Frightened, doubtless, by the opening of the blinds of the first story above him, the strange animal had gone away and was sitting in the middle of the road. We could only see that he had straight ears. While we were going down to get a gun the visitor came back to his charge on the dogs, which had begun howling after he left them, and resumed the cries significant of chastisement when they were attacked again. For some reason, perhaps because he heard the click of the gun, the foe drew back and sat down in a garden walk, concealed by a bunch of shrubbery. The three dogs, notwithstanding our reiterated urging, were no more disposed to pursue him than before. If the assailant had been a dog they would have rushed upon him, but they stayed cowering at the gate and howled distressfully. The bitch was most affected, and they all seemed paralyzed by fear. It is said in the country that bitches are especially liable to be attacked by wolves. It was so here. The most certain feature in the matter was the terror of the animals. They were capable of resisting the attack three times over. The young dog was a savage one, and passers-by were afraid of the bitch; but that night they were terrorized, and all incapable of defending themselves. Their cries were therefore due to the same cause as in the preceding night—the presence and attacks of the wolf. I could not have realized their meaning if I had not been a witness of the scene—that is, I could not have correlated the cries and the acts.
A shot at the animal behind the bushes was followed by a hoarse cry. He was hit, and ran; but, in spite of our urgings, the dogs stayed at the gate and only stopped howling. Under any other conditions, upon the signal of the shot they would all have started in pursuit of the wounded animal.
A wolf came to the farm during the last winter (1890-91) and attacked the same bitch. He would have carried her off, for he had seized her by the throat, if we could judge from the stifled cries she uttered; but this time he found with her a new watch dog—a mountain bitch from the Pyrenees—of a breed that attacks the wolf and the bear. The wolf would have been caught if he had not run away. He did not return, for he had been attacked, and learned what he had to deal with.
The Pyrenean breed furnishes excellent watch dogs. I knew one of remarkable traits. At evening he would go round the house, giving two or three growls at each door. With his head raised he seemed to listen to his fine voice, then he would start again and go to another door. He seemed desirous to show those who were observing him that he was attending to his post as guardian. He then went away in silence along the walk, through a dark, rising hedgerow, leaping the slight hillock, yelping toward the wood. He listened, yelped again, and went in. There was never any failure in this performance, but every evening as night was coming on he began his round, which no one had taught him. It was all done in his function as a guard. It would be hard to determine what his yelps meant, but there were in them an inflection, a sonorousness, and a continuance quite different from those he uttered when pursuing a passer-by or when going to meet a person coming toward the house. Every one who has a watch dog is able to tell by the sound of his barking when a person is coming up, and usually what sort of a visitor it is.
The peasants' dogs of the southwest of France dislike the country millers, because of the long whips which they are always carrying and snapping, and with which the dogs, running after them, are often struck. From as far off as the snapping of the whip can be heard, the dogs come to wait for the millers and pursue them; and it is easy to recognize when the millers are passing, by the behavior of the dogs. There is in this also a significance, at once aggressive and defensive, in the cries which one can, by giving a little attention, soon learn to distinguish.
Another example of the reality of the various meanings of the cries of the dog under different circumstances is afforded by the companies that collect around a female in heat.
I have a very intelligent and experienced brach hound, the same which with the bitch had to face the attack of the wolf. He amuses me much at my country lunches. Hunting dogs which have been much with their masters at lunch do not like to have the drinking glass offered them. This dog was much afraid of the glass, and I had only to present it to him at lunch time to make him keep his distance. I used to keep my door open at lunch, for the amusement of observing how I could make him stop exactly at the threshold without stepping over it. If he had passed over it I could always send him back by casting toward him a few drops of water from the bottom of the glass after drinking. Sitting, as was his habit, on the sill of the door, with the tip of his muzzle never extending beyond the plane of the panels, he would follow my motions with the closest attention, reminding me, if I failed to give him a sign of attention, by a discreet, plaintive cry, that he was there. But if I touched my glass, he would spring up at once; if I filled it, he would put himself on guard, utter a kind of sigh, sneeze, lick his lips, yawn, and, shaking his ears briskly, make little stifled cries. Then he would grow impatient, and more and more watchful and nervous. When I lifted my glass to my lips he would draw back, working gradually nearer to the farther door, and at last disappear and hide. One who was looking at him without seeing me could tell by his wails and his attitude the level and position of my glass. When the glass was horizontal, I could see only about half of his head, with one eye regarding me fixedly, for that was usually the critical moment—the one, also, when the wails and restraints were most demonstrative of the anxious fear of my poor animal.
When we dine in the kitchen, which is on the ground floor, the dogs are usually all put out. There are four of them, three young and not experienced, and this old, sagacious brach hound. He insists on coming in, and, to gain his purpose, tries to have the door opened. Although no person may be coming up the walk, he dashes down it barking, all the others going along too and yelping with him; then he stops, remains a little behind after having got the others out of the way, and, turning his head from moment to moment, looks to see if the door has been opened, for we generally go to it to see who has come. In that case the feigned attack is successful, and the dog, who has evidently meant to give the alarm so as to have the door opened, comes in at once and claims a place at the table. He has accomplished his end, for the door is usually shut without paying attention to his having got in. I have frequently witnessed this stratagem, and when, during my kitchen dinner, I suddenly hear the dogs yelping after the brach hound has begun, I am pretty sure that nobody is in sight.
I have forgotten where I found the next story of an old dog who was also very sagacious. Hunting dogs, when they grow old, become rheumatic, or are at least debilitated with pains. We know, too, that they crave heat, and get as near the fire as possible—a craving which increases as they grow older. One such dog, older than the others, and slower in getting into the lodge on returning from the hunt, was often crowded away from the fire by the other livelier dogs getting all the best places before him. Finding himself thus turned out in the cold, he would dash toward the door barking, when the others, supposing it was an alarm, would rush away too, while the old rheumatic went to the fire and selected a place to suit him.
It is not necessary to dwell upon the intelligence shown by such acts. But it is hardly contestable that the old animal, who knows how to play such tricks upon his less experienced companions, deceives them by his intonations, while he is well aware that no enemy is approaching the house; but he does it scientifically, by the inflections of his voice, as a man speaking to other men would do in announcing the arrival of an imaginary enemy.