Dog Stories from the "Spectator" / Being anecdotes of the intelligence, reasoning power, affection and sympathy of dogs, selected from the correspondence columns of "The Spectator"

by Unknown

II.

A word should be said as to the authenticity of the stories in the present volume. It is a matter of common form for the evening newspapers to talk of the Spectator dog stories as hoaxes, and to refer in their playful, way to "another Spectator dog." It might not then unnaturally have been supposed that a person undertaking to edit and reprint these stories would have found a considerable number that showed signs of being hoaxes. I may confess, indeed, that I set out with the notion of forming a sort of Appendix to the present work, which should be headed "Ben Trovato," in which should be inserted stories which were too curious and amusing to be left out altogether, but which, on the other hand, were what the Americans call a little "too tall" to be accepted as genuine. The result of my plan was unexpected. Though I found many stories in which the inferences seemed strained or mistaken, and others which contained indications of exaggeration, I could find but two stories which could reasonably be declared as only suitable for a "Ben Trovato." I therefore suppressed my heading. The truth is that the animal stories are much more carefully sifted at the Spectator office than our witty critics and contemporaries will admit. No stories are ever published unless the names and addresses of the writers are supplied, and all stories are rejected which have anything clearly suspicious about them. What the editors of the Spectator do not do is to reject a dog-story because it states that a dog has been observed to do something which has never been reported as having been done by a dog before, or at any rate, something which is not universally admitted to be doable by a dog. Apparently this willingness to print stories which enlarge our notions of animal intelligence is regarded in certain quarters as a sign that the Spectator will swallow anything, and that its stories must be apocryphal. I cannot, however, help thinking that all who care for the advancement of knowledge in regard to animals should be grateful to the editors of the Spectator for not adopting the plan of excluding all dog stories that do not correspond with an abstract ideal of canine intelligence. Had they acted on the principle of putting every anecdote that seemed primâ facie unlikely into the waste-paper basket, they would certainly have missed a great many stories of real value. In truth, there is nothing so credulous as universal incredulity. An attitude of general incredulity means a blind belief in the existing state of opinion. If we believe that animals have no reasoning power, and refuse to examine evidence that is brought to show the contrary, we are adopting, the attitude of those who disbelieve that the earth goes round the sun because they seem daily to see a proof of an exactly opposite proposition. If people are to refuse to believe anything of a dog that does not sound likely on the face of it, we shall never get at the truth about animal intelligence. What is wanted is the careful preservation and collection of instances of exceptional intelligence.