QUARRELSOME DOGS. 7 23 



haunting him I imagine it is not easy to do so he assumes a puzzled expression of countenance, 

 as though half convinced he has seen me before, though when and under what circumstances he could 

 not say though his life depended on it."* 



Another very good instance of cunning, produced by a long course of back-slum life and manners, 

 is given by the writer from whom the foregoing anecdote is taken, respecting " a Dog a low-looking 

 villain, blind of one eye, and, in consequence of his nefarious propensities, with never more than three 

 sound legs to run on, who haunts the neighbourhood of Drury Lane. Nobody owns the brute, but he 

 has contrived to scrape acquaintance with a kind-hearted cheesemonger, who keeps a shop there, 

 I have the worthy tradesman's own word for it that he always knows when the officer on the look-out 

 for vagrant Dogs is about by the sudden appearance of Tinker and his peculiar behaviour. 

 At ordinary times disdaining to be anything better than a Dog of the streets, his custom is to salute 

 the cheesemonger from the pavement, and by a bark and a wag of his stump of a tail solicit an 

 unconsidered trifle of bone or bacon-rind ; but on the special occasion alluded to his tactics are quite 

 different. He enters the shop with a sober and business-like air, and lies down on a mat by the 

 parlour-door, with paws extended and his tail beating a contented tattoo on the floor, as though since 

 his puppyhood that had been his home and abiding-place, and he had known and desired to know no 

 other. It is a joke between the officer and the cheesemonger, and the former enters the shop and 

 loudly demands to know if ' that Dog lives here.' I have not as yet had the pleasure of witnessing it, 

 but the cheesemonger informs me that it is ' as good as a play ' to observe the reassuring blink of his 

 only eye which, at this juncture, Tinker bestows on the policeman, immediately afterwards curling 

 himself round for a doze, as though to say, ' Let this convince you.' Tinker's stay, however, is not 

 protracted. As soon as, according to his calculation, the coast is clear, he is off, as unexpectedly as 

 he came, and until he is again hard pressed by the law never thinks of crossing the cheesemonger's 

 threshold." 



We spoke just now of Dogs being honest from pure conventionality ; there is no doubt that many 

 of them soon acquire a very acute sense of the conventional, and perform certain actions, or assume a 

 certain behaviour, simply because they feel it to be the right and proper thing. We have heard of a 

 Bull-terrier who acquired perfectly that sense of decorum which in many human beings serves in lieu 

 of religious feeling. When this Dog was bought, it was debated whether or not it would be advisable 

 to let him remain in the room at prayers ; the question was eventually decided in the affirmative, and 

 the Dog almost immediately seemed to get a sense of what was meant, and to feel that he was expected 

 to behave with propriety. He therefore adopted a particular mode of procedure a sort of canine 

 ritual to which he always steadily adhered. While the Bible was being read, he sat straight up on 

 his haunches on the hearth-rug, looking solemnly into the fire. This he continued until the family 

 knelt to pray, when he immediately went off to a corner of the room, and stood there with lowered 

 head until all was over. He did this with such perfect solemnity that the effect was indescribably 

 ludicrous, and friends stopping in the house had to be warned of what to expect. 



The tales of canine magnanimity are endless. Every one knows that of the big Newfoundland 

 who, being long plagued by a number of little yelping curs, one of whom at last bit him, revenged 

 himself only by dipping the offender in the quay hard by, and, after he was cowed, plunging in and 

 bringing him safe to land. But all Dogs are not magnanimous. Some of them, like certain men one 

 meets with, have quite a talent for taking offence, and will pick a quarrel on the slightest provocation, 

 or, indeed, on no provocation at all. There are, of course, the wretched little curs one meets in the 

 street, whose sole delight seems to be to rush out suddenly and bark furiously at every passer-by ; but 

 these miserable beings act as they do rather from lack of brain, and for want of something to do, than 

 from real badness of heart. There are Dogs, however, who are naturally quarrelsome, and will do all 

 in their power to get up a row, simply for the pleasure of the thing. " There is a well-authenticated 

 instance of a Terrier, who, in picking a quarrel, contrived, as if trained in the Kanzellei of Prince 

 Bismarck, to place himself technically in the right. He would time his movements so that some 

 passenger should stumble over him, and would then fasten on the calf of his leg. With a most 

 statesman-like aptitude, he selected the aged, the infirm, and the ill-dressed, as the objects of his 

 cunningly-planned attacks, "t 



* From the GMe newspaper. t " Animal Depravity," Quarterly Journal of Science, 187u 



