Chapter VII: The Dog Family.--The Domestic Dog.91 (1)

Section _Cynoidea_--Geographical Distribution--Skull of
Dog--Teeth--Legs--Walk--Claws--Internal Anatomy--The Cæcum, or “Cul
de sac” of the Intestine--Size--THE DOMESTIC DOG--Its Fidelity and
Love--Differences between the Domesticated and Natural Species of
the Family--Barking a Civilised Habit--Antiquity of the Dog--The
Dog among the Hebrews and Egyptians--The Dog in the Bible--“Dog”
as a Term of Reproach--Venerated by many Ancient Nations--The Dog
among the Greeks and Romans--Pre-historic Dogs--Dogs in the New
World--Peruvian Dogs--Superstitions about the Dog--The Dog as an
article of Diet--Origin of the Dog--Identity of Structure of Wild and
Domestic Dogs--The independent Training of Wild _Canidæ_ by Savages
in many parts of the World--Voice--Results of the whole question
as to Origin--Anecdotes about Instinct, Reason, Docility--Muscles
of Dog’s Head--Consociation of Dogs--Anecdotes of Sense of Right,
Wrong, Duty, Conscience, Sensitiveness, Honesty, Theft, Cunning,
Quarrelsomeness, Magnanimity, the reverse, Revenge, Hatred--Conjugal
Affection--Devotion to Man--Fickleness--Despair--Rabies and
Hydrophobia--Wonderful Variety of Breed.

We now come to the first and only family of the section _Cynoidea_, the most compact of the three divisions of split-footed flesh-eaters, and the one which contains the smallest number of forms. Only four genera, in fact, are contained in the group, namely, the Dogs, Wolves, and Foxes (_Canis_), the Long-eared Fox (_Megalotis_), the Racoon-dog (_Nyctereutes_), and the curious Hyæna-like _Lycaon_.

But the group is none the less interesting for the small number of forms included in it; for containing, as it does, the Dog, the animal of all others entitled to the name domestic, it yields in importance to neither of the larger groups, notwithstanding the varied series of creatures enclosed within their pale. Members of the Dog family are found in nearly all parts of the world, being absent only in the West Indian Islands, Madagascar, the eastern islands of the Malayan Archipelago, New Zealand, and the Polynesian Islands. When we say that the Dog is absent from those places, we mean, of course, _as a true native_. Wherever civilised man has penetrated, there his four-footed friend is sure to be found; but in the places just mentioned no Dog, Wolf, or Fox occurs as a true aboriginal. Very probably, the gigantic island of Australia should be added to the above list, as it is by no means certain that the Dingo, or wild Dog found there, has not been introduced by man.

The Dogs form a sort of connecting link between the Cat-like species on the one hand, and the Bear-like group on the other. In the matter of being digitigrade, they agree with the Cats; the number of their teeth agrees with that of the Bears; in the character of the skull they come just half-way between the two.

The letters have the same significance as in the figure of the Lion’s skull on p. 11.]

On the under surface of the Dog’s skull there is found, in a corresponding position to the ear-drum swelling of the Cat (see p. 11), a similar rounded swelling, which, however, is smaller in proportion to the size of the skull, rougher in texture, and not so regular in shape, but sloping towards its outer aperture. Moreover, the margins of its outer aperture, round which the external ear is fixed, are produced outwards into a short tube or spout, thus making a small bony ear-passage beyond or external to the rim to which the drum membrane is attached. In the Cat, it will be remembered, there was no bony tube of this sort, but the drum parchment was flush with the margins of the opening of the drum cavity. Then the partition, which was so large in the Cat, dividing the cavity into two compartments, is here reduced to quite a low wall. Lastly, the bony clamp, which we mentioned in the Cat as being fixed quite closely against the hinder face of the bulla, is here separated from it by a small valley. These skull characters are very characteristic of the Cynoidea, and are therefore of great importance in the grouping of the Carnivora.

The great arches of bone beneath the eye are, in the Dog, nothing like so large as in the Cat, owing to the smaller size of the jaw muscles which pass under them. The snout, however, is much longer, in correspondence with the increased number of the teeth.

There will be no difficulty in making out the teeth of the Dog now we have studied those of the Cat. We shall find, as before, that there are in the small front bones of the upper jaw three teeth on each side, and the same number in the corresponding part of the lower jaw: these are, of course, the incisors. They are followed by the canines, or great eye teeth, of which, as in the Cat, there is one on each side of each jaw. After the canines, however, come no less than six teeth on each side of the upper jaw, and seven on each side of the lower. It is found that the first four of these are represented in the jaw of the young Dog by milk molars; therefore, as we explained in treating of the teeth in the Cat, these four are premolars, and the remaining three, molars. A likeness to what we find in the Cat exists in the fact that the last premolar of the upper jaw and the first molar of the lower jaw are very large teeth, and bite against one another. These are the _carnassials_ of the respective jaws. Thus the dental formula of the Dog is--incisors, (3-3)/(3-3), canines, (1-1)/(1-1), premolars, (4-4)/(4-4), molars, (2-2)/(3-3) = 42.

The form of the teeth, as well as their number, comes much nearer to that of an ordinary Mammal, or is much less specially carnivorous than in the Cats. The incisors are proportionally larger than in our first section; their crowns are distinctly divided into three cusps--a large central and two small lateral ones; and the outermost incisors of the upper jaw approach tolerably nearly in shape and size to the canines, being nearly half as long as the latter, and having almost lost their lateral cusps. The canines have much about the same form and relative size as in the Cat, as also have the premolars, except that the first of these, though smaller than its successor, is not so markedly so as in the Cats, while, on the other hand, the last (the carnassial) is proportionally larger.

The letters have the same significance as in the figure of the Lion’s teeth on p. 13, except _h_, the “heel” of the lower carnassial.]

But in the molars, or at least in all but the lower carnassial, we find something quite different, namely, an interesting approximation to the semi-herbivorous type of dentition of the Bears. Both molars in the upper jaw, and the two last in the lower, have become _bonâ fide_ “grinders.” The scissor-like cutting edge has disappeared, and in place of it we have a hard crushing surface, raised into four cusps--two large external and two smaller internal ones. This has relation, of course, to the mixed character of the Dog’s food. The sectorial molar of the lower jaw still, however, retains its distinctive characters; its crown has much the same shape as in the Cat, but in addition possesses an extra lobe, in the shape of a large heel-like process projecting from its hinder border, and formed by a modification of its posterior cusp.

The Dog family have, as a rule, longish legs. They walk on the tip of their toes, like the Cats; but unlike the latter, their claws are not retractile. Curious to relate, however, the elastic ligament by which the drawing back of the feline claw is effected is present, but in so feeble a condition as to be quite incapable of antagonising the great flexor muscles.

In consequence of this, the paw of a Dog is by no means such a perfect weapon as that of a Cat; and, as a matter of fact, the Dogs are distinguished from the Cats by their habit of always attacking the prey at once with their teeth, and never beginning the attack with a blow of the paw.

In the matter of internal anatomy, the Dog family differ from all other Carnivores in possessing a large “blind gut,” or cæcum. The intestines, which are proportionally longer than a Cat’s, are, as usual, divided into large and small, and, at the place where the large and small intestines join one another, there goes off a folded sac, communicating with the intestine at one end, but quite closed at the other, forming, in fact, a small _cul-de-sac_. The use of this curious appendage is not properly understood, nor why it should be so well developed in the Dog family, while it is very small indeed in Cats, and wholly absent in Bears.

No member of this family attains the size reached by some of the _Felidæ_, such as the Lion and Tiger, or some of the _Ursidæ_, such as the Grizzly or Polar Bear; the Mastiff is the largest of the tribe, no wild species of which is larger than an ordinary Shepherd’s Dog.

THE DOMESTIC DOG.[92]

We have now to consider an animal which has more interest for us than any member of the animal kingdom, with the single exception of _Homo sapiens_; indeed, many people, if asked to name the creature which feels for them the most disinterested friendship, the most devoted love, and which shows the most constant and untiring kindness and attention, would without hesitation name the humble Carnivore rather than the arrogant and self-asserting Primate. It was not his servants who recognised Ulysses on his return from his long voyage; it was not even his faithful Penelope; it was the old Dog Argus, who

“---- ---- soon as he perceived
Long-lost Ulysses nigh, down fell his ears
Clapp’d close, and with his tail glad sign he gave
Of gratulation, impotent to rise
And to approach his master as of old.”

Where shall we find an instance of human devotion, unaltered and unalterable by death, greater than that recorded by our great Lake poet of the Dog whose ill-fated master was killed in passing Helvellyn?--

“The Dog, which still was hovering nigh,
Repeating the same timid cry,
This Dog had been through three months’ space,
A dweller in that savage place.
Yes, proof was plain, that since the day
On which the traveller thus had died,
The Dog had watched about the spot,
Or by his master’s side.
How nourished here through such long time,
He knows who gave that love sublime,
And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate.”

No animal has been so universally or so thoroughly domesticated as the Dog; in none have the moral and intellectual faculties been so largely developed; and there is certainly none which the human race could so ill spare. We might possibly, with a proper amount of practice, become vegetarians, and so do without our sheep and cattle, our pigs and poultry. The Cat we might easily dispense with, for she is, after all, a very passive sort of creature, and rarely condescends to express either emotion or affection, whatever her feelings may be; but to lose the Dog would be to lose a friend, and a friend so faithful and true that his loss would be a veritable plucking out of the right eye and a cutting off of the right hand. As Mr. Darwin observes: “It is scarcely possible to doubt that the love of man has become instinctive in the dog,” which it can hardly be said to have done, as yet, in man!

Wherever man of any degree of civilisation is found, there the Dog is to be found too--everywhere invaluable, though often grossly and brutally ill-treated. In all probability, too, Dogs occur as true natives in all parts of the world, except in the Australian region--Australia, New Zealand, and the surrounding islands; in these places he has, in all probability, been introduced by man.

The likeness of the domestic Dog to his more immediate relatives is very close. Except in the want of obliquity in the eyes, and in the curling of the tail, so different to the straight “brush” of a Wolf or wild Dog, there is really no definite character which can be given as separating _Canis familiaris_ from the wild species of the genus. Moreover, the difference between the varieties of the Dog itself is so great, that it is impossible to frame anything like a good definition which will include the Bulldog, the Greyhound, the Newfoundland, and the Terrier, and, at the same time, exclude the Dingo and the Búansú. The one constant difference is the habit of barking, “which is almost universal with domesticated Dogs, and which does not characterise a single natural species of the family.”

The Dog certainly took its origin at a very remote period, for we find undoubted evidence of his existence and regular domestication in the very earliest records. Among the early Hebrews, he seems to have been unknown, or rather, despised; and it strikes one as a most remarkable circumstance that this astute nation of shepherds should never have domesticated so useful an assistant. Possibly this is partly owing to the prejudice the grand old Theists of Palestine must have felt against an animal held in great veneration as an emblem of the Divine Being by the idolatrous Egyptians; and yet this objection can hardly have had much weight, as the Hebrews kept Oxen, animals which were regularly worshipped by the Egyptians. Throughout the Old and New Testaments the Dog is spoken of with scorn and contempt as “an unclean beast,” so that probably the Israelites had the misfortune only to know this friend of man in the character in which he now appears in Constantinople--as the common scavenger of the neighbourhood. The only instance in the Bible in which the Dog is mentioned as a domesticated animal is in that magnificent drama, the Book of Job, a poem of great antiquity, and very possibly not of Hebrew origin. The suffering patriarch, after recounting to his “friends” the greatness of his former prosperity, says: “But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.” This passage is extremely remarkable, as showing at what an early period of the world’s history the Dog was sufficiently domesticated to be capable of the arduous task of guarding Sheep--a task, the proper performance of which necessitates the total suspension of the true canine instinct, which is not to guard and protect the Sheep, but to worry and devour them.

The prejudice of the Jews against the Dog is shown at the present day by the Hindoos and by the Mahometans, with whom “Dog” is the greatest possible term of reproach, and who never think of the animal as anything but a semi-useful, degraded beast, good for nothing but to clear off the offal of the streets. Among many ancient nations, however, the Dog was held in great veneration, and was even worshipped as a god. In the passage--“Howbeit every nation made gods of their own ... and the Avites made Nibhaz,”[93] the word _Nibhaz_ is supposed to signify a _barker_, and it is thought that this idol had the form of a Dog. “The Egyptians had several breeds of Dogs, some solely used for the chase, others admitted into the parlour, or selected as the companions of their walks; and some, as at the present day, selected for their peculiar ugliness. All were looked upon with veneration, and the death of a Dog was not only lamented as a misfortune, but was mourned by every member of the house in which it occurred.”

It is certain that the Egyptians selected their Dogs in such a manner as to produce well-marked varieties, for, as Mr. Youatt states, “there are to be seen on the Egyptian temples representations of Dogs with long ears and broad muzzle, not unlike the old Talbot Hound.” This is extremely interesting as showing at what an early period the Dog had been completely differentiated from other _Canidæ_, by acquiring definite characters, quite distinct from those of his wild relations. The Assyrians, too, had advanced considerably in the art of seizing upon important varieties in the structure of their Dogs, and perpetuating them as Hounds. Mr. Darwin informs us that an undoubted Mastiff of enormous size is figured on the tomb of Esar Haddon, about 640 B.C., and he goes on to say, “I have looked through the magnificent works of Lepsius and Rosellini, and on the monuments from the fourth to the twelfth dynasties (_i.e._, from about 3400 B.C. to 2101 B.C.) several varieties of the Dog are represented; most of them are allied to Greyhounds. At the later of these periods a Dog resembling a Hound is figured, with drooping ears, but with a large back, and more pointed head than in our Hounds. There is, also, a Turnspit, with short and crooked legs, closely resembling the existing variety.”[94]

Both the Greeks and Romans made much of the Dog, and among the latter, Greyhounds, Hounds, House Dogs, and Lap Dogs existed. Some of them are preserved in sculpture. The Greeks had a Dog closely resembling our Newfoundland, as is made certain from a piece of sculpture, “said to have been the favourite Dog of Alcibiades, and to have been the production of Myron, one of the most skilful artists of ancient times.” Dogs “were sacrificed at certain periods by the Greeks and Romans to almost all their deities, and particularly to Mars, Pluto, and Pan, to Minerva, Proserpine, and Lucina, and also to the moon, because the Dog by his barking disturbed all charms and spells, and frightened away all spectres and apparitions. The Greeks immolated many Dogs in honour of Hecate, because by their baying the phantoms of the lower world were disturbed. A great number of Dogs were also destroyed in Samothrace in honour of the same goddess. Dogs were periodically sacrificed in February, and also in April and in May; also to the goddess Rubigo, who presided over the corn, and the Bona Dea, whose mysterious rites were performed on Mount Aventine. The Dog Cerberus was supposed to be watching at the feet of Pluto, and a Dog and a youth were periodically sacrificed to that deity. The night when the capital had nearly been destroyed was annually celebrated by the cruel scourging of a Dog in the principal public places, even to the death of the animal.”[95]

Homer, like the modern English, frequently uses the word “Dog” as an epithet of contempt--“thou Dog in forehead;” but the Dog was man’s companion everywhere amongst those old Greeks. When the “God of the silver bow” strikes beasts and men with pestilence, it is said--

“Mules first and Dogs he struck, but at themselves,
Dispatching soon his bitter arrows keen,
Smote them.”

Yet, mixed with these friendly Dogs there were evidently Pariah Dogs; cowards are threatened thus:--

“The Vulture’s maw
Shall have his carcase, and the Dogs his bones.”

Two nobler breeds are also indicated, viz., Shepherd Dogs and Hounds:--

“As Dogs that careful watch the fold by night,
Hearing some wild beast in the woods, which Hounds
And hunters with tumultuous clamour drive
Down from the mountain-top, all sleep forego.”

Homer also makes indubitable reference to another breed, viz., the Boarhound:--

“As when Dogs and swains
In prime of manhood, from all quarters rush
Around a Boar, he from his thicket bolts,
The bright tusk whetting in his crooked jaws;
They press him on all sides, and from beneath
Loud gnashings hear, yet firm, his threats defy.”

But more ancient than any of these records are the evidences which prove the existence of the domestic Dog among the pre-historic savages of Northern Europe. In the Danish “kitchen-middens,” or heaps of household refuse, piled up by the men of the newer stone period--a time when our Scandinavian forefathers used chipped or polished flints instead of metal for their weapons--are found bone-cuttings belonging to some species of the genus _Canis_. Along with these remains are some of the long bones of birds, all the other bones of the said birds being absent. Now it is known that the bird-bones here found are the very ones which Dogs cannot devour, while the absent ones are such as they can bolt with ease, and it has been ingeniously argued from this that the remains in question did really belong to a domestic Dog, as, if the animals to which they appertained had been Wolves, they would have made short work of the long bones as well as of the others. Other Dog-bones are found in Denmark in later periods. At the time when the flint knives were succeeded by bronze a large Dog existed, and at the time when iron was used one larger still. In Switzerland, during the newer stone period, a Dog existed, which is probably the oldest of which we have any record. It “partook of the character of our Hounds and Setters or Spaniels,” and, in the matter of its skull, “was about equally remote from the Wolf and Jackal.” This Dog, too, like its Danish contemporary, was succeeded in the bronze period by a larger variety. Thus we see that, at a time when our ancestors were living “in dens and caves of the earth,” in a state of civilisation about equal to that of the African or Australian aborigines of the present day, the Dog was already systematically kept, and “selected,” that is, any good varieties which appeared were taken note of, and kept up.

We have mentioned above the common practice amongst the Greeks and Romans of offering Dogs as sacrifices to the numerous deities. The same custom was prevalent in early times in Scandinavia, where the Dog was often used as a sacrificial victim. Mr. Youatt says:--“Before Christianity was established among the Danes, on every ninth year, at the winter solstice, a monstrous sacrifice of ninety-nine Dogs was effected. In Sweden the sacrifice was still worse. On each of nine successive days ninety-nine Dogs were destroyed. This sacrifice of the Dog, however, gave way to one as numerous and as horrible. On every ninth year ninety-nine human victims were immolated, and the sons of the reigning tyrant among the rest, in order that the life of the monarch might be prolonged.

“On the other hand, the Dog was frequently the executioner; and, from an early period, whether in the course of war, or the mock administration of justice, thousands of poor wretches were torn to pieces by animals trained to that horrible purpose.

“As a counterpart to much of this, the ancient Hyrcanians may be mentioned, who lived near the Caspian sea, and who deemed it one of the strongest expressions of respect to leave the corpse of their deceased friends to be torn and devoured by Dogs. Every man was provided with a certain number of these animals, as a living tomb for himself at some future period, and these Dogs were remarkable for their fierceness.”

In the New World, the Dog is, or was, held as an object of adoration by many of the natives; and dog-worship seems to have been a more ancient _culte_ than the sun-worship practised by the Mexicans. Humboldt informs us that “when the Inca Pachacutec, in his religious wars, conquered the Indians of Xanxa and Huanca (the present valley of Huancayo and Juuja), and compelled them by force to submit to the worship of the sun, he found that Dogs were made the objects of their adoration, and that the priests used the skulls of these animals as wind instruments. It would also appear that the flesh of this canine divinity was eaten by the believers. The veneration of Dogs in the valley of the Huancaya is probably the reason why the skulls, and even whole mummies, of these animals are sometimes found in the Huacas, or Peruvian graves of the most ancient period. Von Tschudi, the author of an admirable treatise on the _Fauna Peruana_, has examined these skulls, and believes them to belong to a peculiar species, which he calls _Canis ingæ_, and which is different from the European Dog. The Huancas are still, in derision, called ‘dog-eaters’ by the inhabitants of other provinces.” Humboldt also tells us that “the Peruvian Dogs were made to play a singular part during eclipses of the moon, being beaten as long as the darkness continued.” But he says nothing about the origin of so curious a custom.

An animal of such intelligence as the Dog, one so necessary to the welfare of man, and devoted to him by so many ties, is certain to have a number of curious superstitions current regarding him. An excellent account of some of the most curious of them is given by the Rev. J. Gardner.

“Among the Hyperborean tribes, with whom the Dog is reckoned a very valuable animal, it occupies a conspicuous place in their traditions, being considered--as, for instance, among the Eskimo, according to the accounts given by Franklin and Parry, and other Arctic navigators--as the father of the human family. The Chippewayan Indians had a tradition that they were sprung from a Dog; and hence they neither ate the flesh of that animal themselves, nor could they look with any other feeling than horror upon those nations who fed upon it. In all these cases, probably, the Dog is the symbol of the sun. A strange notion prevails among the Greenlanders that an eclipse is caused by the sun being pursued by his brother the moon. Accordingly, when this phenomenon takes place, the women take the Dogs by the ears, believing that, as these animals existed before man was created, they must have a more certain presentiment of the future than he has; and therefore, if they do not cry when their ears are pulled, it is an infallible sign that the world is about to be destroyed.

“The inhabitants of Japan have a superstitious regard for Dogs. Thus, we learn from Picart, in his ‘Religious Ceremonies of all Nations,’ ‘The emperor who sat on the throne when Kaempfer resided in Japan was so extravagantly fond of them, that there has been a greater number of them in that kingdom ever since his reign (if we may depend on the veracity of this traveller) than in any other nation in the whole world. Every street is obliged to maintain a fixed and determinate number of them. They are quartered upon the inhabitants, and in case of sickness they are obliged to nurse and attend them. When they die, they are obliged to inter them in a decent manner in the mountains and hills peculiarly appropriated for the interment of the people. It is looked upon as a capital crime not only to kill them, but barely to insult and treat them ill; and no one but the legal proprietor is allowed so much as to correct any of them. All this reverence and respect are owing to a celestial constellation which the Japanese call the Dog, under the influence whereof the aforesaid Emperor of Japan was born.’”

By most people the Dog is valued only during his life; his skin is not particularly valuable, and his flesh is little esteemed. This is by no means, however, the case everywhere. It is well known that the Chinese use the Dog as a regular article of food. Many of the North American tribes look upon an _entrée_ of Dog as the greatest possible _bonne bouche_ they can set before a stranger. Sir Leopold McClintock relates that, in the Sandwich Islands, he had most profuse apologies offered to him because there was no puppy to be had for a feast to which he was invited. The Eskimo, too, look upon a dish of young Dog as a great treat; and it is related that a Danish captain provided his friends with a feast of this kind, and when they _praised his mutton_, sent for the skin of the beast, and exhibited it to them! The Greeks and Romans also used the Dog as an article of diet, and many ancient writers, such as Galen and Hippocrates, represent Dog-meat as a highly desirable dish.

It is a remarkable circumstance, when we come to consider the probable origin of the Dog, that there is evidence of his domestication at such early periods, and by so many savage tribes in different parts of the world. As we have already seen, tame Dogs were possessed by savages in the neolithic, or newer stone period, by the Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and the ancient inhabitants of North and South America, to say nothing of the numerous savage tribes at the present day, such as the Australians and the inhabitants of Guiana. Now the important question arises, had all these Dogs a common origin? Did the great neolithic Dog, the Sheep-dog of Job’s time, the Greyhounds, Turnspits, and Hounds of the Assyrians and Greeks, the divinely-honoured animals of Peru, and the supposed ancestors of the Eskimo and the Chippeways, spring from a single pair? or have various wild species of _Canidæ_ been tamed and converted into true domestic Dogs, by different people in different parts of the world, these various species having since been crossed and re-crossed with one another and with their parent forms, until a species has been produced as complex in its origin as the English nation, which has flowing in its veins the blood of ancient Briton, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Dane, Norman, and Fleming?

Until recently it was thought that all the evidence which could be brought to bear on the matter pointed to a separate origin of the Dog. It was argued, for instance, that as we have evidences of distinct breeds existing in far-back periods of the world’s history, there was actually no time, prior to those periods, for him to have diverged from a savage ancestor, such as a Wolf or a Jackal. It was also thought highly unlikely that a number of primitive races of man should have separately tamed different wild _Canidæ_. Mr. Youatt, one of our best authorities on the Dog, writing in 1845, says: “This power of tracing back the Dog to the very earliest periods of history, and the fact that he then seemed to be as sagacious, as faithful and as valuable as at the present day, strongly favours the opinion that he descended from no inferior and comparatively worthless animal; that he was not the progeny of the Wolf, the Jackal, or the Fox; but he was originally created, somewhat as we now find him, the associate and friend of man.”

A few years ago there was no gainsaying arguments such as these, for then nearly everybody believed that the world was literally only six thousand years old, and that species were absolutely unchangeable. But Sir Charles Lyell and Mr. Darwin have “_changé tout cela_.” The argument from time fails utterly, and other facts have to be taken into consideration.

There is, first of all, the fact of identity of structure. There is absolutely no definition framable which will include all the varieties of the domestic Dog, and exclude all the wild species--none even which will include all the Dogs properly so called, both wild and tame, and at the same time exclude the Wolf and Jackal. It is the same as regards habits, instincts, mental endowments, &c. Wolves and Jackals can be and have been tamed. Domestic Dogs can become, and have again and again become, wild, and in no way better than true aborigines; and to assert that the Dog is not descended from a Jackal because his manners and customs are better, his tail more curly, and his voice a bark instead of a howl, is about as just as to assert that Englishmen cannot possibly be descended from ancient Britons, because they wear clothes instead of a coating of blue paint.

With regard to the opinion that many races of men are not likely independently to have tamed wild _Canidæ_, there are certain facts which show that the exact contrary is the case. Savages in all parts of the world are fond of making pets of various kinds, and would have been certain to come across Wolf or Jackal pups in their wanderings through the woods. Then, again, as Mr. Darwin remarks, “At an extremely ancient period, when man first entered any country, the animals living there would have felt no instinctive or inherited fear of him, and would consequently have been tamed far more easily than at present. For instance, when the Falkland Islands were first visited by man, the large Wolf-like Dog (_Canis antarcticus_) fearlessly came to meet Byron’s sailors, who, mistaking this ignorant curiosity for ferocity, ran into the water to avoid them. Even recently a man, by holding a piece of meat in one hand and a knife in the other, could sometimes stick them at night.” Another important point is the readiness with which many wild species of _Canidæ_ breed in confinement, so that the difficulty of perpetuating the newly-acquired characteristics of the tamed animal is, in this case, obviated. Furthermore, it is perfectly well known that savages at the present day do actually tame, and make useful to themselves, the wild Dogs of their particular countries: “the savages of Guiana catch, and partially tame and use the whelps of the wild species of _Canis_, as do the savages of Australia those of the Dingo.”

These statements certainly tend to show that there is no actual improbability in supposing that many wild species of _Canidæ_ have at different times, and by different nations, been tamed and gradually modified into true domestic Dogs. But the most significant fact bearing upon the multiple origin of the Dog is the often-occurring close resemblance between the domestic Dog of a savage tribe and the wild species of _Canis_ inhabiting the same district. Of this most important circumstance there are far too many instances to allow of its being looked upon as a mere coincidence. Sir John Richardson says: “The resemblance between the Wolves and the Dogs of those Indian nations who still preserve their ancient mode of life continues to be very remarkable, and it is nowhere more so than at the northern extremities of the Continent, the Eskimo Dogs being not only extremely like the Grey Wolves of the Arctic circle in form and colour, but also nearly equalling them in size. The Dog has generally a shorter tail than the Wolf, and carries it more frequently curled over the hip, but the latter practice is not totally unknown to the Wolf, although that animal, when under the observation of man, being generally apprehensive of danger or on the watch, seldom displays this mark of satisfaction.” And again, “The resemblance between the northern Wolves and the domestic Dog of the Indians is so great, that the size and strength of the Wolf seem to be the only difference. I have more than once mistaken a band of Wolves for the Dogs of a party of Indians; and the howl of the animals of both species is prolonged so exactly in the same key, that even the practised ear of an Indian fails at times to discriminate them.”

As the Eskimo and Indian Dogs resemble the North American Wolf (_C. lupus_), so the Dog of the Hare Indians, a very distinct breed (see below), resembles the Prairie Wolf (_C. latrans_). So great is this resemblance that Richardson says, “I could detect no marked difference in form except the smallness of its [the Dog’s] cranium, nor in the fineness of its fur, and arrangement of its spots of colour. The length of the fur on the neck, back part of the cheeks, and top of the head, was the same in both species. It, in fact, bears the same resemblance to the Prairie Wolf that the Eskimo Dog does to the great Grey Wolf.” Another observer remarks that, except in the matter of barking, there is no difference whatever between the black Wolf-dog of the Indians of Florida and the Wolves of the same country. The Dogs also breed readily with the wild animals they so closely resemble. The Indians often cross their Dogs with Wolves to improve the breed, and in South America the same process is resorted to between the domesticated and the wild Dogs.

The same phenomenon is seen in many kinds of Dog in the Old World. The Shepherd Dog of the plains of Hungary is white or reddish-brown, has a sharp nose, short erect ears, shaggy coat, and bushy tail, and so much resembles a Wolf, that Mr. Paget, who gives the description, says he has known a Hungarian mistake a Wolf for one of his own Dogs. There is also a close resemblance between some of the Indian Pariah Dogs and the Indian Wolf. Some of the domestic Dogs of Egypt, both at the present day and in the condition of mummies, closely resemble the Wolf of that country; “whereas the domestic Dogs of Nubia, and certain other mummied Dogs, have the closest relation to a wild species of the same country ... which is only a form of the common Jackal.” Dogs have, moreover, been known to cross with Jackals as well as with Wolves. Lastly, in Africa, some of the natives assert that their half-tamed Dogs are derived from Foxes; and the Dogs of the Bosjesman have a striking resemblance to the black-backed Jackal (_C. mesomelas_), which, as we shall see, is a South African variety.

These facts are so significant and so important that they in reality leave only one difficulty to be settled, and that is the question of voice. As we stated above, all domestic Dogs bark, while all wild _Canidæ_ express their feelings only by howls. But the difficulty here is not so great as it seems. Some domestic Dogs left on the island of Juan Fernandez entirely lost the habit of barking in thirty-three years, and a few individuals removed after that period only re-acquired it very slowly; thus, domestic Dogs allowed to run wild forget how to bark. On the other hand, Jackals, wild Dogs, and Wolf-pups reared by bitches, readily acquire the habit. Thus the last stumbling-block in the argument disappears, and we are forced to agree with Mr. Darwin, from whom many of the above facts are taken,[96] that “it is highly probable that the domestic Dogs of the world have descended from two good species of Wolf (_C. lupus_ and _C. latrans_), and from two or three other doubtful species of Wolves (namely, the European, Indian, and North African forms); from at least one or two South American Canine species; from several races or species of the Jackal; and perhaps from one or more extinct species;” and that the blood of these, “in some cases mingled together, flows in the veins of our domestic breeds.”

There is no animal so interesting as the Dog for the study of the relation between man and the lower animals in the matter of instinct, reason, conscience, and the like. As no animal has been so thoroughly domesticated, and so systematically trained and educated, so none has developed in the same degree those higher endowments which are often considered as the exclusive attributes of humanity, such as reasoning power, a sense of right and wrong, of property, and of number.

For the study of instinct, it is impossible to find an animal in any way approaching to him for interest, for not only does he exhibit, to a wonderful degree, the instincts common to all the higher animals, but almost every kind of Dog possesses some special instinct, imparted from a remote ancestor, and absent, or nearly so, in other varieties. We may instance the mode of “pointing” game peculiar to the Pointer, the marvellous power of following scent of the Bloodhound or Foxhound, and the acute generalship of the Shepherd’s Dog, who, with comparatively little teaching, guards, drives, and keeps together a whole flock of foolish animals, which, to the Dog mind, must seem intended by Providence to be worried and eaten. These special instincts we shall consider when we come to speak of the various breeds; but we must now say a few words on those instincts which are common to the whole species.

Unlike the Lion and Tiger, the male Dog takes no interest whatever in his offspring, who are taken care of during the weeks of their helplessness entirely by the mother. She, however, quite makes up for paternal neglect by the assiduity with which she tends and cares for her feeble offspring. It is one of the most touching, and, at the same time, almost amusing sights, to see a bitch with her first litter; how jealously she watches the blind, fat, slug-like little creatures. At first she will growl and snap even at her beloved master, if he approaches too near her treasures. When they have grown a little, how fussy she becomes when they are noticed; she will even drag them by the leg, one by one, upstairs, to exhibit their perfections! For several weeks this care continues, but by the time the pups have grown half as big as their mother, and can see and run about, her solicitude diminishes. She begins to quarrel with them over bones and other titbits, and, before long, takes no more notice of them than if they were the commonest stray Dogs in the street. It is this evaporation of mother-love which so distinguishes a Dog-parent from, at any rate, a great number of human parents.

Like most animals, the female Dog, if deprived of the natural objects of her affection, will lavish her care on almost any young and helpless thing with which she may be brought in contact.

Dr. Sclater,[97] whilst visiting the Zoological Gardens at Antwerp, in 1875, noticed a curious instance of the blindness of maternal love in a Dog. Among other objects of attraction were “three young Tiger-cubs, born in the Gardens on the 14th of October, 1873,” that had been “most successfully foster-mothered by a large bitch.”

We have stated that the male Dog is perfectly oblivious of his paternal duties; we have, however, met with one instance of a Dog, who, whatever may have been his qualities as a parent, discharged with great fidelity the part of guardian, and that, too, not to one of his own species, but to one of an alien and hostile race. This curious instance of canine affection was exhibited by a small male pet Spaniel, belonging to some friends of ours, who brought up a kitten. The _food_, certainly, was supplied by the family, but the brooding and tendance were done most faithfully. On warm days, the Dog would carry the kitten and lay it in the sun, choosing some snug place out of the wind, in the garden. The kitten, a female, lived to become a very beautiful Cat; but her unsuspecting innocence led to her death. Not fearing any of the Dog-kind, she made no attempts to escape from them, and was worried to death by a strange stray Dog.

One of the most striking circumstances with regard both to the general and the special instincts of the Dog, namely, those instincts common to the whole species, and those possessed by particular breeds, is the way in which they are transmitted from parent to child. The Pointer points the first time he is taken out; the Shepherd’s Dog learns his duties with astonishingly little teaching. Not only are instincts transmitted in pure breeds, but in cross-breeds the special characteristics of both parents come out with the most marvellous accuracy. “... It is known that a cross with a Bull-dog has affected for many generations the courage and obstinacy of Greyhounds; and a cross with a Greyhound has given a whole family of Shepherd-dogs a tendency to hunt Hares. Le Roy describes a Dog, whose great grandfather was a Wolf, and this Dog showed a trace of its wild parentage only in one way--by not coming in a straight line to his master when called.” The tendency to attack Poultry, Sheep, &c., “has been found incurable in Dogs which have been brought home as puppies from countries, such as Tierra del Fuego and Australia, where the savages do not keep these domestic animals. How rarely, on the other hand, do our civilised Dogs, even when quite young, require to be taught not to attack Poultry, Sheep, and Pigs!”[98]

A most astonishing account of an inherited mental peculiarity--an instinctive dislike--is related by Dr. Huggins, to whose researches the science of astronomy owes so much. He writes:--

“I possess an English Mastiff, by name Kepler, a son of the celebrated Turk, out of Venus. I brought the Dog, when six weeks old, from the stable in which he was born. The first time I took him out, he started back in alarm at the first butcher’s shop he had ever seen. I soon found that he had a violent antipathy to butchers and butchers’ shops. When six months old, a servant took him with her on an errand. At a short distance before coming to the house she had to pass a butcher’s shop. The Dog threw himself down (being led with a string), and neither coaxing nor threats would make him pass the shop. The Dog was too heavy to be carried; and as a crowd collected, the servant had to return with the Dog more than a mile, and then go without him. This occurred about two years ago. The antipathy still continues, but the Dog will pass nearer to a shop than he formerly would. About two months ago, in a little book on Dogs published by Dean, I discovered that the same strange antipathy was shown by his father, Turk. I then wrote to Mr. Nicholls, the former owner of Turk, to ask him for any information he may have on the point. He replied--‘I can say that the same antipathy exists in King (the sire of Turk), in Punch (son of Turk, out of Meg), and in Paris (son of Turk, out of Juno). Paris has the greatest antipathy, as he would hardly go into a street where a butcher’s shop was, and would run away after passing it. When a cart with a butcher’s man came into the place where the Dogs were kept, although they could not see him, they all were ready to break their chains. A master-butcher, dressed privately, called one evening on Paris’s master to see the Dog. He had hardly entered the house before the Dog (though shut in) was so excited that he had to be put into a shed, and the butcher was forced to leave without seeing the Dog. The same Dog, at Hastings, made a spring at a gentleman who came into the hotel. The owner caught the Dog and apologised, and said he never knew him to do so before, except when a butcher came to his house. The gentleman at once said that was his business. So you see that they inherit these antipathies, and show a great deal of breed.’”[99]

A gentleman on reading this account of Dr. Huggins’s Dog, wrote to say that he possessed a son of Sybil, daughter of Turk, who possessed the family antipathy in a marked degree, and another stated that he also possessed a grandson of the redoubted Mastiff, in whom the same peculiarity was developed. Thus we see that this most remarkable instinctive dread, arising no one knows how, existed not only in Dr. Huggins’s Dog, but in his father, grandfather, brothers, and nephews! It was suggested, and it seems highly probable, that the feeling in this case first arose from the fact of some ancestor of the Turk family being ill-treated by a butcher; but it is quite possible that it may have arisen spontaneously. Boswell, in his life of Johnson, quotes the “Great Lexicographer” as attributing a similar dislike to butchers noticed in the Dogs of some savage countries, where the animal was used for food, not to horror at the butcher’s cruelty, but merely to the smell of carnage.

A very remarkable _trait_ in the Dog’s character, which has undoubtedly become instinctive, and is consequently transmitted from generation to generation, is his love of human society. A well cared-for Dog will always prefer his master’s company to that of his own kind, and will take any amount of trouble, and give up any amount of personal ease, that he may not be parted from him.

But, undoubtedly, the most wonderful canine instinct is the sense of direction, the power possessed by so many Dogs of finding their way back to an old and well-loved home, after being forcibly removed from it to a new place of abode. Instances are numerous in which Dogs, taken from their usual habitation, shut up in a basket, or by night, or in a swift railway train, have unerringly found their way back, greatly to the surprise of both their new and their old masters. Mr. Wallace has suggested that this was not a true case of instinct, but that the Dog, in all probability, found his way back by smell; that he, as it were, takes a note of every smell he passes--a stagnant pool here, a haystack there, a wayside inn, a stable, &c. &c.--and, remembering not only the smells, but the order in which he smelt them, he follows the scent until he arrives at his destination. There is no doubt that the Dog’s olfactory sense is wonderfully acute, but this is certainly carrying it too far. Moreover, as has been remarked, the direction of the wind was quite likely to change between the Dog’s two journeys, and if one of his odoriferous landmarks happened to be movable, like a flock of Sheep, where would he be? But the one fact which completely disposes of the smell theory of the phenomenon is, that there is no evidence of a Dog’s ever returning to his old home by the way he was taken from it; he invariably takes a different route, usually a short cut. For instance: “A Hound was sent by Charles Cobbe, Esq., from Newbridge, county Dublin, to Maynalty, county Meath, and thence, long afterwards, conveyed to Dublin. The Hound broke loose in Dublin, and the same morning made his way back to his old kennel at Newbridge, thus completing the third side of a triangle by a road he had never travelled in his life.” Again, Mr. Romanes narrates the case of a Dog who, when taken by his master from Oban to Greenock, by sea, was grievously sea-sick. The next time the journey had to be made, the Dog, remembering his former trouble, jumped off the boat and disappeared. His master continued his voyage, and was greatly surprised, when he arrived at Greenock, to find the Dog waiting for him on the wharf! The distance from Oban to Greenock is fifty miles in a straight line, and this straight course the Dog is not likely to have taken, as his way would then have lain across mountains, a lake, and an arm of the sea. Thus it would seem that the Dog must have some sort of notion of direction, must possess, as it were, a special sense of the nature of a mariner’s compass, and that, so far from his sense of locality being due in any way to power of smell, it is perhaps the most striking example of a pure instinct which it is possible to conceive.

We have not given many instances of instinct in the Dog, for it is a faculty of which no one denies the existence, but of reasoning power it is necessary to treat more fully, as many persons are disposed wholly to deny the presence of that faculty in all the lower animals, and to make it the exclusive prerogative of man. Every one who has kept a Dog must have seen it perform actions which, in a human being, would unhesitatingly be put down to reason; every one must have heard of cases in which a choice of two or more courses was presented to a Dog, and in which he has, after due reflection, chosen the best.

We are indebted to Mr. Hugh Miller, F.G.S., for a good instance of reasoning power in a Dog belonging to his brother, Captain Miller. This Dog, “Tara” by name, a Greyhound with a dash of Pointer, was one day taken out with a carriage for a run of forty miles. Now, it is estimated that a Dog, by his uncontrollable habit of “meandering,” usually goes over about three times, the ground of the horse or man he accompanies, so that on this occasion Tara must have run considerably over a hundred miles, and was in consequence rather done up when she reached home. She usually slept in the dining-room, whence she was always ejected at 7 A.M. by the housemaid who cleaned the room. On this occasion, however, no amount of persuasion could induce Tara to occupy her accustomed sleeping-place; she positively insisted upon following her master upstairs to his bedroom, where she evidently expected she could remain undisturbed for a good long rest, and where she did actually remain till 2 P.M. on the following day.