Lola : $b or, The thought and speech of animalsKindermann, Henny
Science
Lola : $b or, The thought and speech of animals
Kindermann, Henny
Animal intelligence; Dogs -- Folklore
and I concluded with a few more verbal elucidations, and then fetched
an actual thermometer on which I made her read me the temperature of
the room. The next day I repeated this lesson and she read the
thermometer again. After this I tested her as to whether she could give
the temperature by the "feel," as it were, or whether the impression of
the temperature was associated more immediately with a sense of
comfort. She has so far always given the right temperature when asked,
though I should add that I have only put the question to her about
twenty times--and then when she has been in good health, so that I feel
that the matter has not yet been sufficiently put to the proof, and I
cannot, therefore, make any very definite statements with regard to
this particular faculty. But I must add, that to two questions put to
her on different days, she answered that she "liked her food best at 6 deg.
of warmth!" Now this chimes with the advice given in many a book on the
care of dogs; "do not give them their food too hot"--and Lola's remark
reminded me of this, though I might consider that "degree of heat"
practically _cool_ ... yet it appeared to be what she desired.
Nevertheless, this preference turned out shortly to have been erroneous
and, as the result of a practical trial, Lola changed her mind and
voted for anything "between 12 deg.--16 deg.!" Here is one more test I put with
regard to her susceptibility to touch: I got someone else to trace
figures with their fingers on the dog's back, placing myself so that I
could not see what was being described; then I put the questions, and
each time her replies tallied almost invariably. One put to her in this
manner was: "2 + 3?"; and "5" was given at once. While "7 + 4?"
elicited a prompt "11." Then a number was described and I said: "Twice
this number makes?"; to which she replied "8," four having been traced
on her back. We only tried this new test for a few days so that I can
give no more exact details about it--excepting this, that on that
particular day, she would only understand the figures _if inscribed in
this manner on her back_! It evidently amused her immensely, and we
could see that she seemed to "transfer her attention," as it were,
elsewhere. But though this test had been so successful with numerals,
it failed entirely with letters. This was incidentally an attempt on
quite a small scale at carrying out the tests which had been
successfully so put to the blind horse Bertho, by Karl Krall.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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