LEAF AND TENDRIL 



their smell — a strange, unknovm odor. This at 

 once^puts him on his guard and excites his enmity. 

 There is little speculation in the eye of a dog, but 

 his nose is keen and analytical. 



The dog, through his long intercourse with man, 

 has become charged with our human quality, as steel 

 is charged by a magnet. Yet I am told that a tame 

 wolf or a tame fox fawns and wags his tail and 

 tries to lick his master's face, the same as the dog. 

 At any rate, the dog does many things that we can 

 name only in terms applicable to ourselves. My dog 

 coaxes me to go for a walk, he coaxes me to get 

 upon my lap, he coaxes for the food I am eating. 

 When I upbraid him, he looks repentant and 

 humiliated. "When I whip him, he cries, when I 

 praise him, he bounds, when I greet him in the 

 morning, he whines with joy. It is not the words 

 that count with him, it is the tone of the voice. 



When I start out for a walk, he waits and dances 

 about till he sees which way I am going. It seems 

 as if he must at such times have some sort of mental 

 process similar to my own under like circumstances. 

 Or is his whole behavior automatic — his attitude 

 of eagerness, expectancy, inquiry, and all ? as auto- 

 matic as the wagging of his tail when he is pleased, 

 or as his bristling up when he is angry ? It evinces 

 some sort of mental action, but the nature of it is 

 hard to divine. When he sits looking vaguely out 

 upon the landscape, or rests his chin upon his paws 

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