Some ancestor, not far removed, of these three generations of dogs must have suffered a life of oppression and cruelty at the hands of an unfeeling master, and that master must have been a butcher. We fail to understand and appreciate the mentality of the dog and the horse, and as they are above the average of the brute creation we fail of a word midway between instinct and reason to express that mentality. We call it “instinct,” and correctly, too, but this grade of instinct requires a more expressive word to represent it. That a feeling of antipathy should have been so deeply seated in the nature and life of a dog that the resentment and hatred should have been transmitted to his descendants for three generations in succession is a very remarkable instance of the heredity of instinct. As a companion piece to the foregoing and as showing the difference between the hatred of one dog and the gratitude and love of another, I will relate an instance that came under my own observation and knowledge more than forty years ago. General John G. Gordon was a merchant in Muscatine, Iowa, and Dr. George Reeder was a physician of great skill and very large practice. These two gentlemen were among my most intimate personal friends. On a certain occasion one of Gordon’s well-to-do farmer customers brought him a puppy a few months old as a present. He had no use for a dog and didn’t want one, but he was not willing to forfeit either the good wishes or the custom of his farmer friend, so he accepted the gift with thanks. When he took the puppy home in the evening there was consternation in the household, and in a family conference it was decided that he should not be allowed to run through the house with his dirty feet, and thereupon he was consigned to the cow stable, and that became his home as long as he lived. Every night and morning he got a liberal ration of milk fresh from the cow and they soon became inseparable friends. In cold nights, as if by mutual agreement, he always slept cuddled up close to the cow. At that time in the history of the town, the country was open and pasture abundant in every direction, and everybody kept a cow. In the mornings these cows would start out to their grazing grounds, in bands, radiating in every direction, and in the evenings could be seen “the lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea.” Gordon’s dog never missed a day for years in going with his friend the cow and returning with her in the evening.
Dr. Reeder used two or three horses in his practice, and his stable was on the same alley, and some ten or twelve rods distant from Gordon’s cow stable. One day in winter time he was having his bins filled with corn in the ear, and to make room for it all he had to fill up a large dry-goods box that stood in one corner of the stable. While he was supervising the delivery of the corn Gordon’s dog came in, reared up on his hind legs, seized an ear of corn and made off with it. The doctor was very much surprised at this act of the dog as he never had seen or heard of a dog eating corn. While he was thinking about this strange act of the dog, he came back again and seized another ear and made off with it. This time the doctor watched him, and he carried it direct to his friend the cow, dropped it before her, and she soon made away with it. This phenomenal exhibition of the attachment of one animal to another of entirely different nature aroused the doctor’s desire for a further confirmation of what he had seen. Concealing himself behind the door he awaited further developments and in a little while the dog came back, seized the third ear, and whipping past some other cows, carried it safely to his friend. I have seen this dog a hundred times, and he was a mongrel nondescript, about the size of the average pointer, with nothing remarkable about his appearance; but in all the illustrations of all the naturalists I have not met with any authenticated instance where character in a dumb animal was so beautifully exhibited. In history we have many touching examples of the attachment of the dog to his master and of his heroism in defending the weak against the strong, but this case seems to be unique. Here is a character developed that is far more than “the sum of inherited habits.” We may call it instinct, but that word fails to express it. In whatever light we view this character, it has in it an element of reason and we have no word that expresses it.
The oldest written evidence we have of the origin of the setter dog dates back about two hundred years, in which we find John Harris agreeing to teach Henry Herbert’s “spaniel bitch Quand” to set game. Allusions are made in the old writers to dogs used for this purpose long before, but the setter certainly has an ancestry dating back at least two hundred years. The pointer is of much more recent origin and seems to have come from an ancestry wholly distinct from that of the setter, and yet, in the field, it would be very difficult for the most competent jury to decide which stands to his game with the greater steadiness. It is agreed, I think, among experienced sportsmen and breeders that the best dogs are the result of couplings made in the midst of the hunting season when the instincts of the parents are aroused and active under the gun. Puppies so bred are already half-trained when they are whelped. The instinct to point the game instead of rushing upon it is an instinct acquired at an earlier or later date, well within the historic period, and we know that it is transmitted and inherited under the laws of heredity. We know also that this instinct is strengthened and improved by training and use; and at the same time it is weakened, if not obliterated, by neglect and non-use for a few generations.
The Scotch collie, with plenty to do, is altogether the most useful, and hence, in a utilitarian sense, the most valuable of all the varieties of the canine race. In understanding his master’s commands and the motions of his hand in the management of the flock, he evinces an intelligence, an instinct, that is almost human. There is a marked distinction between the instinct of the pointer and the collie. The former acts chiefly by his innate mental endowments, while the latter is at his best when carrying out the will of his master. In both cases the instinct was acquired in comparatively recent years, and it is now fixed in the breeds and is transmitted with great certainty.
The most remarkable results in the development and use of an instinct that was practically latent, or never developed, are to be found in the history of the American Trotting Horse. Fifty-one years ago Lady Suffolk was the first trotter to cover the mile in 2:29½. Four years later Pelham, a converted pacer, trotted in 2:28, and four years still later Highland Maid, a converted pacer, trotted in 2:27. In 1859 Flora Temple trotted in 2:19¾; in 1874 Goldsmith Maid trotted in 2:14; in 1885 Maud S. trotted in 2:08¾; in 1892 Nancy Hanks trotted in 2:04; and in 1894 Alix trotted in 2:03¾. But a greater performance than any of these was that of the two-year-old colt, Arion, when in 1891 he covered the mile in 2:10¾. I have no hesitation in pronouncing this the greatest performance ever made, to this date, not because it was the fastest, as shown by the watch, but because it was made by a two-year-old, and from this fact there had been no time for prolonged and skillful training. He was essentially the product of heredity and not the result of education.
Fifty-one years ago there was but one animal in the 2:30 list, and at the close of 1896 there were over fifteen thousand within that limit and far more than fifteen thousand others hovering on its border. This astounding result must be attributed primarily to a trotting inheritance, but this inheritance has been constantly strengthened, reinforced, fortified by the acquired capacities resulting from the development of the trotting speed of succeeding generations. This is not a mere estimate of what has resulted from acquired characters and instincts, for if we put all the observations of all the writers on subjects of natural history, large and small, together, they make but a meager and unsatisfactory showing when compared with the fifteen thousand actual experiences, officially noted and recorded on the spot and printed in “Wallace’s Year Book.” In all the world there is no other collection of statistics so vast, so accurate and so valuable as is there to be found, touching the question we are considering.
While the heredity of acquired characters and instincts is thus clearly and fully established, there is another truth intimately connected with it that should not be forgotten. In an inheritance springing from recent acquisitions there seems to be less of adhesive strength than in one that has come down through many generations. This being true, it follows that whether the lines of inheritance be long or short there must be an intelligent and constant exercise of good judgment in strengthening them by bringing the best and strongest together and uniting them in the prospective foal. When this has been done it is possible that the foal may not be of much value, but the chances of success are in exact proportion to the strength of all the lines of inheritance that are united in the foal. Beyond the chance of failure and beyond the average chance of an average production, there is a chance for something better than any of the ancestors. This latter hope always has been and always will be the inspiration of the breeder. In his structure and form he may be an improvement on his parents, but his value as a trotter can only be determined by the development of his instincts and speed as a trotter. Without such development he may transmit what he inherits, but he adds nothing to his inheritance except by the development of his own powers. These accretions, growing out of the development of succeeding generations, are the material cause that has placed the American Trotter at the very edge of two minutes to the mile, and with wise management will eventually carry him away beyond that rate of speed. This whole topic may be summed up in a single sentence: every acquisition of eminence and superiority adds something to the value of what is transmitted.
Heredity of Bad Qualities, Unsoundness, etc.—Under the laws of inheritance no distinction can be made between the desirable and the undesirable, nor between the earlier or later acquisitions, as they are all liable to be transmitted and to become hereditary. The bitter must go with the sweet. Dropping below is just as liable to occur as rising above what might be considered the average inheritance of the immediate parents. This may result from following or throwing back to some undesirable or unsound cross that may exist in some of the lines of inheritance which possibly may be distant several generations. As a practical consideration it makes but little difference whether a tendency to, or a fully developed, unsoundness has been in the inheritance for generations, or whether it may be the result of some recent accident or injury, it is liable to be transmitted. It is known to everybody that the great running horse Lexington was blind, and it was urged that his blindness was not congenital, but the result of an accident; hence it was argued by those interested that it would not be unsafe to breed to him. It was stated and repeated a hundred times that while in training he got loose in his stable and stuffed himself at the oats bin, and without knowing this his trainer took him out next morning and ran him a trial of four miles, from the effects of which he lost his sight. Without giving full credence to this as the cause of his blindness, it is nevertheless true that he filled the country with blind horses. If, for example, a joint or a ligament or a muscle of the hind leg be sprained by overexertion or by a misstep, a spavin or a curb may develop, or possibly something still worse, and this is a blemish and generally an unsoundness that is likely to be transmitted, if not in a developed form, then in an unmistakable tendency in that direction, which, in turn, will make its appearance in succeeding generations. The horse world, and I might say, the whole animal kingdom under domestication, abounds in examples, seen and unseen, of unsoundness originating in injuries to the parents.