The daily Alaskan., 1914-09-10
4 CANINE TRAGEDY
Trouble Came In Punches With
 the Purchase or a Watchdog.
ONE NIGHT OF WILD AUCTION.

lt Taught the Battered Master of the
 Wrecked Home That Under Some
 Circumstances a Burglar May Be
 Better Company Than a Mastiff,
 If a man is afraid of burglars" said l Quackenbush, "he can't have a better safeguard than a good watchdog"
 But where is he going to get the good watchdogT inquired. Cllnken- l beard. "Such animals don't grow on 1 trees, and they are not advertised by . department stores.
 "Of course, if you go around telling that you are in the market for a watch dog every man who has q chicken kill 1 ing pup he wants to get rid of will 1 tell you that his critter Is just what ! you are hunting for. But you'll try out a million dogs before you find one that will get down to brass headed | nails and do police duty.
 1.-TWO or three years ago there was a burglar scare out in our suburb. Sey- 
 | false hair and things carried away. So my wife got so nervous she couldn't sleep at night. She was sure some masked bandit would break in and steal the What Is Home Without a Mother chrOmO from over the mantel, and just to give her a sense of security I bougAt big mastiff and took him home and chained him to a tree in front of the house.
 Along about l2 o'clock at night that dog got to thinking over his miSspent life, and remorse gnawed at his heart strings, and he began lamenting the past. He had the most blOOdcurdling voice l ever heard. Every yell he let out froze the marrow in my bones. He'd begin with a sort of plaintive wall and wind up with a howl that would remind you of a hyena in a graveyard on rainy night. My wife said the uproar would have te be stopped and I'd better bring the dog into tue house He'd probably be quiet there.
 "SO l slid into few rags and went downstairs and into the yard. Just as I approached the dog old BiIIshaw, who lived next door, opened his bed room window and threw an old frying pan. Of course he meant it for the dog. but his aim was poor and it caught me in the bread basket and knocked the wind out of me.
 "I sat down on the grass and gasped for breath and a shower of bottles and hootfacks and stove wood came from BilIshaw's window. and every blamed item hit me in one place or another. When l finally got my breath l yelled to Biushaw to let up, for he was mur- dering me. and he said it was just what deserved for keeping such a menaserie where it would give the whole ueighbOrhOod the horrors.
 After l had rubbed my bruises for half an hour l took the dog into the house and went back to bed. was just dropping off t9 sleep when l was reused by the allfircdest racket It sounded as though the side of the house was falling in. My wife was shrieking that the dog was upsetting all the furAiture and ruining every ching. So l went downstairs again, quoting a few passages from Webster's Dictionary.
 "I had forgatten about the cat when I took the dog into the house. But the dog had discovered the pet and was chasing 1t through the house, and you never saw such a scene of wreckage. Everything that wasn't nailed down had been overturned, and nearly every thing was broken. The gas light was burning. and there was the cat hanging to the gas fixtures and the dog stand ing on his hind legs trying to reach her.
 "NIy memories of what followed are rather confused. l seem to recall grab bing the dog by the scruff of the neck to take him outdoors, and he bit sample from my shin, and then we mixed things on the floor. I managed to stuff the pincushion into his mouth so he couldn't bite, and we resorted to GreCo-Roman wrestling.
 "Then the cat came down from the gas fixture and took a hand and clawed most of my scalp of, and my wife came to the rescue with the poker. She said afterward that she was try ing to hit the dog. l reckon I'd have been on ice next day if the neighbors hadn't come in with shotguns' and prun- ing hooks and such things and pried up apart
 That experience was enough for me. I'd rather have forty burglars on the premises than one watchdog. ."-Walt Mason in Chicago News.