558 



THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



The Law looks upon fighting between dogs 

 as a natural and necessary incident in the 

 career of every member of the canine race, 

 and gives no redress to the owner of the van- 

 quished animal, provided the fight was a 

 fair one, and the contestants appear to 

 consider it so. The owner, however, of a 

 peaceably disposed dog which is attacked 

 and injured, or killed, by one savage and 

 unrestrained, has a right of action against 

 the owner of the latter. The owner of the 

 peaceably disposed animal may justifiably 

 kill the savage brute in order to save his 

 dog, but if he takes upon himself to do this 

 he must run the risk of being able to prove 

 that this course was the only means of 

 putting a stop to the fight. The approved 

 method of saving your dog in such a crisis 

 according to a case which has been decided 

 (Wright V. Rainwear, i Sid. 330) is to beat 

 off your dog's opponent with a stick, but, 

 as is pretty well known, this, with a game 

 dog, is a useless method of procedure, and 

 is also an extremely foolish one ; there are 

 much better ways of parting two fighting 

 dogs, especially when they belong to the 

 smaller breeds, such as Terriers, in which 

 the writer has some experience. When two 

 specimens of the large sized breeds, such as 

 Mastiffs or Great Danes, are exchanging 

 courtesies in this way, and get a hold of 

 one another there is nothing better than a 

 good big pinch of snuff adroitly placed, and 

 one gentleman whose kennel of Danes was 

 world-famed, always made it a rule when 

 out with his hounds, to carry with him a 

 well-filled snuff-box of substantial size, 

 which he used with invariable success on all 

 such occasions. 



,. „ - are two notices which it is 



" Beware of 



the Dog" not uncommon, especially in 

 and " Dogs country places, to observe 



will be Shot" ij. • j. j ± 



written or pamted upon gates 



or in covers respectively. It may there- 

 fore be interesting in this section to 

 inquire as to the way in which the Law 

 looks upon them, and what they mean. 



With regard to the former, it is more or 

 less a common practice, especially in lonely 

 districts and in factory yards, where at 



times goods and other tnmgs nave perforce 

 to be left about, for householders and 

 owners to keep fierce watch dogs, and turn 

 them loose or keep them on a long chain, 

 at night, as a guard against burglars and 

 tramps. The danger of this proceeding is, 

 however, that the natural sagacity of the 

 dog does not enable him to discriminate 

 with absolute infallibility, and particularly 

 by night, between these trespassers and 

 other persons who may be coming on lawful 

 business ; consequently any person who 

 guards his property in this manner against 

 one source of danger thereby runs the risk 

 of being mulct in damages at the suit of an 

 innocent person who has fallen a victim to 

 his dog's ferocity, " for although," said 

 Tindal, C.J., "a man undoubtedly has a 

 right to keep a fierce dog for the protection 

 of his property, he has no right to put the 

 dog in such a situation in the way of access 

 to his house that a person innocently 

 coming for a lawful purpose may be injured 

 by it." 



Now it is a well-established legal prin- 

 ciple that he who keeps anything by 

 nature dangerous (and a fierce dog is un- 

 questionably dangerous), keeps it at his 

 own peril. " Who ever," said Lord Den- 

 man, C.J. (in May v. Burdett, 9 Q.B. loi), 

 " keeps an animal accustomed to attack 

 and bite mankind, with knowledge that it 

 IS so accustomed, is prima facie liable in an 

 action on the case, at the suit of any person, 

 attacked and injured by the animal, without 

 any averment of negligence or default in 

 the securing or taking care of it." Now a 

 householder's obligations towards persons 

 coming upon his premises vary according 

 to the class to which such persons happen 

 to belong, or, in other words, according to 

 what right they have to be upon the premises. 

 A person may come upon lawful business or 

 by invitation, and in this case the duties 

 cast upon the householder are to see that the 

 premises are reasonably secure, and to use 

 proper care to prevent damage from unusual 

 danger which he knew, or should have 

 known of. He may come as a licensee, and 

 here the only duty on the householder is to 

 prcA-cnt danger of a latent character ; i.e. 



