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

by Frances E. Slaughter

If God be love, what sleeps below was not

Without a touch divine.”

OF the memory of past events and of recollection of places revisited after the lapse of years, we have many wonderful instances in dog life. Stella, a handsome well-bred fox-terrier, of strange experiences in the wilds of Africa, was a striking example of a memory that survived some thrilling adventures far from the bounds of civilisation. This little dog left her English home when she was only a few months old, and with her new master set sail for Africa. Stella was a smooth terrier with a bright tan head, and throughout life was a fat, comfortable looking little creature.

Stella’s evidence of memory of the place where she had spent the early months of her life was shown when she returned from the first of her adventurous journeys. She came home with her master after an absence of rather over a year, and accompanied him on a visit to her former mistress. It was a dark winter’s night when the travellers arrived at the station, from which a drive of three miles would take them to the house whither they were bound. The little dog’s only preoccupation was to keep with her master, and the first part of the last stage of their journey by road passed quietly. But as the carriage came within a short distance of the house, Stella grew restless, and showed such anxiety to get out that at last she was put down to run the rest of the way on foot. But neither the darkness, that to humans would have made the choice of a way a matter of difficulty, nor the time that had elapsed since Stella as a puppy had been in the country before, prevented her from recognising her old landmarks and the former conditions of her life. At the entrance to the drive she left the carriage, and, taking a short cut across the park, arrived at the front door and finding her way in, turned into the drawing room, and paying no attention for the moment to those who were waiting for the expected travellers, made straight for the water dish from which she had often quenched her thirst in early youth. Her mistress saw her dash in at the open door, and go as straight for the corner where the dogs’ dish always stood, as if it was only yesterday that she had found it there. Stella’s unexpected appearance was the signal to the waiting friends that her master was near at hand. In a few minutes the latter drove up, to find that his little favourite had shown her recollection of the scenes and surroundings of her youth, and was there in her old home to add her welcome to those of his other friends.

The so-called “Homing-instinct” of dogs I touch on with diffidence. Of the many truly wonderful instances of this power that we hear of from time to time, few are narrated in a manner to compel conviction of the facts being quite as they appear to the easy acceptance of the narrator. With these, however, I have nothing to do, though in a few cases I have come across examples of remarkable journeys over unknown countries made by different kinds of dogs. I think it is in such instances that we find evidence of a perfection of one or more of the senses, to which we have no parallel in our own experience. Yet what a strange difference there is in humans, in their power of finding their way when in unbeaten tracks! Here, as we know, a savage, untutored and guiltless of the faintest breath of civilisation, will succeed where the highest efforts of the white man’s powers of mind avail nothing. The lynx eye of the native will let nothing escape him. The turning of a leaf from its natural position, the all but imperceptible impress of a foreign body on the sandy soil, will tell him what may save the life of the representatives of a higher civilisation, whose fate is perchance confided to him. The powers of sight and smell, that tell so many things to the Indian as he follows the trail through the trackless forests of North America, and the unerring instincts that will carry a native of Central Africa, or of the desert lands of Asia over the sandy wastes, where to the European the unbroken desert gives no faintest clue to his position, are closer to those we find in our dog friends than any power we possess.

Yet among average men and women of normal intelligence and culture, the greatest possible difference will be found in their “sense of country” as it is often called.

In dogs there is at least as much difference in their power of reaching home. Some will be hopelessly lost within a mile or two, while others will make some wonderful, unaided effort to get back to their friends that is crowned with complete success. It is of hounds that such stories are generally told, and from the manner of their life, and the wide range of their work, this is not surprising. I have never, however, come across any well authenticated instance that will compare with the marvellous tales of common report. It is hard to explain how an unentered hound could have found her way over one hundred and twenty miles of unknown country. Yet this happened to a young dog that was sent by the Master of the Four Burrow Hunt to the kennels of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds. The hound was bred at the Scorrier kennels, and as his working days had not begun he had not learnt the country in the neighbourhood of his home. When he was sent to his new quarters he travelled by cart and train the whole way. On the night of his arrival at Exford he jumped over the kennel wall and disappeared. No one saw anything of him on the journey on which he started, so far as his friends could learn, but ten days later he was back at Scorrier.

A similar instance occurred with another hound that was brought to the Devon and Somerset country to hunt the wild red deer. When the late Master of the Eggesford country gave up his position, his pack was sent by train to Rugby to be sold. Here the Master of the Staghounds bought several couple, which were duly taken by train to Dulverton, and thence by cart to the kennels that are in the middle of Exmoor. On their arrival one hound escaped, and the next day she turned up at the Eggesford Kennels.

Another instance of the same kind, for the strict accuracy of which I can vouch, is told in Miss Serrell’s account of the Blackmore Vale Hounds.[5] “A remarkable instance of the homing instinct was displayed by a hound named Rakish, with whose wonderful feet and legs Mr. Guest was so much struck that he bought her. She came from the South Dorset kennels, of which hunt Mr. Featherstonhaugh Frampton was then the Master. At Moreton station Rakish was put into the Guard’s van with a collar and chain on, and she travelled twenty miles in a northeastern direction to Wimborne, and thence twenty-eight miles towards the northwest to Templecombe, her journey ending two and a half miles farther on, at Milborne Port. She was taken out at Milborne Port Station, but no sooner was she on the platform than she snapped her chain and made off. For a day or two she was seen occasionally near the place, but after that was neither seen nor heard of, until Mr. Guest received a letter from Mr. Frampton saying that Rakish had reappeared at her old kennels. Nothing was ever known of the manner in which she found her way home, a distance of twenty-two miles as the crow flies.”

The nature of the surroundings of a modern Skye terrier’s life do not give him the advantage of the knowledge of country possessed by working hounds. Yet a young Skye, only eight months old, and when taken to London for the first time, found his way from a crowded thoroughfare, across Hyde Park, which to him was unknown ground, to the home to which he had been taken on his arrival from the country. The dog’s mistress was staying in a flat at Albert Gate. A day or two after her arrival she took the Skye with her in her carriage, when she went on a shopping expedition. On leaving the carriage in Oxford Street she gave strict orders to her coachman not to let the puppy escape during her absence. The little thing had the brougham to himself, and no sound was heard from him. At last the man got down and opened the door to make sure that his charge was all right. Quick as thought the puppy slipped past him, and dashed off down the crowded pavement in the direction of the Marble Arch. When his mistress heard what had happened, she gave him up for lost. But that evening the house porter found a little waiting figure sitting at the door of the lift, for the lost terrier had found his way back.