ULSE'S FIRST INSTRUCTION 147 



to keep my questions within a very narrow limit, for 

 her intercourse was of too short a duration to enable 

 her to acquire a lengthy or varied vocabulary. Still, 

 we practised 2 X I, 2x2, 3x2, and her answers 

 were always excellent, as long as nothing else was 

 going on to excite or distract her. 



The amusing thing was that she loved doing it so 

 that the little paw would be up in mid-air as soon as 

 ever she saw me, as much as to show that she was 

 quite ready for work. This was doubtless due to the 

 very quiet existence she had led before coming indoors, 

 and also perhaps to the little favours and tit-bits she 

 had learnt to associate with her new accomplishments. 

 Indeed, until these had blossomed out, her innate 

 cleverness and brightness had gone almost un- 

 noticed. 



When I had assured myself that she fully compre- 

 hended the rapping, I endeavoured to teach her to rap 

 on a board, instead of on my hand, a thing I had never 

 been able to get Lola to agree to. Indeed, I had had 

 to relinguish any hope of it, in the case of the older 

 dog ; whether it was that the scratching of her toe- 

 nails on the board irritated her or what, I do not know, 

 but it practically stopped her working. My only 

 reason for trying to introduce this method at all had 

 been to put an end to the suggestions sometimes put 

 forward by sceptical persons that I might be " helping 

 her with my hand ! " Anyway, the ease with which 

 Ulse took to rapping on the board, and the excellent 

 work she did by that method should have proved a 

 sufficient reply to all doubters, and I had been full of 

 hope that her gifts would, in time, have been further 

 developed by her new mistress, yet it was to be other- 

 wise. Ulse was to have gone to her new home in 

 Meran (in the Tyrol), but the regulations as to 



