“He’s only in play, Judge. The dog’s perfectly gentle.”
This, as Treve resented the stranger’s handling, by growl-fringed bites at the nearest part of the judicial anatomy.
A savage dog does not make a hit with the average judge. There is scant joyance in being chewed, in the pursuit of one’s judging-duties. Yet, as a rule, judges took my word as to Treve’s gentleness; especially after one sample of his biteless biting. Said Vinton Breese, the famed “all-rounder” dog-judge, after an Interstate show:
“I feel slighted. Sigurd forgot to bite me to-day. It’s the first time.”
The Mistress made up a little song, in which Treve’s name occurred oftener than almost all its other words. Treve was inordinately proud of this song. He would stand, growling softly, with his head on one side, for an indefinite time, listening to her sing it. He used to lure her into chanting this super-personal ditty by trotting to the piano and then running back to her.
Nature intended him for a staunch, clever, implicitly obedient, gentle collie, without a single bad trait, and possessed of rare sweetness. He tried his best to make himself thoroughly mean and savage and treacherous. He met with pitifully poor success in his chosen rôle. The sweetness and the obedient gentleness stuck forth, past all his best efforts to mask them in ferocity.
Once, when he bit with overmuch unction at a guest who tried to pat him, I spoke sharply to him and emphasized my rebuke by a light slap on the shoulder. The dog was heart-broken. Crouching at my feet, his head on my boot, he sobbed exactly like a frightened child. He spent hours trying pitifully to make friends with me again.
It was so when his snarl and his nip at the legs of one of the other dogs led to warlike retaliation. At once Treve would rush to me for protection and for comfort. From the safe haven of my knees he would hurl threats at his assailant and defy him to carry the quarrel further. There was no fight in him. At the same time there was no taint of cowardice. He bore pain or discomfort or real danger unflinchingly.
One of his chief joys was to ransack the garage and stables for sponges and rags which were stored there for cleaning the cars. These he would carry, one by one, to the long grass or to the lake, and deposit them there. When the men hid these choice playthings out of his way he would stand on his hindlegs and explore the shelves and low beam-corners in search of them; never resting till he found one or more to bear off.