XXXV
DOG BOOKS
The dog, except in very high latitudes, is not so useful as the horse, the mule, the camel, the donkey; he cannot supply food and drink, like the cow and the goat; but for all that, he is, among all the lower animals, man’s best friend. Even here, as in bipeds, we do not prize our friends for what they can do for us, but for their mental and moral qualities.
If it were possible to collect in one heap all the books and articles that men have written in praise of dogs, it would be a sky-scraper. I cannot tell what the earliest literary allusion to dogs is; but I think it strange that the Bible is so silent. Those books representing the social history of the Jews for many centuries, contain the most beautiful poetry and prose ever written, as well as the most tender and comforting assurances; but they indicate little interest in animals as companions or pets. The word dog is repeatedly used as a term of degradation, and for some unknown reason the Jews were forbidden to bring into the sanctuary the price of a dog, which was coupled with the wages of sin. The only allusion I have found to the dog as a companion is in the Apocrypha, in the eleventh chapter of Tobit: “So they went their way, and the dog went after them.” Even here the dog apparently had to force his attentions upon man, which is a way he has when unappreciated.
The fact that in the New Testament the dogs ate of the crumbs from the table and that the street dogs licked the sores of Lazarus the beggar, proves nothing in the way of appreciation; other animals moved freely about the houses in Palestine, and they were not kept for the charm of their company.
But in the old Indian books of the East, many centuries before Christ, the dog’s fidelity and social attractions were prized; as is shown by the well-known story of the righteous pilgrim coming to the gates of heaven with his dog. He was told to walk right in. “And my dog?” “Oh, no dogs allowed.” “All right, then I don’t go in.” This man thought heaven would not be heaven without dogs, as Siegmund cared naught for heaven without Sieglinde.
Pope alluded to the Indian love of dogs:
“But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.”
The Greeks loved dogs. One of the most affecting incidents in Homer’s Odyssey is where Ulysses returns after years of wandering, and, being in rags, no one recognises him. But his dog Argos, who had waited for his master expectantly all these years, instantly sees and knows him, and through the beggar’s disguise salutes the king. He wags his tail and dies of joy.
English literature is filled with dogolatry. Dr. John Brown’s Rab and His Friends (1858), became a little classic. Tennyson worshipped dogs, and always had two or three huge dogs in the room while he composed poetry, which he read aloud to them. His poem Owd Roa (Old Rover), describes how a dog saved a family when the house was on fire. Bret Harte made a marvellous sketch of the strange appearance and characteristics of the dog Boonder. Stevenson wrote a whimsical essay, The Character of Dogs, in which he proves conclusively that many dogs are snobs. They certainly are; they will fawn on well-dressed strangers, and try to bite the iceman.