“DOGS OF CHARACTER”

Taranaki Daily News, 23 March 1935, Page 6

“DOGS OF CHARACTER”

CANINE “OLD IDENTITIES” BLONDIN ON BACKYARD FENCE. PATROLLERS OF THE STREETS. BEGGARS,- RACERS AND OTHERS.

Periodically an individual of great gravity and dignity calls on the Daily News office to indulge the sole remaining folly of his youth. Most times during the day one may observe him standing on the corner of Brougham and Powderham Streets watching the world go by with critical eyes. If you wish him good day he will acknowledge the salutation very faintly and with obvious preoccupation for, as was said before, he is an identity of great gravity and dignity. . . . Years and experience are beginning to weigh heavily on him. Only within the precincts of the sub-editors’ room does the -irrespofisibility of extreme puppyhood descend upon him. His weakness is jumping for the carrier that conveys written matter from the sub-editors’ desk to the composing room, and from the noise of the whole business one would imagine it was a whole hutch of rabbits in full flight. A rather hopeless sort of entertainment, jumping after that carrier. However, he is never discouraged and arrives at sedate stiff pace approximately four afternoons a week to indulge his secret vice. “A dog of character,” remarked someone a few weeks ago. Very true. Inquiry shows that every day when the weather is fine and warm the same dog walks solemnly clown to the waterfront near the railway station, swims for a few minutes, comes out, shakes himself, and returns to his point of vantage on the street corner. NIGHTWATCHMAN’S COMPANION. - New Plymouth, however, possesses far more than one canine “identity.” There is a large, heroic-looking dog—rather like a cross between a collie and a Newfoundland—who every night of the year, wet or fine, accompanies the nightwatchman on his rounds in the early hours. The nightwatchman, it seems, is not quite certain even where the dog lives, but something would be decidedly wrong if his companion of the night failed to report for duty. Another canine gentleman of character lives down a certain social stigma in Brougham Street. One of those plump fox terriers with a body extraordinarily like an elongated suet pudding of the brand mother used to make, he is handicapped in the eyes of the world by having been purchased at an auction sale for sixpence. His claim to fame lies in the extraordinary dexterity and willingness with which he catches thrown objects. Believe it or not, the writer once saw the same dog catch a tennis ball hit over the hedge at the Vivian Street courts—and catch it on the full! Still another canine identity is a dog owned by a Vogeltown resident who amuses himself every day by climbing on to the roof of the lean-to fowlhouse and thence performing the. Blondin-like feat of walking along the rails of tire fence until he falls off. The performance is almost daily and the dog invariably whimpers after the fall and retires to his kennel in utter self-disgust. As far as is known nobody ever tried to teach him the trick. It is merely a mild form of canine insanity, unaccounted for. BEGGAR AT FRONT GATE. On Breakwater Road there is a mon-grel-poodle who sits at his mistress’ front gate and amuses passers-by by begging fervently without the slightest provocation, ‘ The hero of the gallery is a Sydney silky terrier with hindquarters slightly paralysed by distemper who persists in running foot races in Powderham Street with an active and well-conditioned fox terrier friend—to his own unvarying disgust—and the helpless mirth of spectators. No gallery, • however, would be complete without its “mystery.” What about the doleful setter who sits practically every night of the week on the corner of Courtenay and Eliot Streets waiting for someone who never comes? He never acknowledges the most friendly advance, but scans each pedestrian anxiously and, after an hour or so of fruitless waiting, disappears into the night again.