CAN 
CAN 
fore, sacrificed a brown dog every year at 
its rising to appease its wrath. 
CANINE teeth, in anatomy, are two 
sharp-edged teeth in each jaw ; one on each 
side, placed between the incisores and mo- 
laj-es. 
Canine muscles, a pair of muscles com- 
mon to both lips. They arise from tlie hol- 
low on each side under the os jugalis, in the 
os maxillare, and are inserted into the angle 
of the lips. 
CAN IS, the dog, in natural history, a 
genus of Mammalia, of the order Ferae. 
Generic character : six upper foreteeth ; la- 
teral ones longer, distant : the intermediate 
ones lobate ; in the lower jaw six, lateral 
ones lobated ; tusks solitary and incurvat- 
ed ; grinders six or seven, or more than in 
other genera of this order. 
This genus is distinguished by its vora- 
city and by tearing what it devours. It is 
unable to climb trees ; can move with 
great swiftness ; has the crown of its head 
usually flat, with a lengthened snout; its 
body very considerably thicker before 
than behind; its claws are long, some- 
what curved, but not retractile. The fe- 
male produces many at a time, and has 
usually four teats on the breast and six on 
the belly. In the savage state of the dog, 
his irritable and ferocious character renders 
him a dangerous enemy to other animals, 
but when domesticated, his grand object 
appears to be to please his employers, and 
to convert to their service his courage, his 
swiftness, and all his striking and valuable 
instincts. He is extremely docile, and ac- 
commodates himself to tlie manners and 
habits of those with whom he lives, with a 
facility which furnishes an admirable lesson. 
His vigilance over whatever is committed 
to his charge is connected wdth a courage 
in defence of it, arising even to rage. His 
suspicions are perpetually alive : his infe- 
rences, with respect to the just grounds of 
apprehension, are astonisliingly judicious 
and correct, and he not only sounds the 
tocsin of alarm to the whole family by 
which he is employed as centinel, but darts 
on a supposed culprit with a vigour and 
intrepidity which generally overwhelm the 
power of resistance. By the assistance of 
the dog, man has reduced the other ani- 
mals to slavery. Dangerous and ferocious 
beasts are hunted down by its means. By 
conciliating, among the various animals by 
which he was surrounded, those, which at 
the same time that they abound in energies 
are also capable of affection and obedience, 
man has been enabled to oppose and de- 
stroy others with which he would have been 
able to establish no compromise, whose 
ferocity is untameable, and whose power 
is connected only with ravage and desola- 
tion. The training of the dog was proba- 
bly one of the first objects of the attention 
of man, and aided him extremely in sub- 
duing the earth to his unmolested govern- 
ment. 
The capability of instruction, and the 
imitative powers of the dog, have furnished 
innumerable curious and interesting anec- 
dotes. A Florentine nobleman possessed 
a dog which would attend his table and 
change his plates, and carry his wine to him 
with the utmost steadiness, and the most 
accurate attention to his master’s notices. 
It is related by the illustrious Leibnitz, 
that a Saxon peasant was in possession of 
a dog of the middling size, and about three 
years of age, which the peasant’s son, per- 
ceiving accidentally, as he imagined, some 
resemblance in its sounds to those of the 
human voice, attempted to teach it to 
speak. By tlie perseverance of the lad, 
the dog acquired the power, we are told, 
of pronouncing about thirty words. It 
would, however, exercise this extraordi- 
nary faculty only with reluctance, the 
words being first spoken always by the 
preceptor, and then echoed by the pupil. 
The circumstance is attested by Leibnitz, 
who himself heard it speak, and was com- 
municated by him in a memoir to the 
Royal Academy of France. 
In the theatre of Marcellus, what many 
will consider more probable, but what is 
still extraordinary, is mentioned to have 
occurred, by Plutarch. A dog was here 
exhibited who excelled in various dances 
of great complication and difficulty, and 
represented also the effects of disease and 
pain, upon the frame in all the contortions 
of countenance and writhings of the body, 
from the first access to that paroxysm, 
which often immediately precedes disso- 
lution ; having thus apparently expired in 
agony, he would suffer himself to be car- 
ried about motionless, as in a state of death, 
and after a sufficient continuance of tlie 
jest, he would biirst .upon the spectators 
with an animation and sportiveness, which 
formed a very interesting conclusion of 
this curious interlude, by which the animal 
seemed to enjoy the success of his scenic 
efforts, and to be delighted with the admi- 
ration which was liberally and universally 
bestowed upon men. 
