The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1907-03-21
Tribute to the Dog.

Tribute to the Dog.
OF all the brutes that inhabit this
fair earth, man loves most the dog.
Ihls statement is not made from the
inspiration of experience, but from
observation and from the authority of
history and tradition. This column
never owned dog, though for some
time it paid taxes on a fabulous dog
which was feloniously set upon our
tax list by the city assessor. This,
however, was not the fault of the
genus dog; nor have we ever charged
him with it. The dog, as we have
said, is the most beloved of brutes
and a very good fellow he is. He
may jubilantly put his muddy paw on
a mans clean white vest, or slip up
stairs and fall asleep on the spare bed
after chasing muskrats in the marsh.
He may plunge through the glazed
sash OF our new cold frame while
chasing an alley cat, or he may bury
beef bone where we have planted
with great care and expectation a
dollar and seventy five cents worth of
aster seeds. Even this is not charge
able to the dog. He is still beloved
brute. He may howl at the moon
when weary mortals are longing for
sleep; or he may bite your baby's arm
to the bone. He is still not to blame.
That is the dog of it. AS the poet
hath truly said: ''Let dogs delight
to bark and bite, for God hath made
them So"
But there is trouble and large ag-
gregation of misftness somewhere in
the neighborhood of the dog. We
don't like to spend valuable time and
labor and high class pride and slow
dollars on our garden bed only to see
it mauled shapeless in two minutes by
slab-sided setter hunting for cheap
amusement. And you don't like to
have your baby chewed up by a
mongrel cur. These things trouble US.
Just where does the trouble lie? tt
lies somewhere between the dog and
the man. And this being a dog-and-
man question, and the dog being
blameless, it looks like pretty clear
case against the man. At least am
not going to kill the dog till l have
had heart-to-heart talk with the man
behind the dog.
Why is not.the dog to blame? Be-
cause the dog is essentially a country
animal, and the dog of which we
speak is town dog. The country is
the dogs native heath and his orig
inal and only happy hunting grounds.
Transplanted to the city he is exotic
not too Quixotic and often idiotic.
For this obliquity he is no more to
blame than is the consumptive, smutty
elm tree at the corner of Hennepin
and Fourth street, that breathes a
choking soft-coal-gas atmosphere
through all it's struggling life. What
chance has dog in town? Stunned
by the din, rattle and bang of con-
gested traffic on stone paved streets,
mauled and joshed out of his common
sense by kids as exotic as he, muzzled
and chased to cover by the municipal
police, cabined, cribbed, confined,
stuffed and coddled-is it a wonder he
becomes a mushy, mussy misft? So
would you. thus transplanted and thus
treated. Years ago in the bicycle
period of the human race, this column
was one day bowling down Hennepin
near Fourth, when lank, long, lop-
ing greyhound crossed the road ahead
of the wheel. Knowing the greyhound
breed to be endowed with superior
keeness of eye and ear, the wheelman
sped right merrily on, striking the
beast squarely amidships, laying him
along the pavement even more pros
trate than the rider. The frightened
beast, fleeing and looking backward,
ran plump into the barb-wire fence of
Elder Stewards ranch, from which he
rebounded with redoubled howlings,
and after other bumps and hair
breadth Escapes, fed with lifted voice
far away up Fourth street north.
Such an exhibition of degeneracy is
peculiarly painful. I have seen the
country cousin of this dog standing at
gaze out over the boundless prairies
of the wide northwest, suddenly spy
the flick of q aickertail's clear over in
Bottineau county, and shooting like a
bolt from crossbow straight over
sward and swale, snap the little rodent
up before he knew he was sent for;
then, joyous and gay, sweep the hori-
zon with his telescope eye for another
business chance. I have seen him
course the jumping jack-rabbit
through the clear ozone of the far
southwest; and in the hills of the
horse-ranch country of the Canadian