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
"I was much struck with what appeared to me a remarkable instance of a
dog possessing a conscience, and a few months afterwards, finding it
again alone in the room, I asked the same question, while patting it. At
once I saw it had been up to some mischief, for with the same look of
shame it walked slowly to one of the windows, where it lay down, with
its nose pointing to a letter bitten and torn into shreds. On a third
occasion, it showed me where it had strewn a number of little tickets
about the floor, for doing which it had been reproved previously. I
cannot account for these facts, except by supposing the dog must have a
conscience."
The conduct of this dog seems to me, sir, to exhibit something different
from fear of punishment, viz., a sense of shame, a remorse, a desire to
confess his fault, and even to expiate it by punishment, in order to
feel the guilt no longer. He rather sought punishment, than feared it.
TH. HILL.
A DOG'S AFFECTION.
[_April 24, 1875._]
I saw an anecdote in your paper the other week illustrative of the
sagacity of a dog. Kindly allow me to place upon record, as a kind of a
companion picture, an anecdote showing the _affection_ of one of the
canine species--a fine young retriever. For some weeks I have been
staying away from my house in the country, where is the fine young
retriever in question. Well, last week the household missed him for
hours, and began to think he was lost. Nothing of the kind, however. The
servant, happening to go up to my bedroom, found him with his head
resting on my pillow, moaning heavily, and it was only with great
difficulty that she could drive him away. Surely it is incidents such as
these that have made so many great men rail against humanity and uphold
their dog!
WILL WILLIAMS.
AFFECTION.
[_Sept. 15, 1894._]
As you sometimes admit anecdotes of animals into the _Spectator_,
perhaps you may consider the following fact worthy of record. In a hotel
where I am staying, being distressed by the cry of anguish of a dog
occasionally, I inquired the cause, and was told that whenever he
happens to be in the hall when luggage is brought down to go in the
omnibus, he utters these bitter cries, and has to be removed. His master
left him here many months ago, and the supposition is that the sight of
the luggage and omnibus recalls his loss; and is another instance of the
faithful affection of these half-human creatures.
J. K.
SYMPATHY IN A DOG.
[_July 30, 1892._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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