I
“A continuous chain of small actions, on the thread of character.”
IN reading the life stories of the five dogs whom I have chosen for special notice, we must, I think, be struck with the remarkable effect on each of the particular environment of his life. Is this not the very effect that the circumstances of his early years has on a child? When in later life we meet a man or a woman who has been reared in a home circle of culture and refinement, there are many subtle marks and intangible echoes of those early days that make themselves felt in spite, it may be, of rougher and less elevating conditions of later years. While the human character is individual and marked off as a personal attribute, the mind has responded to the influences of the surroundings in which the most impressionable part of the life was passed.
I believe that it is the same with dogs. The ego, the personal entity that gives to each member of the canine race his individual claim on our humanity, is made akin to us by his response to the mental training we give him. If the dog were nothing more than an automaton, such response would not, and could not, have the strong individual characteristics that bring the dog into such close union with us. The more we study dog life, and strive with all the disabilities that meet us at every turn to enter into the feelings and probe the motives of the dog’s conduct, the more, I am persuaded, we shall recognise the evidence of the sense of a personal entity that marks each dog off from his fellows. It is the individual dog, with his particular gifts of body, mind, and spirit,—the adumbration of the higher powers that in their full expansion are the heritage of the human race,—that claims our sympathy, and establishes his hold on our affections. This, for the true dog-lover, is the keynote to the study of his character, and the only light we can bring to bear on the inner workings of his mind.
It is from this standpoint, therefore, that I would refer to the salient features of the biographies.
The most cursory glance at the life stories of these dogs will show how unfitted each one was to play his part in the surroundings of any other. Bandy, who is perhaps the most remarkable instance of a dog living a corporate life with humans, had a large-hearted outlook that could only have been evolved in a member of a community. In his case the wideness of his sympathies and interests seemed to some extent to limit the range of his home affections. While loving and loyal, without a shadow of doubt, to his owner and his house companions, he had not the clinging, passionate devotion that was the keynote of the life of “The Child of the House.” The scope for the latter’s powers was smaller, and, his development being thus limited, the force of his nature seemed to find an outlet in the wealth of his affections. With different training Gubbins’s undoubted discrimination of character, and his subtle appreciation of his own rights, might well have been developed at the expense of the overflowing of love that necessarily brought some suffering as well as much joy into his little life. Then there was his innate love of sport, and his natural independence of character, that were repressed rather than brought out by the circumstances of his life. He was, in fact, the home bird, who was equally unfitted for the rougher give-and-take of school life or for the rousing adventures of “A Soldier of Fortune.”
Then the fascinating, pleasure-loving Jet could never have brought his skill in theft and mischief to the perfection of a fine art if it had not been for the tacit encouragement his lenient mistress gave him. He was the spoiled darling, whose good looks and taking manners carried him safely through his escapades. With a sterner view of moral discipline in his owner, Jet might have been a more exemplary, but must inevitably have become a much more commonplace, member of his kind.
In Bruce, “The Diplomatist,” many years of whose life were passed away from the care of his special friend, we see the independent settlement of his affairs that his position called for. When he had been used to take the first place, not even the loving guardianship of his temporary owners could reconcile him to being second. Though he conformed to circumstances with a good grace, in accordance with his love of decorum, he would choose a home for himself, when for the second time his master was leaving him. In this he could not have made a better choice. He reigned supreme, and had the most loving care lavished on him, not only for his own sake, but for that of his absent master, who was the eldest and much loved son of the house.