excellences render 

 him indispensable to the shepherd. As an instance of the sagacity 

 shown by the shepherd's Collie the following may be qupted. 

 A Scotch herder once bought some sheep in Edinburgh, and on 

 the way home, as the road was crowded, lost two of them. This 

 was not only a misfortune to John, but a slur upon his dog and 

 a reproach to the man. Several days after John learned that a 

 farmer who lived near the highway had found a pair of sheep, and 

 he went with the dog to see if they were his. The farmer, with 

 proper caution, asked him how they were marked. As John had 

 bought sheep from many sellers, and had hurried out of town, he 

 could not inform the farmer, who said : " Very well, then it is 

 only right that I should keep the sheep." " It's a fact," replied 

 John, " that I cannot tell the sheep ; but if my dog can, will you 

 let me have them ? " The farmer, though hard, was honest, and, 

 having little fear of the ordeal, had all the sheep upon his farm 

 turned into a large park. John's dog also was turned into the park, 

 and immediately singled out first one and then the other of the 

 strays. That afternoon John was offered forty pounds for his Collie, 

 and refused it, saying : " He's a good dog, and he's worth more 

 than that to me. He does my work for me." 



Of the development by training of that intelligence with which 

 the Collie is so liberally endowed there is hardly any need to speak. 

 Our many variety shows furnish us with abundant proof, while 

 a decent book of well-authenticated instances of remarkably clever 

 dogs might easily be compiled. Suffice it to say that there is 

 hardly any limit to the many useful and ornamental tricks that the 

 Collie may be taught by a patient and painstaking owner. 



Of the many fallacies in connection with dogs that ought to be 

 relegated to the limbo of forgotten absurdities is the very prevalent 

 one that the Collie as a breed is treacherous. Even the judicial mind 

 is not free from bias in respect of the dog, and one County Court 

 judge who was called upon to adjudicate in a case in which a Collie 

 figured stated that all he knew about Collies was that they were 

 treacherous brutes. Further, he said that he had owned one, and 

 that it had bitten several members of his family, so he sold it ! 

 Statements such as these are very damaging to a breed, and are 

 the more regrettable since they are unwarranted by what is known 

 of the breed as a whole. It is a slander, to say the least, on a most 

 intelligent breed, for the modern Collie is not by nature treacherous, 

 whatever may be said with regard to his remote ancestors. Shows 

 more than anything have been instrumental in establishing that 

 close association with men that is so desirable. That there are 



