396 VICIOUS AND FEROCIOUS ANIMALS. 



when does the scienter begin? Surely not, as the EngHsh law 

 has it, only when the owner becomes aware that the particular 

 dog has done damage or has attempted to do damage; and 

 everybody knows that dogs are apt to bite and do 

 damage." ** 



And in a Vermont case it is said : "The formula used in 

 text-books and in forms given for pleadings in such cases, 

 'accustomed to bite,' does not mean that the keeper of a fero- 

 cious dog is exempt from all duty of restraint until the dog 

 has effectually mangled or killed at least one person. But, 

 as he is held to be a man of common vigilance and care, if he 

 had good reason to believe, from his knowledge of the fero- 

 cious nature and propensity of the dog, that there was 

 ground to apprehend that he would under some circum- 

 stances bite a person, then the duty of restraint attached ; 

 and to omit i\. was negligence." ®^ 



On which these comments are made in a Missouri case: 

 "We are inclined to go further even than Judge Redfield and 

 to hold with some authorities that proof of the mischievous 

 character of an animal and previous knowledge thereof by the 

 owner or keeper is sufficient to sustain a recovery, even 

 though the animal was neither malicious nor ferocious. . . . 

 It is immaterial to the victim whether the dog bit him in play 

 or in maHce." ^''" But it is not sufficient to show merely that 

 a dog has the habit of bounding upon people, but not so as to 

 hurt them.'**^ Where a dog leaped upon a porter and caused 



" 2S Jour. Jurisp. (Sc.) 454. And in 34 Sol. Jour. 686, reference is made 

 to "the long exploded fallacy, first propounded, we believe, by Lord 

 Cockburn in a Scotch case, that 'the law of England allows each dog to 

 have one worry with impunity.' " 



°" Godeau v. Blood, 52 Vt. 251, 254, per Redfield, J. And see Flansburg 

 V. Basin, 3 111. App. 531; Kolb v. Klages, 27 id. 531; Warner v. Chamber- 

 lain, 7 Houst. (Del.) 18; Kennett v. Engle, 105 Mich. 693; Rider v. White, 

 65 N. Y. 54. 



""Staetter v. McArthur, 33 Mo. App. 218, 222. See also State v. 

 McDermott, 49 N. J. L. 163; Hathaway v. Tinkham, 148 Mass. 85. 



'" Line V. Taylor, 3 F. & F. 731. 



