A DOG'S SENSE OF HUMOUR.
[March 9, 1895.]
Does the following dog-story show a sense of humour? A retriever was in the habit of leaving his bed in the kitchen when he heard his master descending the stairs in the morning. On one occasion a new kitchen-maid turned him out of his bed at a much earlier hour than usual. He looked angrily at her, but walked out quietly. Time passed, and he was nowhere to be found. At last, in going to her bedroom, the kitchen-maid found him coiled up in her own bed.
B. B.
CUNNING DOGS.
A DOG AND A WHIP.
[May 18, 1889.]
You have lately published several dog stories. Allow me to send you another for publication should you think it worthy. It was told me to-day by a lady whom I cross-examined to get full details:—"Some twenty years back we had a poodle—white, with one black ear. After the manner of his race, he was never quite happy unless he carried something in his mouth. He was intelligent and teachable to the last degree. The great defect in his character was the impossibility of distinguishing meum from tuum. Anything he could get hold of he seemed to think, according to his dogged ethics, to be fairly his own. On one occasion he entered the room of one of the maidservants and stole her loaf of bread, carefully shutting the door after him with his feet—the latter part being a feat I had taught him. The woman—Irish—was scared, and thought that the dog was the devil incarnate. The necessity of discipline on the one hand, and of occupation on the other, induced me one day to enter a saddler's shop, situated in a straight street about half a mile from our house, and buy a whip. Shortly after my return home he committed some act of petty larceny, so I gave him a beating with the whip he had carried home. Going for a walk next day the dog, as usual, accompanied me, and was entrusted with the whip to carry. Directly we got outside the door he started off at his best pace straight down the street, paying no attention whatever, to my repeated calls. He entered the saddler's shop and deposited the whip on the floor. When I arrived the saddler showed me the whip lying exactly where the dog had deposited it."
Henry H. Maxwell.