NATURE AND RESULTS OP THE TRESPASS. 277 



a man to keep his cattle in, and if they get. on another's land 

 it is a trespass ; and that is irrespective of any question of neg- 

 ligence whether great or small. In this case it is found that 

 there was an iron fence on the plaintiff's land, and that the 

 horse of the defendants did damage to that of the plaintifif 

 through the fence. It seems to me sufficiently clear that 

 some portion of the defendants' horse's body must have been 

 over the boundary. That may be a very small trespass ; but 

 it is a trespass in law." ^^^ 



With regard to a dog the rule appears to be different. It 

 has been held that a dog's jumping into a field without the 

 consent of his master is not a trespass for which an action will 

 lie."® It is no trespass where the owner of land chases sheep 

 out with a little dog and then calls the dog ofl ;^^^ nor where 

 a person goes along a footpath and his dog happens to escape 

 from him and run into a paddock and pull down a deer against 

 his will.^^* In a later case the question was discussed but 

 not decided, whether the owner of a dog is answerable in 

 trespass for every unauthorized entry of the animal into the 

 land of another. The reasons given for a distinction between 

 animals like dogs and cats and others like oxen were, first, the 

 difificulty or impossibility of keeping them under restraint; 

 second, the slightness of damage which their wandering or- 

 dinarily causes ; third, the common usage of mankind to allow 

 them a wider liberty; fourth, their not being considered so 

 absolutely the owner's chattels as to be the subjects of lar- 

 ceny.^^* And in a Connecticut case it is said: "Although a 

 dog cannot by entering alone on the land of another and doing 



"•' Ellis V. Loftus Iron Co., L. R. lo C. P. lo. And see § 92, infra. 



""Brown v. Giles, i C. & P. 118. And see Sanders v. Teape, 51 L. T. 

 N. S. 263. 



"' Millen v. Fandrye, Poph. 161. "' Beckwith v. Shordike, 4 Burr. 2092. 



And see Dimmock v. Allenby, 2 Marsh. 582; Buck v. Moore, 35 Hun 

 (N. Y.) 338; State v. Donohue, 49 N. J. L. 548. 



"° Read v. Edwards, 17 C. B. N. S. 24s, where a dog known to have a 

 propensity for chasing game was allowed by its master to be at large and 

 it entered the plaintiff's wood and did damage. The action was sustained. 



