Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-12-15
SOME SMART DOGS.
One Reads Newspaper and Anskher Understands the Talk of
 Parrot.

reminds me of d rather smart canine member belonging to well known citizen uptown" said a man who is fond of the lower order of creation, relates the New Orleans Times-Demo- crat, Nand I want to say right at the start that think this particular 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. I 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 overdoing the thing. Put different ly, I may take a critical view of this dog in particular.
 He is as smart as dog can be and is abreast of the times. He is a news paper dog, and, hence, manages to keep in touch with the world. He is always on the lookout for the morn ing paper. As a rule he is at the front gate when the carrier comes along
 
 the paper fall when the carrier throws it in and is on the scene in short or der
 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 and skip out. But recently-and this is the more impor- tant 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. hoIdssit up in his paws, glances at the headlines and then at his master, as if trying to aid him in finding the more important things that happened the day before. Do you not regard this as extraordinary intelligence in dog? do
 That dog is a wonder, and no mis-, take He is a humanitarian. There is an element of devotion in his con- duct 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 very clever compact which has been entered into between dog and parrot out in my neighborhood said a man who had listened to the story about the news I find more forcible evidence of the dogs and the parrots intelligence than the compact I have in mind.
 ssThey seem to have established q perfect understanding of each other, and they seem to have developed some sort of idea of the contractual rela- ton, as we say i'll the law. How they. went about the matter do not know. I only know. that the results are achieved quite as satisfactorily as if the dog and parrot in question were human beings and capable of all the processes of reasoning.
 "The parrots cage is in the back yard It is close to the ground where the dog can reach the sliding door by rearing up on his hind legs. Between the back yard and front yard there is a gate with a 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 crosses the alleyway and opens into the front yard is generally kept latched. A lit- tie while ago the dog and the parrot were found out in the front yard to- gether.
 The man of the house was not little perplexed to know how they had managed to get out into the front yard He made up his nnd 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 it's place, The parrot flew over to the side gate and the dog trot- ted across the yard in the same direc- ton.
 ''In a 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? It seems to me to be intelligence of a very high order, and I am willing to put this dog and this parrot bird against anything you can scrape up, for anything less complex than a con- bination lock of the most improved kind wouldn't count with them"