THE EDUCATIONAL HUMANE SOCIETY 
189 
His teeth were small but very sharp. 
\yhen he was four months old his baby 
teeth came out and he grew a set of 
larger teeth. His jaw is very pointed, 
and in front the teeth are small and 
close set but on the sides, in the same 
position as our canine teeth, are four 
terrible, long fangs as sharp as needles. 
Coonie washes his bread and meat 
before eating it. He doesn’t seem to 
care if the water is dirty. He would 
wash a perfectly good slice of bread in 
a mud puddle for lack of better. His 
paws are tiny, dainty and black, wit! 
five slender, clever fingers. He seems 
almost human in his manner of han- 
dling things. He eats nuts like a squir- 
rel, standing on his hind legs and hold- 
ing them in his front paws. 
He weighs fifteen pounds now and is 
so fat and furry that he looks clumsy 
but he can run faster than a dog. He 
seems to flatten out and slide when he 
is in a hurry. W e keep chickens but 
although he has had many opportuni- 
ties he has never tried to molest them. 
They are afraid of him, however, and 
do not go nearer than they can help. 
I think that Coonie is far more in- 
telligent than a cat. He is very clever 
about opening doors unless they are 
latched. He stands on his hind legs 
and throws his whole weight against 
the door. If that does not work he puts 
his claws in the crack and pulls toward 
him. He is a very fine climber in spite 
of his weight and the delicacy of his 
claws. Once he chased a cat up a tree 
and nearly caught it. 
Coonie has been so tame and tract- 
able that my father is anxious to buy 
another and raise coons. 
Alice Hall. 
Why Does the Dog Do It? 
The strangest thing I have ever seen 
an animal do, writes a contributor, is 
especially interesting because there 
seems to be no satisfactory explana- 
tion of it. There is a fine, well-fed dog 
in Indianapolis that spends the largest 
part of each day. rain or shine, in run- 
ning alongside certain electric cars. 
Many dogs run after cars and automo- 
biles, but of course this dog keeps up 
with the particular car he chooses, and 
never loses it ; at each stop the dog 
is at the front of the car. barking, and 
biting the fender. 
He does this only on the Pennsyl- 
vania Street line, and usually he sticks 
to one car ; but occasionally he will 
change from an uptown to a downtown 
car in the middle of his run and stay 
with the latter during the rest of the 
day. For months he has never failed 
to appear somewhere along the line and 
start his day’s run. None of the car 
men or passengers owns him, but every- 
one who travels on that line knows his 
antics well. 
His tireless pursuit of the car is re- 
markable, not only because he is so 
persistent and methodical in it but be- 
cause of the astonishing physical en- 
durance that enables him to keep up 
the chase. He is never behind the car ; 
usually he is ahead of it ready to greet 
it with joyful barks when it stops. In 
summer and winter I have watched him 
running wildly along at all hours of the 
day. The most inclement weather 
does not stop him ; I have seen him at 
times with his shaggy front covered 
with ice from his breath. 
Was there some one on one of those 
cars at one time whom he loved and 
whom he expects to see there again? 
Or is it just his way of enjoying him- 
self? — The Youth’s Companion. 
Dogs, human beings and other ani- 
mals enjoy doing the things that 
are primitive and natural. The 
dog is primarily a chaser, and 
he chases the trolley car because 
chasing is deep in his nature. For the 
same reason a golfer likes to tramp over 
hill and dale, the hunter shoulders his 
gun and goes through the field and 
forest. The fisherman goes to the pond 
or the brook because of original primi- 
tive instincts along those lines. It 
really is amusing to note how some- 
times primitive instincts are displayed. 
They seem to go astray along divergent 
lines and that is why we notice the 
dog and laugh at his antics. But the 
cat plays with the mouse or with the 
spool of thread for exactly the same 
reason that the dog chases the trolley 
car. — E. F. B. 
Trailing robes of glory, 
Comes the Goddess of the Spring, 
To write the old. old story 
Of the earth’s awakening. 
— Emma Peirce. 
