Dog Breeds

Footnote 1: Plutarch relates that, at the theatre of Marcellus, a dog was exhibited before the emperor Vespasian, so well instructed as to exercise in every kind of dance. He afterwards feigned illness in a most singular manner, so as to strike the spectators with astonishment. He first exhibited various symptoms of pain; he then fell down as if dead, and, afterwards seeming to revive, as if waking from a profound sleep, and then sported about and showed various demonstrations of joy.

The practice of stealing dogs is both directly and indirectly connected with a great deal of cruelty. There are more than twenty miscreants who are well known to subsist by picking up dogs in the street. There are generally two of them together with aprons rolled round their waists. The dog is caught up at the corner of one of the streets, concealed in a moment in the apron, and the thieves are far away before the owner suspects the loss. These dogs, that have been used to every kind of luxury, are crowded into dark and filthy cellars, where they become infected by various diseases.

Of the demoniacal use of the dog in the fighting-pits, and the atrocities that were committed there, I will not now speak. These places were frequented by few others than the lowest of the low. Cruelties were there inflicted that seemed to be a libel on human nature; and such was the baneful influence of the scene, that it appeared to be scarcely possible for any one to enter these pits without experiencing a greater or less degree of moral degradation.

Next comes the depriving the dog of his dew-claws — the supplementary toes a little above the foot. They are supposed to interfere with hunting by becoming entangled with the grass or underwood. This rarely happens. The truth of the matter is, they are simply illustrations of the uniformity of structure which prevails in all animals, so far as is consistent with their destiny. The dew-claws only make up the number of toes in other animals.

Then the tail of the dog does not suit the fancy of the owner. It must be shortened in some of these animals, and taken off altogether in others.

This is an infliction of too much torture for the gratification of a nonsensical fancy; and, after all, in the opinion of many, and of those, too, who are fondest of dogs, the animal looks far better in his natural state than when we have exercised all our cruel art upon him. Besides, the effects of this absurd amputation do not cease with the healing of the ear. The intense inflammation that we have set up, materially injures the internal structure of this organ. Deafness is occasionally produced by it in some dogs, and constantly in others.

These were, and still are, in the country, connected with many an act of atrocious cruelty. We do not object to the dog as a beast of draught. He is so in the northern regions, and he is as happy as any other animal in those cold and inhospitable countries. He is so in Holland, and he is as comfortable there as any other beast that wears the collar. He is not so in Newfoundland: there he is shamefully treated.

We pass on to another division of our subject, the moral qualities of the dog, strongly developed and beautifully displayed, and often putting the biped to shame.

It is truly said of the dog that he possesses

"Many a good
And useful quality, and virtue too,
Attachment never to be weaned or changed
By any change of fortune; proof alike
Against unkindness, absence, and neglect;
Fidelity, that neither bribe nor threat
Can move or warp; and gratitude, for small
And trivial favours, lasting as the life,
And glistening even in the dying eye."

We find little mention of insanity in the domesticated animals in any of our modern authors, whether treating on agriculture, horsemanship, or veterinary medicine, and yet there are some singular and very interesting cases of aberration of intellect. The inferior animals are, to a certain extent, endowed with the same faculties as ourselves. They are even susceptible of the same moral qualities. Hatred, love, fear, hope, joy, distress, courage, timidity, jealousy, and many varied passions influence and agitate them, as they do the human being.

Our subject — the intellectual and moral feelings of brutes, and the mechanism on which they depend — may be divided into two parts, the portion that receives and conveys, and that which stores up and compares and uses the impression.

The portion that receives and conveys is far more developed in the brute than in the human being. Whatever sense we take, we clearly perceive the triumph of animal power.