Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1883 — Intelligent Dogs. [ARTICLE]

Intelligent Dogs.

Among dog* the poodle and the colley have always been conspicuous for general intelligence. Other species develop particular faculties in extraordinary degrees, like the St. Bernards, which can find men buried in the sno# where reasoning beings fail to do so, the Newfoundlands that can be trained, as on the Seine, to act together and without human supervision in saving drowning persons, the pointer, the setter, and so forth. Preeminent, however, for a sagacity that approaches human reason more nearly than any other is that of the colly or shepherd dog; for it is a fact too well established to be challenged that these animals are not oUly capable of being trained to do their master’s usual duties with unvarying efficiency and punctuality, but that when unforeseen circumstances arise to make deviation from the regular rounds necesact \ipon their own discretion with amazing judgment. Fable, it is true, tells of demoralized shepherd dogs that have wickedly connived with wolves against their master’s interests. But these are fables, and merely point to the moral that even tho wise may not be uniformly sagacious and that a Homer may on occasion nod. —London Stan- ■■ £ar<2.