524 



THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



Sheepdogs, and Spaniels are variously used, 

 but the Japanese officers who visited Europe 

 some years ago to study the relative merits 

 of the different dogs decided in favour of the 

 Collie, which is also the breed approved in 

 the army of the Sultan. 



In the British Army it is of course the 

 Collie that is used for ambulance work, 

 and the greater number have been trained 

 under the instructions of Major E. H. 

 Richardson, late West Yorkshire Regiment, 

 some of whose dogs were used with excellent 

 results in the recent campaign in Manchuria 

 by the Russian Red Cross Society. The 

 invaluable aid which these dogs rendered 

 resulted in the saving of many a wounded 

 soldier's life. Ambulance trials are periodic- 

 ally held at Aldershot, and other military 

 camps. Men are hidden in ditches, tall 

 grass, and woods, and the Collies, started 

 off by word of command, speedily find 

 them. 



Pariah Dogs. — Pariah dogs are to be 

 found in almost all Oriental towns prowl- 

 ing about their own particular encampment, 

 and in a measure protecting the greater 

 encampments of their human friends. 

 Primarily they are not wild dogs attracted 

 towards the dwellings of men by an easy 

 means of obtaining food, but descendants of 

 the sentinel and scavenger dogs of a nomad 

 race, domestic dogs which have degenerated 

 into semi-wildness, yet which remain, as by 

 inherited habit, in association with mankind. 

 They vary considerably according to their 

 abode, and there is no fi.xed type ; they are 

 all mongrels. But by the process of in- 

 discriminate interbreeding and the influence 

 of environment, they acquire local character 

 which may often be mistaken for type. 

 And, indeed, they are sufficiently alike to 

 be described generally as about the size of 

 the Collie, resembling the Dingo, tawny in 

 colour, with a furry coat, a bushy tail, and 

 pointed ears. Everywhere they are master- 

 less, living upon what they can pick up in 

 the streets. Everywhere they gather in 

 separate communities restricted by recog- 

 nised frontiers beyond which they never 

 stray, and into which the dogs of no other 

 community are permitted to enter. Every- 



where each separate pack has its chosen 

 leader or sentinel who is followed and 

 obeyed and who alone has the privilege of 

 challenging the leader of a rival pack and of 

 keeping his subjects within bounds. 



It is the common custom to speak and 

 write of Pariah dogs as diseased and de- 

 testable scavengers, feeding on garbage, 

 snarling and snapping at all strangers, and 

 making night hideous by their unearthly 

 howling. But no lover of dogs can live for 

 any length of time in an eastern city such as 

 Constantinople without being intensely 

 interested in these despised and rejected 

 waifs. Studying them for their points, he 

 will acknowledge that when in good condition 

 many of them are handsome beasts, not 

 wholly destitute of the qualities desired in 

 the more favoured breeds. Studying them 

 for their habits, he will discover what is 

 often missed by the inattentive observer, 

 that they have characteristics meriting 

 admiration rather than disgust and con- 

 tempt. 



They are not scavengers in the literal 

 sense. They do not feed on filth and offal, 

 but merely select such scraps as serve their 

 purpose out of the dustbins placed at night 

 outside the door of every house to be re- 

 moved in the early morning. Frequently, 

 on account of the dogs, these bins contain 

 more and better food than would otherwise 

 be thrown away. Where Pariahs are not 

 ill-used they are rarely aggressive, and often 

 very sociable, and when kindly notice is 

 taken of them they will return the civility 

 with a canine caress. The Turks, who 

 consider the dog an unclean animal, never 

 willingly touch them ; but otherwise they 

 treat them most humanely. In hot weather 

 they supply them regularly with water, 

 and when a bitch is with whelp, a box is 

 reserved for her in some sheltered corner, 

 in which the puppies are bom. As the 

 pups are remarkably pretty, they are petted 

 by the children, and fed with scraps of a 

 better quality of food than their parents are 

 able to find. 



There are more dogs in Pera than in 

 Stamboul, a fact which is no doubt due to 

 the greater number of hotels and restaurants 



