EDITORIAL 
MAINLY ABOUT DOGS * | V HERE must be something 
A radically wrong with the 
man who does not like dogs. Probably he has never in his life 
known and loved a dog, or—and this is worse — probably he has 
never had a dog know and love him. 
Entering upon summer we come to that season in which dogs 
play a distinct role, when the dog looms large in our out-of-doors 
life. For it must be said, in all fairness to the dog himself, that 
he rightly belongs to the out-of-doors; to keep him in a city 
apartment is to keep him in prison. And just because he plays 
this leading role in the life of the house and the garden have 
the pages of this magazine been opened from time to time to him. 
In the months to come there will be even more about him, because 
more and more must we acknowledge that a dog is as much 
a part of the country house as the furniture, as necessary to the 
pleasures of children as Uncle Remus and Robinson Crusoe, as 
indispensable to grownups as chairs to sit in and books to read. 
Among the papers found recently in the attic of an old Phila¬ 
delphia house was a faded account book containing various and 
sundry entries covering the space of a hundred years. The entries 
were the names of the pets the family had had in those generations. 
Here were listed the horses, their names, histories and the dates 
of their departure from this sphere of activity. There were 
listed also the pet sheep, a tame crow, several turtles, a few cats, 
and — most important of all—an imposing array of dogs. Looking 
over this unique record one could visualize the simple family 
joys of those ten decades, the contributions of fidelity and watch¬ 
fulness made by these dumb things that, having served their 
masters with unswerving faith, were, like their masters, in good 
time laid to sleep. 
Now, save the horses, there was very little mention made of 
pedigree in that list. And this leads one to marvel at the manner 
in which human fads and fancies create or destroy the popularity 
of breeds. One wonders, do the fashionable folk who affect 
dogs to-day do so because they like dogs, or because they like 
to be seen with certain breeds of dogs? Do we like dogs for 
their own sakes or for their pedigrees? Do we cherish them 
for their fidelity, or for the reclame their owning reflects on us? 
Meanwhile the dog, with a fine sense of the necessity for keeping 
bis place, continues to look upon his master as his liege lord 
and god. 
In his essay on “Our Friend the Dog,” Maeterlinck has said 
many true and beautiful things. By leading the reader into the 
thoughts and speculations those kindly creatures may have about 
their masters and their masters’ lives, he has opened many an 
avenue of pleasant reflection. The thought that remains most 
vivid after reading the essay is that in which it is said of the 
dog that he is the sole creature of the lower orders which has 
striven to bridge, through kindness and courage, the great gulf 
which lies between man and the dumb beast. Now, that very 
getting close to dumb creatures is one of the main purposes of 
country living. We all need it from time to time. In the cities 
we live with brick walls and paved streets and trolley cars and 
other men and women. In the country our feet tread a path to 
a new world and we enter into cities where men do not dwell. 
Lord mayor of those strange municipalities, the dog flings wide 
the gateway to us, bids us enter, gives us the freedom of his 
cities. A guide to another world is that four-footed friend. Per¬ 
haps that is why so many of us cherish his friendship. 
What the dog thinks of us, can, under our present limitations, 
be only a matter of conjecture. What we think of the dog, on 
the other hand, can be quite a salient factor in our lives. Accord¬ 
ing to the attitude a man holds toward his dog can you judge 
his attitude toward men and women, for the same loss of temper 
that would make him cuff a dog would make him cuff his child. 
The dog then stands as an indicator of our relations with those 
who, either through age or station, are subject unto us. 
"Love me, love my dog.” Never were truer words uttered. 
The gruffest of men changes face if you love his dog. To some 
it is even : Love me, love my hero, as could many a wounded 
soldier attest these days and many a Belgian mitrailleuse crew. 
Whether or not dogs have souls—a question often prattled 
over teacups by otherwise unemployed minds—need never come 
into one’s calculations. That eminent divine John of Patmos is 
the authority for saying that without the gate of Heaven are 
dogs, and he also lists with the canines some very undesirable 
though picturesque folk. Doubtless he had once had a regrettable 
encounter with a scavenger dog of the type that runs amuck all 
through the East. Doubtless there are many who would choose 
the company of their dog to the company of many types of 
persons who are listed as being on the inside of the aforesaid 
gate. That need never bother us. This we know, however; 
soul or no soul, the same forces that impel a man often enough 
impel the dog — and vice versa. Despite his much-vaunted soul 
and spirit, man is not raised so high above the dumb creatures 
that an appreciable amount of his fidelity and tenderness can be 
attributed to a power other than those animal instincts which 
impel the dog to be faithful and tender. The same instincts that 
bid us preserve ourselves and our generation from harm and 
destruction, that make us work for food and shelter, that make us 
play, cause the dog to fight for us and for his own, cause him 
to cherish the choice bone, cause him to dance and run with joy. 
The Russians, it would seem, are the only race that has con¬ 
sidered the services of dumb beasts of sufficient worth to make 
them an object of prayer. Of all the liturgies, the Greek Orthodox 
alone gives them a place. The prayer, beautiful in its simplicity, 
is as follows: “And also for those, O Lord, the humble beasts 
who with us bear the burden and heat of the day and offer up 
their guileless lives for the well-being of their countries, we sup¬ 
plicate Thy great tenderness of heart. For Thou hast promised 
to save both man and beast, and great is Thy loving kindness." 
Among the men least given to sentimentalizing is Rudyard 
Kipling, yet he it was who penned the stern admonition: “Don't 
give your heart to a dog to tear.” The warning might seem 
needless, were it not a fact that most of us do give our hearts to 
dogs, and that eventually we know what it is to experience a heart 
wrench over our separation from them. We can see our grand¬ 
mother’s chair carted off to the limbo of the dust-bin without a 
qualm, but we don’t want to stay around the house on the day 
that the coachman delivers the coup de grace to a faithful old 
dog. On that day we may make a silent vow that we’ll never 
possess another dog, and we suffer with tight collars for some 
days after. Then — wonder of wonders — our vow fades into 
nothingness, and, before we realize it, a new dog is prancing his 
way into our hearts! 
There is no overcoming the persistent friendship of a dog. 
We capitulate before the siege has begun. The dog has his place 
in our out-of-doors life, and the only way to enjoy that life to 
the fullest is to share it from time to time with him. 
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