Are many lesser faculties that serve
Reason as chief. Among these, Fancy next
His office holds. Of all external things,
Which the five watchful senses represent,
He forms imaginations, airy shapes;
Which Reason joining or disjoining, forms
All that we affirm, or what deny,
And call our knowledge.”
WHILE a dog is clearly incapable of any appreciation of a picture as a work of art, the presentment of a man or animal will appeal to him as that of a solid figure. Here we are brought face to face with the limitations of the dog’s mind that is unable to follow our own powers on to the higher planes of their development. Yet that he is far from being devoid of imagination, his behaviour when he is brought face to face with his own reflection in a looking-glass will show. My own Skye was clearly puzzled when as a young dog he first saw himself in a looking-glass that was let into the door of a sideboard. He sat down and gazed earnestly at the quaint little face looking at him from the glass. Then he got up and moved nearer, wagging his tail in pleasure at meeting with a companion of whose appearance he seemed to approve. Bounding a little to one side he showed that he was ready for a game, and waited for the other to come and join in the fun. When no response came to his invitation his tail dropped, and at a little distance he sat down again and renewed his attentive survey of the figure facing him. A sense of something that he could not fathom apparently oppressed him, and presently he got up and came and lay down at my feet, sure that no unknown danger would be allowed to follow him there. He made many attempts during the next few days to persuade the unresponsive little dog to come and share his play, and as the reflection of his moving form confronted him, he would give a joyous bark at having at last roused the other into life. But with all his efforts he could not find the barking, jumping little figure, and at last one of his rushes brought his nose in sharp contact with the glass. This evidently gave him a shock, and after drawing back for a moment and scanning the strange thing curiously, he advanced, and putting out his tongue touched the glass with its tip. Now there was no doubt that something uncanny was before him, and with every manifestation of terror he fled to me for protection. He avoided the glass in future, and if put down in front of it would refuse to look at it, and would shrink away, frightened, from the thing he could not understand.
With her King Charles, a friend had a similar experience. In this case the dog discovered his reflection in a long cheval glass on the floor of his mistress’s bedroom. For some time he gambolled about in front of it, but at last, wanting to find the dog who refused to come out to him, he ran behind the glass to see where he was. Finding a blank space where his senses told him the waiting figure ought to be, his whole demeanour changed. He was frightened, and all his eagerness for play leaving him, he became limp and depressed and went to his mistress for protection. Nothing would ever induce him to look into a glass again, and even in the safe shelter of his owner’s arms he would cower down and hide his face against her shoulder when he was invited to admire his own reflection.