The Clever Terrier
Nobody can persuade a gamekeeper that dogs lack reasoning powers. We were watching a terrier at work, and she gave us a pretty example of something very like intelligence. A pheasant was winged, fell on a bare field, and ran for a thick dell—the terrier in pursuit. She made one or two ineffectual attempts to gather the bird, until within a score of yards of the dell—then she raced ahead. She seemed to realise that there was so much cover in the dell that direct attempts to take the bird were risky—and she proceeded to work the pheasant to a safe distance from the cover before tackling it again, this time effectively.
When this little terrier has marked a rabbit or a rat in a patch of grass or brambles, her common sense tells her that if she dives in after her quarry it may dash out unseen by her, by reason of the grass or brambles. So she stands by, and stamps, and otherwise tries to make her game bolt, in a way which will allow her to see the direction; and she is seldom baffled. It is difficult to decide whether this terrier is more or less reasonable than her kennel companion, a retriever, when feeding-time comes. If at feeding-time the retriever has a biscuit left over from the last meal, which she has lightly buried, on her master's approach she will promptly disinter the treasure, holding it out as much as to say: "Thank you, I need no biscuit." But experiments with the terrier show that she will ever refuse to give the slightest indication of a buried hoard. Whether she needs a biscuit or not, she always takes one when offered, as though she desired nothing better in the world.
A good story in proof of a retriever's reasoning powers is told by an old-time sportsman. He was shooting beside a frozen stream, and winged a mallard, which fell in mid-stream. His dog crashed on to the ice, broke through it, and fought her way to the middle, where the ice only skimmed the water. She swam round for a moment, then broke her way to the opposite bank, paused to give a knowing look at the thin ice, and went down stream at full speed for about eighty yards. Running down the bank, she broke a hole in the ice with her fore-paws, then crouched back, watching the hole. In a few moments she made a spring and plunged in, reappearing in mid-stream with the mallard in her mouth. There was no doubt, at least in her master's mind, that she had broken the hole for the purpose of catching the bird when he came up to breathe.
