ing capacity of some of these Shepherds have placed 
them on a footing with their human confreres as 
“Stars.” The owner of a single dog who keeps him 
solely as a companion may feel that this intensive 
training is unnecessary, and so it is to a certain 
extent, for a highly trained dog is sometimes too 
professional and eager to be a companion, but a 
course of protective training gives the dog his work¬ 
ing value and makes him a greater asset to his 
master. Again, this preliminary training has often 
been the discoverer of some unusual mentality that 
called for a further exploitation of these talents, and 
so many of the highly finished police, war and herd¬ 
ing dogs have been developed. One can readily see 
that all these efforts to bring the individual to such 
a high mental development must necessarily leave its 
impress' upon the psychology of the breed and this 
favorable impress is evidenced by his great popu¬ 
larity. There is a general impression that the breed 
is of a taciturn and morose disposition, unwilling 
to forget his dignity at any time and have a jovial 
romp with his master. This erroneous belief finds 
its foundation generally in the imperfect conception 
of the dog's character. Shepherds as a rule are 
one-man clogs, and the elements that make up the 
reticence that the Shepherd shows to friendly ad¬ 
vances are, first, the general training as a guard 
dog that makes him naturally suspicious of strangers 
and, in the second place, the quiet dignity that is 
the result of generations of schooling and that makes 
him loath to part with at the instigation of the 
stranger. To his master, however, he reveals his 
true feelings, and I have found all the Shepherds 
that I ever owned to be intensely affectionate, de- 
