The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1899-06-02
TALK ABOUT HORSESENSE.

Professor Leon, after more than
twenty years experience in the train
ing of horses, dogs, lions and other
animals, declares that none of the
lower animals possess intelligence.
None of them, he says, has ever per-
formed noble action. and is utterly
without the power to do So A dog
and horse, as well as other animals,
have excellent memories, and can be
readily trained to the performance of
certain tricks, which appear to be the
result Of intelligence. If you stop to
analyze this, however, you will see
that it is only the exercise of the pow
er of memory. The dog or the horse
has no knowledge Of the result of its
performance.
at is easy to teach dog" Professor
Leon says, Nto obey signs, signals or
words, such as, 'fetch,' carry close
the door, or open the door, but the
dog has no knowledge of the meaning
of the words in any connection apart
from the command.
''He may, too, be just as easily taught
to shut the door when commanded to
open it, or lie down when told to stand
up. That, in fact, is exactly the way
clown dogs and horses are taught.
| have a St. Bernard dog, Caesar, that
is noted for his tricks, and have made
many experiments with him to see if
possible whether he could go beyond
the limit of instinct. / remember
some time ago l was walking along
the banks of the Surrey Canal with
Caesar, whom l had frequently
trained to go and fetch things out of
the water.
Suddenly little child fell into the
canal from the bridge just ahead of us.
| at once called the dogs attention to
the child in the water, and said, Fetch
it, Caesar. He started for the floating
body, caught it in his jaws, and swan
back to within a foot OF the bank.
Then he loosened his grip and stood
looking up at me. He was waiting
for me to throw the child back into
midstream again rs he had seen me
throw sticks.
'He had no idea at all that the child
was drowning, and would have drowned
had l not gone into the water myself
and dragged it out, nor did he realize
that the bundle Of limp rags was any
thing other than the usual stick that
he had been accustomed to fetch. He
was laudcd by people as noble crea-
ture who had saved the child's life, yet
neither he nor any other dog ever at
tempted to save child's life unless he
had been previously trained to re-
trieve."
Professor Leon tells another story
Of hooking the end of a walking stick
into the rails of an iron fence, and then
commanded a dog to go back and get it.
He went back and tugged at the cane
without being able to released. Then
he chewed the stick in two and brought
one half in his mouth. Commanded to
return, he tried again to pull the stick
away, but never attempted to give it
the simple turn that readily released it
when applied by man.
Professor Leon gives his animal
friends full credit for the use Of their
instincts, and says they often make
better use of them than man does with
reasoning powers. A horse, he says,
will never drink more than is good for
him, and yet a man, when his instinct
tells him that he has had enough to
drink, attempts to reason out that he
can stand more, and takes it, to his
physical detriment.