EARLY HISTORY OF THE DOG. 



The dog is the only animal that is capable of disinterested affection. 

 He is the only one that regards the human being as his companion, and 

 follows him as his friend ; the only one that seems to possess a natural 

 desire to be useful to him, or from a spontaneous impulse attaches himself 

 to man. We take the bridle from the mouth of the horse, and turn him 

 free into the pasture, and he testifies his joy in his partially recovered 

 liberty. We exact from the dog the service that is required of him, and 

 he still follows us. He solicits to be continued as our companion and 

 our friend. Many an expressive action tells us how much he is pleased 

 and thankful. He shares in our abundance, and he is content with the 

 scantiest and most humble fare. He loves us while living, and lias been 

 known to pine away on the grave of his master. 



As an animal of draught ^the dog is highly useful in some countries. 

 What would become of the inhabitants of the northerr regions, if the dog 

 were not harnessed to the sledge, and the Laplander, and the Greenlander, 

 and the Kamtchatkan drawn, and not unfrequently at the rate of nearly 

 a hundred miles a day, over the snowy wastes? In Newfoundland, the 

 timber, one of the most important articles of commerce, is drawn to the 

 water-side by the docile but ill-used dog : and we need only to cross the 

 British Channel in order to see how useful, and, generally speaking, how 

 happy, a beast of draught the dog can be. 



Though, in our country, and to its great disgrace, this employment of 

 the dog has been accompanied by such wanton and shameful cruelty, that 

 the Legislature somewhat hastily confounding the abuse of a thing with 

 its legitimate purpose forbade the appearance of the dog-cart in the 

 metropolitan districts, and were inclined to extend this prohibition through 

 the whole kingdom, it is much to be desired that a kindlier and better 

 feeling may gradually prevail, and that this animal, humanely treated, 

 may return to the discharge of the services of which nature has rendered 

 him capable, and which prove the greatest source of happiness to him 

 while discharging them to the best of his power. 



In another and very important particular, as the preserver of human 

 life, the history of the dog will be most interesting. The writer of this 

 work has seen a Newfoundland dog who, on five distinct occasions, pre- 

 served the life of a human being ; and it is said of the noble quadruped 

 whose remains constitute one of the most interesting specimens in the 

 museum of Berne, that forty persons were rescued by him from impending 

 destruction. 



When this friend and servant of man dies, he does not or may not cease 

 to be useful ; for in many countries, and to a far greater extent than is 

 generally imagined, his skin is useful for gloves, or leggings, or mats, or 

 hammercloths ; and, while even the Romans occasionally fattened him for 

 the table, and esteemed his flesh a dainty, many thousands of people in 

 Asia, Africa, and America, now breed him expressly for food. 



If the publication of the present work should throw some additional 

 light on the good qualities of this noble animal ; if it should enable us to 

 derive more advantage from the services that he can render to train him 

 more expeditiously and fully for the discharge of those services to pro- 

 tect him from the abuses to which he is exposed, and to mitigate or remove 

 some of the diseases which his connexion with man has entailed upon 

 him ; if any of these purposes be accomplished, we shall derive consider- 

 able " useful knowledge " as well as pleasure from the perusal of the 

 present volume. 



