DOGS.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3058, 14 April 1881, Page 4

DOGS.

History has preserved the names of other than human celobiitioa. Many v gallant steed has beed recorded on the roll of fame, from Alexander's Bucephalus down to tho recently notorious Bend Or. But dogs have been ycfc more favored. What a list of real and mythical canine heroes has como down to us from tho most remote ages. The ancients had their fabled Cerebus, and Homer has immortalised the faithful dog of Ulysses. Luath, and tho famous dog the Highland proverb associates with his master-

" If it is not Bran, it is Bran's dog-"

and king Lud's lazy hound, " who leant his head against a wall to bark," all belong to the realms of tradition. Gelert, tho trusty dog so rashly slain by his master under the mistaken idea that the animal had killed the infant he was in reality protecting, may be an historical personage; but, if so, a good many faithful dogs met a similar fate, for we find the same legend in other beside Welsh traditions. "The Dog of Montargis" used to be a favorite piece for representation by strolling actors. Put leaving these traditional dog 3, how many real animals are familiar to us ? Scott was a professed doglover. Hardly any of his works, prose or poetry, fail to give a dog among the dramatis personce. Bevi3, in " Woostock ; " Lufra, in " The Lady of the Lake ; " Wolf, in " The Abbot," are all described as carefully as any of the human characters in the novels. Reader's of Scott's life are familiar with his own favorite dogs, the living models from which his fictitious ones were described. Maida, the ornament of Abbotsford, and Camp, his first favorite, who died in 1809, and on the day of whose demise the poet sent an excuse to a dinner he was to have attended on the ground that " he had just lost a dear old friend." Byron expressed a more cynical sentiment in his epitaph on his favorite Newfoundland, Boatswain: — "To mark a f-'end's repose there stones arise ; I never knew ru' one—and here he lies." More tenderly has Elizabeth Barrett Browning written of her favourite spaniel, whose devotion to her sick couch she has so feelingly described in one of her po^ms. ■ owper has recorded the name of his dog Be'u in one of his works, " TheD<>g and tho W-itr-rlilv.'' . 'Monday is almost, the only Tnim v/].n writes of dogs in an vmsynpa'hetio spirit, and there is a passage in on_ his letters recording how he rejected the advances of a kindly cur who wished to accompany him on a walk —basely " dodging " the poor animal round the railings of a square—which must lower the o-tpil-, historian in the eyes of professed doglovers, l he attachment felt by the majority of people for dogs is hardly to be wondered at. Dogs alone, of all the animal creation, forsake the society of their own species for the companionship of man. To be with his master is a dog's summum bonum of happiness. Their disinterested attachment and unswerving fidelity has been sung by poets from Homer to the American, who touchingly renaarks;—■ " »» hen fickle friends and flckler fortune fails, Dogs, unflckle still, for you will wag their tails." Nothing you do will alienn.te the affection of your faithful dog. Bill Sikes, ruffian as he is, can possess a true canine friend as well as the best of mankind. You may make shipwreck of your worldly prospects, and your faithful animal will cling to you, like the little dog of Mary Queen of Scots, which was found nestling in her gown after her execution. As a companion a dog is admirable. Everyone who is given to sedentary pursuits ought to keep one. The necessity for giving exercise to his favourite would prove a most healthful practice for many a literary man. Miss Milford has charmingly described the delights of a country walk with a dog as a companion. The delight of the erepture at getting out is pleasant to watch. If his master is disposed to conversation, how thoroughly the animal will enter into his views, with what joyful alacrity he will dash after sticks and stones, returning with wild gambols ancl joyous barks. If, on the other hand, the master is engrossed in his own reflections, the dog has too fine a sense of good breeding to obtrude his attentions. He will find amusement for himself in hedgerows and ditches; poking his nose inquiringly amid heaps of dead leaves, dashing impotently after sparrows which he never comes within a yard of; all the while ready to rush back with joyful alacrity to his master's side thoroughly disengaged, and ready to enter into any scheme propounded to him. People who can keep dogs and do not certainly miss a great amount of enjoyment. The intelligence of dogs has long been a marvel ancl a perplexity to all who study them. Wonderful are the stories related of what may be called the reasoning faculties of dogs. They certainly reflect, ancl their memory is better than that of many human beings. Every dog-owner has tales to tell of the marvellous doings of his favorite. Each dog has assuresly a separate character. There are truthful dogs and untruthful dogs, selfish and generous ones, dogs who are passionate but forgiving, dogs who will sulk over an injury. Some are jealous to excess ; no two dogs are quite alike. Dogs who habitually associate with their owners are generally far more intelligent than animals less favoured with the company of their betters, as Captain Dalgetty (in " The Legend of Montrose") complains that his new horse is " less cultivated in his social qualities from being left entirely to the care of grooms." For this reason a modern French writer advises people who think of keeping a dog to buy a young one and train him themselves, when they will be able to " watch his character expanding day by day." We have heard it contended that a purer attachment exists between a mongrel and his owner than any other dog, because handsome dogs may be kept from motives of ostentation, while love alone binds a master to an unattractive cur. We doubt the soundness of this reasoning, however. " Bon sang ne peut mentir" is true of dogs, and " curs of low degree" are sometimes given to petty vices from which their betterbred brethren are exempt. A detestible type of dog i 9 now happily nearly extinct. We allude to the " lap-dogs" of the last century ; fat, asthmatic, pampered creatures, nuisances to all but their foolish owners, who crammed them with dainties fit for their children. Such an animal is described in tho " Rape of the Lock," when Belinda enumerates anion*; her calamities — " Poll sat mute, and Shock was most unkind." Some owners of clogs are proud of the tricks performed by their favourites. Others (we think reasonably) allege that the animal's natural ways are far moro amusing to watch than any artificial lessons. Nearly every possessor of a clog socretly believes his pet to bo endowed with certain peculiar and especial virtues. It is a pity that a dog's span of life is comparatively short. Some ancient animals linger to sixteen or seventeen years, but, as a rule, they are melancholy objects in their latter days. So active a creature suffers greatly when unable to move about readily ; and it seems truer kindness to end an old favourite's life at once than permit it to drag out a weary and painful existence. Scott ingeniously suggests that it is, after all, a good thing our canine pets do not live longer, for " if we suffer so much in losing a dog after ten or thirteen yeai-3' acquaintance, what would it bo if they lived to double that age ?" (letter to Miss Edgeworth, Lockhart's "Life"); Dame Julia Berners treats the subject less tenderly, for she curtly advises that a dog who attains nine years should be sent — " To the tanner, For the best hound man ever had At nine years old he is full bad." "Have him to the tanner" is rather a callous way of dismissing an old favourite. Honourable Bepulture is rarely refused to the remains of pets, unless their ownors prefer making them ghastly mummies in glass cases. The old Norse kings admitted their dogs and horses to share their funeral

pyres, and expected to meet these faithful followers again in the halls of Valhalla. Many a clog has had an epitaph written over him, and not a few of us can say with Scott that we " lost a dear old friend" when our faithful animal "slept with Luath, Bran, and other celebrate:! hounds."