er night in the quarries, their care is
confined to packs of watch-dogs which are turned loose at night and
appear as if by instinct to spend the hours of darkness in prowling over
the territory. Such is their size and ferocity that it takes a sturdy
beggar to face them. I remember inadvertently disturbing one of these
brutes from sleep, in the strong cage where he was confined, and I have
never beheld such a picture of blind fury as he exhibited. I had not
come within twenty feet of him, and was merely moving past his place of
confinement; yet he sprang to the grating and strove with his teeth to
break his way through the bars. I thought the animal must be mad, but
his keeper assured me that such was his ordinary state of mind and that
the humor was common to all the breed; even the masters dwelt in fear of
them. Ordinarily the only exhibitions of the innate ferocity of our dogs
are to be seen in their combats with each other, when for a time the
creatures return to their primitive state of mind. Even these occasional
exhibitions of fury are not found among all breeds of dogs, and among
many individuals even of the combative strains of blood the motive of
battle appears to have quite passed away.
[Illustration: Pomeranian or "Spitz"]
In antithesis to the old Ishmaelitic humor of our primitive dogs, man
has developed a singular, sympathetic, and kindly motive in these
creatures. From the point of view of the dog's education we must not
set too much store by his affection for his master. This kind of
devotion of one being to another is displayed elsewhere in the animal
kingdom, though it is more common among birds than among mammals. We
find traces of it in the greater part of our domesticated creatures or
in those which we have individually adopted from the wilderness. It is a
part of the great sympathetic motive, which, originating far down in the
series of animals, increases as they gain in the scale of being, until
it reaches the highest level it has yet attained in spiritually minded
men. The eminent peculiarity in the case of a dog is that the very
centre of his life is formed of the affections, which are evidently the
same as those which rule the days of the most cultivated men. To him
these elements of friendliness are absolutely necessary to a comfortable
existence. If by chance he becomes separated from his master and the
other people with whom he is familiar, his bereavement is intense; but
in most cases, a
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