Unlike the Lion and Tiger, the male Dog takes no interest whatever in his offspring, who are taken care of during the weeks of their helplessness entirely by the mother. She, however, quite makes up for paternal neglect by the assiduity with which she tends and cares for her feeble offspring. It is one of the most touching, and, at the same time, almost amusing sights, to see a bitch with her first litter; how jealously she watches the blind, fat, slug-like little creatures. At first she will growl and snap even at her beloved master, if he approaches too near her treasures. When they have grown a little, how fussy she becomes when they are noticed; she will even drag them by the leg, one by one, upstairs, to exhibit their perfections! For several weeks this care continues, but by the time the pups have grown half as big as their mother, and can see and run about, her solicitude diminishes. She begins to quarrel with them over bones and other titbits, and, before long, takes no more notice of them than if they were the commonest stray Dogs in the street. It is this evaporation of mother-love which so distinguishes a Dog-parent from, at any rate, a great number of human parents.
Like most animals, the female Dog, if deprived of the natural objects of her affection, will lavish her care on almost any young and helpless thing with which she may be brought in contact.
Dr. Sclater,[97] whilst visiting the Zoological Gardens at Antwerp, in 1875, noticed a curious instance of the blindness of maternal love in a Dog. Among other objects of attraction were “three young Tiger-cubs, born in the Gardens on the 14th of October, 1873,” that had been “most successfully foster-mothered by a large bitch.”
We have stated that the male Dog is perfectly oblivious of his paternal duties; we have, however, met with one instance of a Dog, who, whatever may have been his qualities as a parent, discharged with great fidelity the part of guardian, and that, too, not to one of his own species, but to one of an alien and hostile race. This curious instance of canine affection was exhibited by a small male pet Spaniel, belonging to some friends of ours, who brought up a kitten. The food, certainly, was supplied by the family, but the brooding and tendance were done most faithfully. On warm days, the Dog would carry the kitten and lay it in the sun, choosing some snug place out of the wind, in the garden. The kitten, a female, lived to become a very beautiful Cat; but her unsuspecting innocence led to her death. Not fearing any of the Dog-kind, she made no attempts to escape from them, and was worried to death by a strange stray Dog.
One of the most striking circumstances with regard both to the general and the special instincts of the Dog, namely, those instincts common to the whole species, and those possessed by particular breeds, is the way in which they are transmitted from parent to child. The Pointer points the first time he is taken out; the Shepherd’s Dog learns his duties with astonishingly little teaching. Not only are instincts transmitted in pure breeds, but in cross-breeds the special characteristics of both parents come out with the most marvellous accuracy. “... It is known that a cross with a Bull-dog has affected for many generations the courage and obstinacy of Greyhounds; and a cross with a Greyhound has given a whole family of Shepherd-dogs a tendency to hunt Hares. Le Roy describes a Dog, whose great grandfather was a Wolf, and this Dog showed a trace of its wild parentage only in one way—by not coming in a straight line to his master when called.” The tendency to attack Poultry, Sheep, &c., “has been found incurable in Dogs which have been brought home as puppies from countries, such as Tierra del Fuego and Australia, where the savages do not keep these domestic animals. How rarely, on the other hand, do our civilised Dogs, even when quite young, require to be taught not to attack Poultry, Sheep, and Pigs!”[98]
A most astonishing account of an inherited mental peculiarity—an instinctive dislike—is related by Dr. Huggins, to whose researches the science of astronomy owes so much. He writes:—
“I possess an English Mastiff, by name Kepler, a son of the celebrated Turk, out of Venus. I brought the Dog, when six weeks old, from the stable in which he was born. The first time I took him out, he started back in alarm at the first butcher’s shop he had ever seen. I soon found that he had a violent antipathy to butchers and butchers’ shops. When six months old, a servant took him with her on an errand. At a short distance before coming to the house she had to pass a butcher’s shop. The Dog threw himself down (being led with a string), and neither coaxing nor threats would make him pass the shop. The Dog was too heavy to be carried; and as a crowd collected, the servant had to return with the Dog more than a mile, and then go without him. This occurred about two years ago. The antipathy still continues, but the Dog will pass nearer to a shop than he formerly would. About two months ago, in a little book on Dogs published by Dean, I discovered that the same strange antipathy was shown by his father, Turk. I then wrote to Mr. Nicholls, the former owner of Turk, to ask him for any information he may have on the point. He replied—‘I can say that the same antipathy exists in King (the sire of Turk), in Punch (son of Turk, out of Meg), and in Paris (son of Turk, out of Juno). Paris has the greatest antipathy, as he would hardly go into a street where a butcher’s shop was, and would run away after passing it. When a cart with a butcher’s man came into the place where the Dogs were kept, although they could not see him, they all were ready to break their chains. A master-butcher, dressed privately, called one evening on Paris’s master to see the Dog. He had hardly entered the house before the Dog (though shut in) was so excited that he had to be put into a shed, and the butcher was forced to leave without seeing the Dog. The same Dog, at Hastings, made a spring at a gentleman who came into the hotel. The owner caught the Dog and apologised, and said he never knew him to do so before, except when a butcher came to his house. The gentleman at once said that was his business. So you see that they inherit these antipathies, and show a great deal of breed.’”[99]
A gentleman on reading this account of Dr. Huggins’s Dog, wrote to say that he possessed a son of Sybil, daughter of Turk, who possessed the family antipathy in a marked degree, and another stated that he also possessed a grandson of the redoubted Mastiff, in whom the same peculiarity was developed. Thus we see that this most remarkable instinctive dread, arising no one knows how, existed not only in Dr. Huggins’s Dog, but in his father, grandfather, brothers, and nephews! It was suggested, and it seems highly probable, that the feeling in this case first arose from the fact of some ancestor of the Turk family being ill-treated by a butcher; but it is quite possible that it may have arisen spontaneously. Boswell, in his life of Johnson, quotes the “Great Lexicographer” as attributing a similar dislike to butchers noticed in the Dogs of some savage countries, where the animal was used for food, not to horror at the butcher’s cruelty, but merely to the smell of carnage.
A very remarkable trait in the Dog’s character, which has undoubtedly become instinctive, and is consequently transmitted from generation to generation, is his love of human society. A well cared-for Dog will always prefer his master’s company to that of his own kind, and will take any amount of trouble, and give up any amount of personal ease, that he may not be parted from him.
