Dog
a well known animal related to the wolf, fox, and jackal. The origin of the dog is not known. Even after making allowance for the influence of domestication it is difficult to believe that a poodle and a bulldog are descended from a common ancestor. Several wild dogs are evidently closely related to the domestic dog and the wolf. The dog is by nature an animal of the chase. It has a keen scent, a good eye, is hardy, swift, and is adapted to a meat diet.
Several groups are of interest. The spaniel, the retriever, and the setter are soft, long haired water dogs. The latter derives its name from a habit of crouching when it desires to indicate the presence of game. The poodle, a homely, hairy lapdog, full of tricks and easily taught to retrieve or fetch game, does not seem out of place in this group. The noble New foundland dog has a love of water and a habit of fetching and carrying, suggesting a strain of spaniel ancestry.
Hounds hunt by sense of sight. The greyhound is the swiftest dog. It has been introduced in the West for jackrabbit coursing. The whippet is an English dog employed for hare hunting. The staghound and the deerhound were used for deer hunting. The Irish wolfhound and the great Dane are magnificent, large wolf dogs. The pointer is a hound, with an acquired disposition to stand in a rigor, pointing to game which it has located in cover by the sense of smell. The bloodhound is a dignified dog with large, wrinkled chops and pendulous ears. It was much used to trace runaway slaves and is still employed to pursue criminals, find lost children, or the like. If a shoe or garment of the desired fugitive, or an authentic footprint, can be shown this intelligent animal, it will sniff the article until it has the scent. It then courses round and round until it finds the trail of the fugitive, which it recognizes by the mere scent, even when a day or two old; then it sets off baying on the trail which it will follow for days. It is useless for a fugitive to walk fences, double back on his path, climb trees, pass through a herd of cattle, or step in the tracks of another person. The only way to throw a bloodhound off is to wade in water, and, even then, the dog will course up and down the shores for miles searching for the lost trail. In spite of his persistence, the bloodhound is not ferocious, but stands and bays at his game until his master comes up.
The St. Bernard of the old Swiss monastery is noted for having rescued many travelers from death in the snowstorms of the famous pass in which the monastery is situated.
The mastiff is a most massive, respectable type of dog. The bulldog is noted for loyalty and fighting qualities. The reader will recall Bill Sykes and his dog in Oliver Twist. The terrier is the most incorruptible, irrepressible watch dog in the whole dog family.
The collie or sheep dog is the most intelligent and valuable dog of the present day. The feats performed by the shepherd dog, as it is frequently called, are almost human in their ingenuity. The least that a Scotch collie will do is to chase up on the hillside and bring the sheep down to the shearer one by one as fast as they are wanted and no faster. When the sheep are penned for the night, he is on hand as anxious as can be while the count is going on, and at the least sign that any are wanting, he is off to the hills after the strays. Oliphant's Bob, Son of Battle, is the finest dog story in print. It does the collie simple justice.
Judging from literature the standing of the dog is better than it used to be. The standing of the dog in the Scriptures is crystallized in the query of Hazael, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?" In explanation it may be said that the oriental dog as seen in Jerusalem, Damascus, Bagdad, and other cities of the East, is a miserable slinking cur, infesting the streets and living chiefly on offal.
Beginning with the fable of the selfish dog in the manager, that would not allow the hungry ox to eat hay, we find many sayings and proverbs indicative of long companionship between everyday people and the dog,-not on the whole complimentary to the dog. "Idle dogs worry sheep," say the Scotch. "He that lies down with dogs must arise with fleas," contains more truth than poetry. "Hungry dogs eat dirty puddings," hints of necessity that knows no law. "A hair of the dog that bit you," said to be a cure for the bite of a mad dog, finds its parallel in the similia similibus curantur or like cures like of homeopathy and the doctrine of vaccination. "Help a lame dog over a stile," says the mendicant. "The gude dog doesna aye get the best bone," is the doctrine of the canny Scot again. "Better a live dog than a dead lion," is the refuge of the fainthearted. "Give a dog a bad name and hang him," and "Any stick will do to beat a dog with," are the pleas of the lawyer for the defense.
Although Shakespeare does advise that we "Throw physic to the dogs," as though the dog were the lower stratum of domesticity, modern literature shows that the dog has risen in popular estimation. Mountainous regions and the prairies and forests of the New World, with all the features of hunting, camping, and cabin life, have developed higher characteristics. Stories of the great St. Bernard rescuing snow-belated travelers, of Newfoundlands plunging in to save drowning children, of hounds placing themselves between the cradle and fierce beasts, of watch dogs guarding their master's property with their lives, and of dogs lying on their masters' graves refusing to be comforted, are numerous and bear testimony to one of the most faithful servants and persistent adherents of man.
For a further account, the reader is referred to the chapter on the dog in Darwin's Animals and Plants under Domestication.