Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 108, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1912 — DOG ACTS AS NURSE [ARTICLE]

DOG ACTS AS NURSE

Stands Guard in Elephant’s Cage to Catch Mouse. Fox Terrier Btops Great Uproar by Catching Rodent, Hereditary Enemy of the Huge Jungle Beasts. New York. —Speaking of nurse*, Miss Daisy, the fox terrier lady who came to the park from some home of luxury on Fifth avenue three years ago, overslept one morning in her cracker box in the elephant-house. The keeper explained she was up all night looking after her charges. She is about as big as a pinch of salt, but is nurse to two big elephants, one 70-year-old horned rhinoceros’ and her own incidental litter of puppies. At 1 o’clock in the morning the policemen on duty in the park thought some one was trying to steal the .fat old elephants, Queen and Pattie. They were tooting and screaming as if someone were prodding them with hot irons, and now and then a heavy thud of massive foreheads against the wails of their house showed they were trying to get out. The shrill bark of Miss Daisy now and then emphasized the pandemonium and sounded as if she were trying to soothe the big brutes. One of the keepers hastily entered the elephant-house and turned on the light. Queen was sitting in a corner displaying all the signs of intense fear, and Pattie was doing a turkeytrot about the lnclosure, eyeing a small

object in the center of her cage. Miss Daisy, unheeding the cries of her puppies in the cracker box, was dodging about among the elephants’ legs searching the hay for Aomethlug. As soon as the light Was turned on site made a quick spring and, came out with a small mouse in her mouth. Queen and Pattie, sweat rolling from their wrinkled faces, cObled down and became quiet Miss Daisy shook the life out of the mofise and went back to her puppies, whidh she stilled With a few reassuring whines. “Just another mouse,’’ said a keeper. “There is nothing that an elephant is so much afraid of. The secret is that In India a small mouse sometimes runs into the elephant’s trunk and causes it intense pain. That’s what we keep Miss Daisy here so kill the mice. Daisy looks after the elephants with all the solicitude she shows in the care ofherblindpupid«"