Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-11-14
One Reads Newspapers and Another is
Chummy With Parrot.

From the New Orleans Times-Democrst.
Speaking of the intelligence IF dogs re-
minds me of rather smart canine MEM
Der belonging to a well-known citizen up
town." said a man who is fond of the
lower orders of creation, land 1 want to
say right at the start that think this par
ticular dog is about the smartest thing on
four legs.
Dogs are always smart. They are like
babies in this, that from the standpoint of
the persons who own them they are the
cutest and cleverest things under the sun.
1 am not the owner of the dog in question
and, therefore. may speak of the animal
without bias in his behalf, and may extol
his virtues without any-danger of overriding
the thing. Put differently, I may take a
critical view of this dog in particular.
He is as smart as a dog can be and is
abreast of the times. He is newspaper
dog, and, hence, manages to keep in touch
with the world. He is always on the look
out for the morning paper. AS rule, he is
at the front gate when the carrier comes
along. If he is not there at that time he
hears the paper fall when the carrier
throws it in and is on the scene in short
order
For some time his master has been
Little under the weather Before he got
sick the dog would simply take the morning
paper to his masters bed, rear up on the
side of the bed leave the paper with him
anu SKIP out. But recenCly-anQ TINS IS
the more important point of this little yarn
the dogs master has been confined to his
bed, and has not been able to move around
the room.
"As usual the dog brings the paper every
morning. But instead of just putting it on
the bed he unfolds it, holds it up in his
paws, glances at the headlines and then
at his master. as if trying to aid him in
pened the day before. Do you not regard
this as extraordinary intelligence in dog?
l do.
That dog is wonder, and no mistake
ment of devotion in his conduct toward his
master that you would fail to find in
great many friends, and an element of
thoughtfulneSs that you would fail to find in
a great many persons who are closer than
friends
THAT reminds me of a very clever COM
pact which has been entered into between
a dog and a parrot out in my neighbor-
hood said man WHO had listened to the
story about the newspaper dog, land I
doubt if you could find more forcible evil
dence of the dogs and the parrots intellt-
gence than the compact l have in mind.
They seem to have established a perfect
understanding of each other, and they seem
to have developed some sort of idea of the
contractua1 relation. as we say in the law.
How they went about the matter I do not
know. l only know that the results are
achieved quite as satisfactorily as If the
dog and parrot in question were human
reasoning.
THE parrots cage is in the backyard. 1t
is close to the ground where the dog can
reach the sliding door by rearing I'D on his
hind legs. Between the back yard and front
yard there is a gate with latch on the
side toward the front part of the house As
a rule, the dog and parrot are kept in the
back yard. and the little gate which cross
es the alleyway and opens into the front
yard is generally kept Iatched A little
while ago the dog and the parrot were
found out in the front yard together
THE man of the house was not a little
perplexed to know how they had managed
to get out into the front yard He made I'D
his mind to watch them for the purpose of
seeing how they overcame the difficulty
The first thing that attracted his attention
was the call of the parrot
Promptly the dog, who understood the
language, responded. He walked over to
the parrots cage, used his nose to root the
slide door up and let the bird out The dog
then let the door fly back to its place The
parrot flew over to the side gate and the
dog trotted across the yard in the same
direction.
I'm few seconds the parrot was busy
with the latch. Using his beak, he raised
the latch. and the dog pushed the side gate
open with his nose. Shortly they were both
out in the front yard.
Now, what do you think of that? If |
that isn't Intelligence, what is it? 1t seems
to me to be intelligence of a very h. 9Th Or |
der, and am willing to put this dog and |
this parrot bird against anything you can |
scrape up, for anything less complex than
a combination lock of the most improved
kind wouldn't count with them"