172 NOTES ON THE DOG TRIBE. 



these puny tormentors are said to prefer the skin 

 of the lap-dog to that of the lady. Strange taste ! 

 not easily to be accounted for. 



Lap-dogs are well known to be vigilant watchers, 

 both in the night and during the day ; and really 

 their services are valuable in these times of diurnal 

 robbery, when members of what is called the swell- 

 mob, will walk coolly into a house, and carry 

 off all the silver used at breakfast. A lap-dog 

 seems to be ever on the watch, although its eyes 

 be closed, apparently by sleep. It starts, and 

 gives mouth at the slightest noise, and is thus 

 the means of frustrating many an attempt at 

 robbery. 



Lap-dogs are better in the house than out of it ; 

 for, when they are allowed to run loose, they 

 sometimes become very nasty by having rubbed 

 themselves in the first piece of carrion in their way. 



Again, all dogs have a natural and disagreeable 

 scent coming from them, quite different from that 

 of all known animals. Soap and brushes may 

 subdue it for the moment, but it will return when 

 these are discontinued. If you were blindfolded, 

 and one hundred different animals were pre- 

 sented to your olfactory regions, with ten dogs 

 amongst them, you would not fail to recognise the 

 ten dogs, as soon as they were placed under your 

 nose. 



