Dog Stories from the "Spectator": Being anecdotes of the intelligence, reasoning power, affection and sympathy of dogs, selected from the correspondence columns of "The Spectator"
General
Dog Stories from the "Spectator": Being anecdotes of the intelligence, reasoning power, affection and sympathy of dogs, selected from the correspondence columns of "The Spectator"
Dogs -- Folklore
Will you allow me to record in the _Spectator_ "another dog story"? It
is one that testifies, for the thousandth time, to canine sagacity,
and, as we are still in the silly season, which has this year in
particular been so very prolific in human follies, it may be of special
interest to learn some clever doings on the part of beasts. Quite
recently a Westphalian squire travelled by rail from Lüxen to Wesel, on
the Rhine, for the purpose of enjoying some hunting, and took with him
his favourite hound. The hunting party was to have started on a Sunday
morning at nine o'clock, but, to the squire's great disappointment, his
sporting dog could nowhere be discovered. Disconsolate, he arrived on
the following Monday afternoon at his house, and, to his great delight,
he was greeted there with exuberant joy by his dog. The latter, who had
never made the journey from Lüxen to Wesel, had simply run home, thus
clearing a distance of eighty English miles through an unknown country.
Why the sporting dog should have declined to join the hunt is, perhaps,
a greater mystery than the fact of his returning home without any other
guidance than his sagacious instinct. Possibly he was a Sabbatarian, and
objected to imitate his master's wicked example. So, Sunday papers,
please copy!
EIN THIERFREUND.
[_Sept. 8, 1894._]
May I be allowed to offer to your readers yet another instance of the
faithfulness and sagacity of our friend the dog? The anecdote comes from
a distinguished naval officer, and is best given in his own words: "This
is what happened to a spaniel of mine. It was given to our children as a
puppy about three or four months old, and we have had it about five or
six months, making it about ten months old. It was born about three
miles from here, at Hertford, and has never been anywhere but from one
home to the other. When the time came for breaking him in for shooting
purposes, I sent him to a keeper at Leighton-Buzzard, and, to insure a
safe arrival, sent the dog with my man-servant to the train here, and
thence to King's Cross. He walked with the dog to Euston Station, turned
him over to the guard of the 12.15 train and the animal duly arrived at
Leighton-Buzzard at 1.30, and was there met by the keeper and taken to
his home about three miles off. That was on the Friday. On the following
Tuesday, the dog having been with him three full days, he took him out
in the morning with his gun, and at eight o'clock on Wednesday morning
(that being the following day) the dog appeared here, rather dirty, and
looking as if he had travelled some distance, which he undoubtedly had.
There is no doubt that this puppy of ten months old was sent away,
certainly forty or fifty miles as the crow flies, and that he returned
here in a day. How he did it no one can say, but it is nevertheless a
fact. It would be interesting to know his route and to trace his
adventures." This anecdote is the more remarkable in consequence of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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