The steady Pointer.
It is wonderful how completely dogs can be trained to the performance of their duties.
A well-practised pointer was about to leap over a rail, when she perceived a nest of partridges close to her nose.
Had she moved an inch she would have frightened them away. There she stood for more than two hours, with her legs on the upper bar, awaiting the arrival of the sportsman. For some time she was not discovered, and not till he appeared would she quit her post, when, the birds rising, some of them were shot; but the steady pointer was so stiff when thus relieved that she could scarcely move.
Here is an example which my young readers should endeavour to follow when they have a duty, however irksome, to perform. Remain steadily at your post; let nothing draw you away. Do not say, I have stopped at work long enough, I am sick of it. When tempted to give up, remember the steady pointer.
The Young Doctor and Pincher.
One of the cleverest and most amusing of dogs was Pincher, a rough Scotch terrier, belonging to Mrs Lee’s brother. (See Mrs Lee’s “Anecdotes of Animals.”) The boy had a great fancy to be a doctor. Having manufactured a variety of surgical instruments out of flint stones, he pretended to perform with them operations on Pincher, who would lie perfectly still while his teeth were drawn, his limbs set, his veins opened, or his wounds bandaged.
The pretended doctor, finally copying the process practised on pigs, used to cut up his favourite entirely. The dog was laid on the table, when he stuck out his legs as stiffly as possible. Preparations were first made for cutting off his head; and immediately the flint was passed across the throat it fell on one side, and remained so completely without motion that it might have been thought the dog fancied it was really off. Each leg in succession was then operated on, and as the instrument passed round them the dog made them fall, putting them as close as possible to the body. When the operation was concluded, the boy used to exclaim, “Jump up, good dog;” and Pincher, bounding off the table, would shake himself to life again.