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
DOGS AND LOOKING-GLASSES.
[_June 23, 1894._]
You are fond of odd actions of dogs, so perhaps the following may be
acceptable. I have two fox-terriers--young dogs--Grip and Vic. In the
morning, at early tea in our bedroom, Vic gets angry with Grip's
reflection in the long glass of the wardrobe, barks at him furiously as
he moves about, and scratches at the glass, quite regardless of her own
face between her and his reflection. And when he assaults her from
behind, to make her play with his real self, she turns round and snaps
at him viciously, and then returns to her attack on his reflection. He
jumps upon the window-sill, and fancies he sees a squirrel in the
garden, and dashes past her to the door; she follows the motion of the
reflection till she is past the edge of the glass, and loses it, when
she dashes back to the glass again. This has occurred several days in
the last week, and seems to me almost absurd. The dogs are just about a
year old, and so beyond puppy folly, though very lively and playful
still.
A. M. B.
_THE SENSE OF HUMOUR AND CUNNING IN DOGS._
DOGS' SENSE OF HUMOUR.
THE POWER OF IMITATION IN DOGS.
[_Oct. 22, 1882._]
The following anecdote may interest those of your readers who are
accustomed to observe the characteristic actions of dogs. I can vouch
for its accuracy, as I was an amused eye-witness, and several members of
my family were also present, and have often told the story.
A friend of ours and his wife were spending a musical evening with us,
and an old, black, English terrier, who belonged to the house, had been
in the drawing-room, which was upstairs. The dog had been kindly noticed
by our friend, who was partially lame from paralysis. On leaving the
drawing-room the dog followed him to the top of the staircase (we, with
his wife, were waiting below in the hall), and with cocked tail and
ears stood gravely watching his slow, limping descent. When the invalid
was nearly at the foot of the stairs the dog began to follow, limping on
three legs (he was quite sound), in humorous imitation of our poor,
afflicted friend, and this assumed lameness was gravely kept up till he
arrived on the mat. It was impossible to repress a smile, though our
politeness was at stake, and the unconsciousness of our friend added to
the difficulty.
A. R.
SENSE OF HUMOUR IN DOGS.
[_July 28, 1888._]
A recent anecdote from one of your correspondents about a dog and a hen
brought to my mind an incident, related to me by an eye-witness, of a
dog who had a constant feud with the fowls, which were prone to pilfer
from the basin containing his dinner. On one occasion he was lying in
front of his kennel, quietly watching a hen as she made stealthy and
tentative approaches to his basin, which at length she reached and
looked into, finding it perfectly empty. The dog wagged his tail.
J. R.
A DOG'S SENSE OF HUMOUR.
[_March 9, 1895._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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