Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-08-14
About Dogs.
&l,a 1nI4v, pauso

The power of charming animals into
friendship is often exceedingly useful.
Dogs on the chain must always be danger
GUS; of course the tantalizing restraint
must sour the sweetest temper; and the
marvel is that they do not invariably go
mad. We know few such pictures of help
less misery as that of half-breed mastiff,
secured by short yard and half of
chain beneath carriers wagon in sum-
mer. The heat, the dust, the constant
jerk of the fretting collar, the idlers who
are always amusing themselves by exas-
perating the poor animal, aggravate him
to chronic paroxysms of impotent feroci-
ty. No man in his senses would dream of
touching or trying to rarity him. But we
have met dogs at large, to the full as saw
age to all appearance and carefully trained
to blood-thirsty business, who were amen
able to reason and words of gentlemanly
persuasion if you only gave them time to
reflect. We used to walk good deal in
the western Pyrenees, taking short cuts
through the forest and across the noun
tain pastures. These pastures skirt the
woodlands infested by wolves and shell
tering an. occasional bear. Everywhere
flock, even in spring or summer, had its
guardian, in the shape of a formidable
Pyrenean wof-hound, with the spiked
collar, that was an appropriate setting to
the more formidable chevaux de frise of
teeth. The older dogs generally were con-
tent to growl out surly warning to move
on; but now and then young one would
come charging down the hill as if he
meant to make half a dozen mouthfuls of
the intruder. With a calm air of conf
dence, we would hail him with shout of
welcome. Long before he reached us. he
was slackening his pace, evidently think
ing that second thoughts were advisable;
his savage bark would change into good
humored growing; generally he would
come up with sniff of satisfaction and
| suffer himself to be patted; and not I'M
| frequently we have put our hand into his
| mouth, and played with the jaws that had
! threatened to rend us. Nor was there
either rashness or courage in doing SO; for
we kept wary eye on the eyes of the sa-
gacious animal, knowing that whatever he
might be, he was no hypocrite, and that
| we might implicitly trust his honest looks.
| On the other hand, the friendship that
| dogs will force upon you may be embar-
RAISING, as we have not seldom expert
enced. Wandering ours will join us in
our country walks, and will take no deni-
al You may think you have lodged and
dropped them, but they turn up again at
some corner, wagging their tails hypocrit-
ically, as if they did not know very well
that you had been more than rude in your
efforts to repel them And with the best
meaning cur in attendance, you have some
natural manvaise homie, as if you were
walking down st. James street in the sea-
| son arm in arm with Hottentot.
Talking of St. James, London dogs
have made up to us on the London pave
ments, and insisted on following us into
the clubs, as if they had been duly elected
honorary members. But the most awk-
ward incident we can remember happened
] in Edinburgh. We were going one Sab
bath to hear an eloquent divine who al
ways filed his big church to OVERLOOKING
A disreputable looking caricature of fox
terrier seemed to be going our way, SO we
were not in the least astonished that he
should come up and join us, nor did we
! greatly care, as we hoped to leave him at
the church door, where couple of elders
were standing sentry behind the plates.
| In due course we were accommodated with
a seat at the end of an open pew, and two
minutes afterwards our NANCY friend was
shifting at our legs and whining joyfully
| He was expelled by.a beadle in the sight
| of the scandalized congregation, but not
|
with us. However, we thought we had
seen the last of him. Five minutes later,
having ontflanked the enemy, and come in
by different door, he was following the
preacher up the pulpit stairs. For once a
Presbyterian congregation was on the
| broad grin, and some of the young people
were actually laughing when the dog, who
by this time had lost his temper, began
snarling and swapping at the minister's
man, who had picked him up, only to
drop him like hot potato" In that
case our suffering was mental, and we were
the unlucky victim of circumstances over
which we had no control.
In another instance we suffered bodily
and for several days, thanks to our fatal
facility for forming rash friendships. We
were standing at the door of the hotel in
Innspruck when singularly sagacious
looking white poodle came up to talk to
u.s. We got interested in the converse
ton, and Hospitality offered some biscuits;
and the end of it was that the dog intro
duced his master. The master CHANGED to
be wideawake italian vetturino, with a
four-horse return carriage from Padua,
and he offered to take us thither for five
napoleons. We had been fishing at Ischi
and had no plans. The price was ridicu-
lously cheap; we might as well go to Ven
ice asanywhere else; the dog was cycling
us wistfully, and SO we assented. There
were two of us, by the way; and we start
ed in that family ark, in a blazing sun,
over dusty roads. Giving an occasional
lift to a wayfaring priest in the spacious
interior, we bowed ourselves away in the
banuuette to the ARREST place, taking occa-
sional peeps at the scenery through the
leathern curtains. The poodle's place, of
course, was on the roof, where he should
have been snoozing, in the ordinary course
of things, when he was not barking at all
corners. But that dogs attraction to us
was mission. The beast was as clever on
his legs as any monkey; he would keep
scrambling down and forcing himself in
through these curtains; it was nothing
that he was covered with dust of any door
mat: but he had been swarming in whole
colonies of lively fleas before they trans
ferred their attention to the Englishmen.
He would have torn the cushions to rib
bons had he been shut up inside; like
| most Italians, he would not hear of pedes-
trian exercise; the turino only laughed in
his sleeve; 80 all we could do was to grin
and bear it. By the time we had crossed
the Rrenner and threaded the hilly defiles
|. of Northern Venetia, what with the feas
and the consequent fever, the dog, the
sandfiies and the dust, we felt as if We
had been heated, after a course of curry
combinp. with pressing of mustard plas.
tiers. And when we paid the vetturino of
in Padua that poodle was more passionate
" devoted to us than ever; though, con
sidering the roughness of manner and the
yehemence of language with which his adj
vances had been repealed, the poodle's ex-
periences of the journey could scarcely
q have been more agreeable than our own
So much for casual intercourse with ami
mails. We say nothing now of the com
| ,,o,,;<y,ahiy with the domestic meta who
are the solace of our sorrows and the par.