The Rights of Dogs
We hear a great deal about the “rights of men” and still more, perhaps, about the “rights of women,” but few stop to consider those which properly belong to the friend and companion of both—the dog.
According to our municipal code, a dog must be muzzled from June 1st to September 30th. The wise men who framed this measure either did not know, or did not stop to consider, that a dog perspires and “cools off” only at his mouth.
Man and the horse have tiny pores distributed all over the body, but in the dog they are found only in the tongue.
Any one who has had a fever need not be told what happened when these pores ceased to act; what, then, must be the sufferings of a dog on a hot day, when, securely muzzled, he takes his daily exercise?
Even on the coolest days, the barbarous muzzle will fret a thoroughbred almost to insanity, unless, indeed, he has brains to free himself, as did a brilliant Irish setter which we once knew. This wise dog would run far ahead of his human guardian, and with the help of his forepaws slip the strap over his slender head, then hide the offending muzzle in the gutter, and race onward again. When the loss was discovered, it was far too late to remedy it by any search that could be instituted.
And still, without this uncomfortable encumbrance, it is unsafe for any valuable dog to be seen, even on his own doorsteps, for the “dog-catcher” is ever on the look-out for blue-blooded victims.
The homeless mongrel, to whom a painless death would be a blessing, is left to get a precarious living as best he may from the garbage boxes, and spread pestilence from house to house, but the setter, the collie, and the St. Bernard are choked into insensibility with a wire noose, hurled into a stuffy cage, and with the thermometer at ninety in the shade, are dragged through the blistering city, as a sop to that Cerberus of the law which demands for its citizens safety from dogs, and pays no attention to the lawlessness of men.
The dog tax which is paid every year is sufficient to guarantee the interest of the owner in his dog. Howells has pitied “the dogless man,” and Thomas Nelson Page has said somewhere that “some of us know what it is to be loved by a dog.”