I once took a favourite terrier with me to a house I had hired in Manchester Street. He had never been in London before. While the carriage was unloading in which the dog had been conveyed, he was missed, and I could hear nothing of him for nearly a fortnight; at the end of that time he found his way back to the house, with a short cord round his neck, which he had evidently gnawed off. How he came to find his way back is not a little to be wondered at. His joy on seeing me again I cannot forget. Poor Peter! when he got old, and my rides became too long for him, he pretended to be lame after accompanying me a short distance, and would then trot back without any appearance of lameness.
The following anecdote proves the kind disposition of a terrier. A kitten, only a few hours old, had been put into a pail of water, in the stable-yard of an inn, for the purpose of drowning it. It had remained there for a minute or two, until it was to all appearance dead, when a terrier bitch, attached to the stables, took the kitten from the water, and carried it off in her mouth. She suckled and watched over it with great care, and it throve well. The dog was at the same time suckling a puppy about ten weeks old, but which did not seem at all displeased with the intruder.
I had once an opportunity of witnessing the sense of a terrier. I was riding on Sunbury Common, where many roads diverge, when a terrier ran up, evidently in pursuit of his master. On arriving at one of the three roads, he put his nose to the ground and snuffed along it; he then went to the second, and did the same; but when he came to the third, he ran along it as fast as he could, without once putting down his nose to the ground. This fact has been noticed by others, but I never before witnessed it myself.
At Dunrobin Castle, in Sutherlandshire (then the seat of the Marquis of Stafford now of the Duke of Sutherland), there was to be seen, in May 1820, a terrier bitch nursing a brood of ducklings. She had a litter of whelps a few weeks before, which were taken from her and drowned. The unfortunate mother was quite disconsolate till she perceived the brood of ducklings, which she immediately seized and carried to her lair, where she retained them, following them out and in with the greatest care, and nursing them, after her own fashion, with the most affectionate anxiety. When the ducklings, following their natural instinct, went into the water, their foster-mother exhibited the utmost alarm; and as soon as they returned to land she snatched them up in her mouth, and ran home with them. What adds to the singularity of this circumstance is, that the same animal when deprived of a litter of puppies the year preceding, seized two cock-chickens, which she reared with the like care she bestows upon her present family. When the young cocks began to try their voices, their foster-mother was as much annoyed as she now seems to be by the swimming of the ducklings, and never failed to repress their attempts at crowing.
The foreman of a brickmaker, at Erith in Kent, went from home in company with his wife, and left her at the Plough at Northend with his brother, while he proceeded across the fields to inspect some repairs at a cottage. In about an hour after his departure, his dog, a small Scotch terrier, which had accompanied him, returned to the Plough, jumped into the lap of his mistress, pawed her about, and whined piteously. She at first took no particular notice of the animal, but pushed him from her. He then caught hold of her clothes, pulled at them repeatedly, and continued to whine incessantly. He endeavoured, also, in a similar way to attract the attention of the brother. At last all present noticed his importunate anxiety, and the wife then said she was convinced something had happened to her husband. The brother and the wife, with several others, went out and followed the dog, who led them through the darkness of the night, which was very great, to the top of a precipice, nearly fifty feet deep; and standing on the bank, held his head over, and howled in a most distressing manner. They were convinced that the poor man had fallen over; and having gone round to the bottom of the pit, they found him, lying under the spot indicated by the dog, quite dead.
The following anecdote is copied from a recent number of "The Field:"—
I well remember, when a boy, at Barton-upon-Humber, a certain "keel" employed in the Yorkshire corn-trade, on board which the captain had a dog, possessed of some traces of terrier blood, smooth-coated, and of a pure white colour, his neck and back adorned with stumpy bristles, which ruffled up at the slightest provocation—altogether he looked a mongrel cur enough, but he was an excellent sailor, for he attended his master on all his trading expeditions, and never deserted his ship. One day, while the keel lay in Barton Haven, the dog was lost, and great was the consternation in consequence. Diligent search was made in the town and neighbourhood, but every effort to discover the missing animal proved unavailing. Month after month passed away, the keel went and came on her accustomed avocations, and poor Keeper was forgotten—considered by his master to be dead. Judge, therefore, the man's surprise when one day steering with difficulty his vessel into Goole Harbour, which was crowded with shipping at the time, his glance suddenly fell upon his faithful and long-lost dog, buffeting the water at a considerable distance from the keel, but making eagerly towards her. By the aid of a piece of tar-rope, which was dangling round the dog's neck, and a friendly boat-hook, he was lifted quite exhausted on to the deck of his master's craft, when it became at once apparent that he had long been kept a prisoner, most probably on board a vessel, by some one who had stolen him at Barton. The cause of the poor dog's sudden reappearance was undoubtedly his having heard his master's well-remembered voice; but it is strange he should have been able to distinguish at so great a distance, and when swelling that chorus of hoarse bawling which arises from a hundred husky throats when a Yorkshire keelman is engaged forcing his craft into a crowded harbour; and it is also equally touching, that when roused by the distant sound, the poor beast should have plunged, encumbered as he was with the rope he had just burst asunder, so gallantly into the water—an element he was ill-adapted to move in, and in which his master declared he had never seen him before.
