Dog Stories from the "Spectator" — Part 70-Cedar Herald Index

They frequently returned home covered with mud, and pussy's claws with fur, and would lie together in front of the fire; the cat often grooming down the dog, licking him and rubbing him dry, and the dog getting up and turning over the ungroomed side to be finished. This curious friendship went on for six months or more, till the dog had to be kept in durance vile to save him from traps and destruction, the cat, nothing daunted, going on with her poaching until one day she met her fate in a trap, and so brought her course to an end. The dog was a well-bred fox-terrier, and the cat a tabby of nothing beyond ordinary characteristics, save in her early life having been fostered by a hen, and in her prime the staunch friend and comrade of poor old Foxie, the terrier. If there are "happy hunting-grounds" for the animals hereafter, and such things are allowed in them, no doubt they will renew their intimacy, if not their poaching forays, together there.

I have been much interested in the communications which have appeared from time to time in the _Spectator_ in reference to "animal intelligence." Recently my attention has been called to a somewhat striking illustration of it, in the case of my own dog and his canine neighbour next door. Wallace is an Irish staghound, and is about a year old. My neighbour's dog is a pointer, and is considerably advanced in life. There is no hedge nor fence separating the two estates. The dividing line runs between two stone posts about a foot in height, and more than two hundred feet from each other. The dogs have never been friendly, the pointer having repeatedly driven Wallace back over the boundary when he has caught him trespassing. Both dogs, even when going at full speed, stop the moment my dog has crossed the line. How does the pointer know where the line runs, and how does Wallace know when he is safely across it?

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