"The One" Dog and "The Others": A Study of Canine Character

by Frances E. Slaughter

The abject depression with which he crept from view one very wet autumn, the first time his long coat was clipped about his legs and the under part of the body, took a long time to recover from. For days a remark on his appearance, or a laugh at his expense by any visitor, would cover him again with shame. His self-respect had been wounded, and the same feeling was shown when he was taken out for a walk the first time after a severe illness. The poor weak dog could only totter along for a very short distance. But on the way he met another dog, and as soon as Gubbins saw him approaching, the change in his demeanour was instantaneous. With head and tail erect, and a general air of alertness and strength, he passed his rival, walking on the tips of his toes, as he was wont to do in better times. A few steps carried him triumphantly past, and then, the excitement over, the poor little invalid collapsed as suddenly as he had pulled himself together, and rolled over helpless in the dust. Could any animal without a sense of the ego, the personal I, show such a keen sense of the respect due to himself?

A quite marvellous knowledge of time was shown by my favourite. I am not speaking of the hours of feeding, for such knowledge is doubtless due to the promptings of the natural appetite. But how for some months he always knew when the clock pointed to half-past nine I have never been able to ascertain. A lady who was living with me as my secretary at the time was a warm friend of Gubbins, and was accepted by him as such. This lady was not in good health, and used to retire to bed before the rest of the party. In about a week Gubbins constituted himself the guardian of her health in this respect. If she did not move promptly at the half hour he roused himself, came out of his basket, and, sitting at her feet, barked until she got up and said good-night. The performance was so much appreciated that after this Gubbins’s reminder was waited for, and though there was no clock within hearing that struck the half hour, nor so far as we knew any sound that could tell the time, Gubbins was never more than a few minutes either before or after. He would go and sit close at the lady’s feet, lift his head and fix his brown eyes on her face, and bark his signal for her to go. There seemed no reason for him to wish her to leave, as no sooner had she gone from the room, than he went back to his basket and curled himself up to wait for the dispersal of the other members of the family. With no one else did he ever do anything of the same kind.

At one time when I was living in the country, the same inscrutable knowledge of the hour of seven in the evening was shown by him. Once or twice he was taken for a run across the valley below the house to the post, just before the dinner hour at seven-thirty. After that he was always on the look out at seven o’clock, and as soon as he associated the little expedition with one member of the household, he found him out and kept close to him as soon as the hour arrived. Once, when the dinner hour had been advanced, the letters were taken earlier, and Gubbins had not come in from his rambles in the garden and could not be found. He was watching, however, when the messenger returned, and showed that he understood what had happened by taking up his position in good time the following day on a point in the drive where the two ways from the house met, and without passing which no one could leave the place. Often after this he would sit there watching, instead of coming into the house, as he clearly understood that from that spot he had a full command of the situation.

As the gradual unfolding of Gubbins’s mind had been an unfailing source of interest, so was the preservation of his natural characteristics when his powers began to fail. He enjoyed his life almost to the end, and through the last long day of suffering found comfort in the care and affection that were lavished on him. Although for some time his eyesight had almost gone and his hearing was impaired, and other disabilities of old age were upon him, he still went nearly mad with joy at the prospect of a walk, still took a certain modified, though always mischievous, pleasure in making others share his excitement, and made his sense of smell serve for the loss of his other faculties in a quite marvellous way. He always recognised his old friends, and it was a characteristic of his throughout life that he never forgot a single person whom he had once accepted as a friend. It might be months or even years before he saw them again, but he never failed to recognise them.

Various were the names bestowed on him by his many friends at different times. From the absurd “Mr. Gubbins,” he was called by the still more unsuitable title of “Scrub.” This led to a mild joke of a friend of mine, who always inquired after him by the formula, “And how is Ammonia?” A very dear old lady, the mother of the friend through whom Gubbins came to me, spoke of him as “The caterpillar,” moved thereto by the sight of the long dark form that used to steal across her drawing room to find a hidden corner, when he was staying with me in her house. In the inner circle of his home he became “The Hairy Angel” or “The Fascinating Fiend,” according to the nature of his disposition at the moment.

But these names belong to the time of his youth and strength; his beauty he kept to a surprising degree up to the very day of his death. It was touching to see him in his later years, and especially during the last six months when he was all but blind, finding his way about the house by the help of his nose. I have often watched him come into my study when he was looking for me. The room is a double one, and he used to feel for the side of the arch that forms the division, then feel about for the couch that stands on one side of the inner room. From there he touched my bureau, and thence worked about till he found my chair, which was often at some little distance. No sooner did his nose touch the chair than he hurried to the front of it to see if I was sitting there, and feeling the full helplessness of continuing his search if I was not in my usual place, he would curl himself up beside it and cry quietly. I have watched him do this while I stood by the bookshelves in the back room, though I had to be careful he did not find me out, as he came in by the door in that room.

To the last the watchful little head would come up in his basket, and a warning growl give notice of the presence of a stranger, and in his feeble way he guarded his beloved mistress to the end. When the little life went out from the suffering body it left a blank that for those who loved him best can never be filled, but—

“When at last my long day’s work is done,

Shall I not find him waiting as of yore,

Eager, expectant, glad, to meet me at the door?”