PSYCHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DOG. 17 



The dog is deserving of man's respect, for he seems to 

 possess in some degree of development every mental if not 

 also every moral faculty of man himself in so far as they 

 can exist apart from the possession of speech. In not a 

 few respects is the dog the superior of his master. If he 

 can not do all that the latter can, is it not also true that 

 there is much that he can accomplish quite impossible to 

 man? 



The author has long been impressed with the belief 

 that in regarding the dog as very like ourselves in physical 

 constitution, as shown by the similar action of drugs, poi- 

 sons, etc., and in psychic characteristics, we are better 

 prepared to understand this animal than on any other as- 

 sumption. 



While he greatly resembles the cat in some of his 

 physical qualities, he differs from this animal in many 

 others ; and it is certain that the dog may be treated in all 

 respects more as if he were a child than as bearing any 

 close relationship to our other domestic animals. This 

 will be explained more fully later; but at the present 

 the writer wishes to impress this on the reader, whether 

 he be a professional student or not, as he is deeply con- 

 vinced that the training, general management, and medical 

 treatment of the dog will be infinitely better carried out 

 on this basis than any other a view which it is a great 

 satisfaction to know is entertained by some of our most 

 thoughtful breeders as well as most careful students of 

 comparative psychology and medicine. 



For some time the author has been making a careful 

 study of the entire development of puppies from birth 

 onward, and this has greatly strengthened this conviction. 



