Small Dog Watching a Cat on A Table. Figure 4
{illust. caption = for making a rush or FIG. 4. Small dog watching a
cat on a table. From a photograph taken by Mr. Rejlander.}
Dogs after voiding their excrement often make with all four feet a few
scratches backwards, even on a bare stone pavement, as if for the
purpose of covering up their excrement with earth, in nearly the same
manner as do cats. Wolves and jackals behave in the Zoological Gardens
in exactly the same manner, yet, as I am assured by the keepers,
neither wolves, jackals, nor foxes, when they have the means of doing
so, ever cover up their excrement, any more than do dogs. All these
animals, however, bury superfluous food. Hence, if we rightly
understand the meaning of the above cat-like habit, of which there can
be little doubt, we have a purposeless remnant of an habitual movement,
which was originally followed by some remote progenitor of the
dog-genus for a definite purpose, and which has been retained for a
prodigious length of time.
Dogs and jackals[115] take much pleasure in rolling and rubbing their
necks and backs on carrion. The odour seems delightful to them, though
dogs at least do not eat carrion. Mr. Bartlett has observed wolves for
me, and has given them carrion, but has never seen them roll on it. I
have heard it remarked, and I believe it to be true, that the larger
dogs, which are probably descended from wolves, do not so often roll in
carrion as do smaller dogs, which are probably descended from jackals.
When a piece of brown biscuit is offered to a terrier of mine and she
is not hungry (and I have heard of similar instances), she first tosses
it about and worries it, as if it were a rat or other prey; she then
repeatedly rolls on it precisely as if it were a piece of carrion, and
at last eats it. It would appear that an imaginary relish has to be
given to the distasteful morsel; and to effect this the dog acts in his
habitual manner, as if the biscuit was a live animal or smelt like
carrion, though he knows better than we do that this is not the case. I
have seen this same terrier act in the same manner after killing a
little bird or mouse.
Dogs scratch themselves by a rapid movement of one of their hind-feet;
and when their backs are rubbed with a stick, so strong is the habit,
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