A few animals of this kind might, in real life, close the courts of justice. The Dickens dog is detective, prosecuting attorney, judge, jury and executioner, all in one. He stands responsible for a whole school of fictitious canines who combine the qualities of Vidocq, Sherlock Holmes, and the Count of Monte Cristo. I read recently a story in which the villain was introduced as “that anomalous being, the man who doesn’t like dogs.” After that, no intelligent reader could have been unprepared to find him murdering his friend and partner. So much was inevitable. And no experienced reader could have been unprepared for the behaviour of the friend and partner’s dog, which recognizes the anomaly as a person likely to commit murder, and, without wasting time on circumstantial evidence, tracks him down, and, unaided, brings him to his death. A simple, clean-cut retribution, contrasting favourably with the cumbersome processes of law.
A year ago the Governor of Maine had the misfortune to lose his dog. He signified his sense of loss, and his appreciation of the animal’s good qualities, by lowering the American flag on the Augusta State House to half-mast. He was able to do this because he was Governor, and there was no one to say him nay. Nevertheless, certain sticklers for formality protested against an innovation which opened up strange possibilities for the future; and one logical lady observed that a dog was no more a citizen than was a strawberry patch, a statement not open to contradiction. The country at large, however, supported the Governor’s action. Newspaper men wrote editorials lauding the “homespun” virtues of an official who set a true value on an honest dog’s affection. Poets wrote verses about “Old Glory” and “Garry” (the dog’s name); and described Saint Peter as promptly investing this worthy quadruped with the citizenship of Heaven. The propriety or impropriety of lowering the national flag for an animal—which was the question under dispute—was buried beneath the avalanche of sentiment which is always ready to fall at the sound of a dog’s name.
A somewhat similar gust of criticism swept Pennsylvania when a resident of that State spent five hundred dollars on the obsequies of his dog. The Great War, though drawing to a close, was not yet over, and perhaps the thought of men unburied on the battle-field, and refugees starving for bread, intensified public feeling. There was the usual outcry, as old as Christianity—“this might have been given to the poor.” There was the usual irrelevant laudation of the Pennsylvania dog, and of dogs in general. People whose own affairs failed to occupy their attention (there are many such) wrote vehement letters to the daily press. At last a caustic reader chilled the agitation by announcing that he was prepared to give five hundred dollars any day for the privilege of burying his next-door neighbour’s dog. Whether or not this offer was accepted, the public never knew; but what troubled days and sleepless nights must have prompted its prodigality!
The honour accorded to the dog is no new thing. It has for centuries rewarded his valour and fidelity. Responsibilities, duties, compensations—these have always been his portion. Sirius shines in the heavens, and Cerberus guards in hell. The dog, Katmir, who watched over the Seven Sleepers for three hundred and nine years, gained Paradise for his pains, as well he might. Even the ill-fated hounds of Actæon, condemned to kill their more ill-fated master, are in some sort immortal, inasmuch as we may know, if we choose, the names of every one of them. Through the long pages of legend and romance the figure of the dog is clearly outlined; and when history begins with man’s struggle for existence, the dog may be found his ally and confederate. It was a strange fatality which impelled this animal to abandon communal life and the companionship of his kind for the restraints, the safety, the infinite weariness of domesticity. It was an amazing tractableness which caused him to accept a set of principles foreign to his nature—the integrity of work, the honourableness of servitude, the artificial values of civilization.
As a consequence of this extraordinary change of base, we have grown accustomed to judge the dog by human standards. In fact, there are no other standards which apply to him. The good dog, like the good man, is the dog which has duties to perform, and which performs them faithfully. The bad dog, like the bad man, is the dog which is idle, ill-tempered and over-indulged by women. Women are responsible for most of the dog-failures, as well as for many of the man-failures of the world. So long as they content themselves with toy beasts, this does not much matter; but a real dog, beloved and therefore pampered by his mistress, is a lamentable spectacle. He suffers from fatty degeneration of his moral being.
What if the shepherd dog fares hardly, and if exposure stiffens his limbs! He has at least lived, and played his part in life. Nothing more beautiful or more poignant has ever been written about any animal than James Hogg’s description of his old collie which could no longer gather in the sheep, and with which he was compelled to part, because—poor Ettrick shepherd—he could not afford to pay the tax on two dogs. The decrepit beast refused to be separated from the flocks which had been his care and pride. Day after day he hobbled along, watching the new collie bustling about his work, and—too wise to interfere—looking with reproachful eyes at the master who had so reluctantly discarded him.
The literature of the dog is limitless. A single shelf would hold all that has been written about the cat. A library would hardly suffice for the prose and verse dedicated to the dog. From “Gêlert” to “Rab” and “Bob, Son of Battle,” he has dominated ballad and fiction. Few are the poets and few the men of letters who have not paid some measure of tribute to him. Goethe, indeed, and Alfred de Musset detested all dogs, and said so composedly. Their detestation was temperamental, and not the result of an unfortunate encounter, such as hardened the heart of Dr. Isaac Barrow, mathematician, and Master of Trinity College. Sidney Smith tells us with something akin to glee that this eminent scholar, when taking an early stroll in the grounds of a friend and host, was attacked by a huge and unwarrantably suspicious mastiff. Barrow, a fighter all his life (a man who would fight Algerine pirates was not to be easily daunted), hurled the dog to the ground, and fell on top of him. The mastiff could not get up, but neither could Barrow, who called loudly for assistance. It came, and the combatants were separated; but a distaste for morning strolls and an aversion for dogs lingered in the Master’s mind. There was one less enthusiast in the world.
We are apt to think that the exuberance of sentiment entertained by Americans for dogs is a distinctively British trait, that we have inherited it along with our language, our literature, our manliness, our love of sport, our admirable outdoor qualities. But it may be found blooming luxuriously in other and less favoured lands. That interesting study of Danish childhood by Carl Ewald, called “My Little Boy,” contains a chapter devoted to the lamentable death of a dog named Jean, “the biggest dog in Denmark.” This animal, though at times condescending to kindness, knew how to maintain his just authority. “He once bit a boy so hard that the boy still walks lame. He once bit his own master.” The simple pride with which these incidents are narrated would charm a dog-lover’s soul. And the lame boy’s point of view is not permitted to intrude.
Of all writers who have sung the praises of the dog, and who have justified our love for him, Maeterlinck has given the fullest expression to the profound and absorbing egotism which underlies this love. Never for a moment does he consider his dog save as a worshipper. Never does he think of himself save as a being worshipped. Never does he feel that this relationship can be otherwise than just, reasonable, and satisfying to both parties. “The dog,” he says, “reveres us as though we had drawn him out of nothing. He has a morality which surpasses all that he is able to discover in himself, and which he can practise without scruple and without fear. He possesses truth in its fullness. He has a certain and infinite ideal.”
And what is this ideal? “He” (the dog) “is the only living being that has found, and recognizes, an indubitable, unexceptionable and definite god.”