Can dogs tell the time, and do they know the days of the week? These are questions that are often answered unhesitatingly by found masters and mistresses without any qualification. They have undoubtedly some sense of time, and perhaps of the days of the week, provided they are related to certain orderly happenings. Dogs are quick to learn by repetition and experience. Having less to occupy their minds than we have, such impressions as fall upon them remain in the memory: Suppose, as you should do, you feed yours punctually at a certain hour. He will become restless if the limit is exceeded, informing you that it is past six o'clock or whatever the appointed time may be. He has got accustomed to a twelve or twenty-four hour limit, according to when ther he has his meals once or twice a day, and any deviation therefrom is resented.
Also by force of habit he will know when it is bed time or time to get up. Our old Alsatian, that lived indoors during the day, and retired to a loose box to sleep, was usually taken out at 10 pin. No matter what he was doing, often sleeping, his eye would be on me as the hour approached, and a raised finger brought him to his feet. In the morning the sound of other footsteps failed to tempt him out of his sleeping box, but immediately he heard my wife or I approaching he was at the door whimpering a welcome. Ben had many of those little traits that make dogs so interesting. Six days of the week he was in my wife's charge; on the seventh I took command. Of course, he knew Sunday perfectly, not, I fancy, as some declare, that he was cognisant of the passing days, but because the usual routine was upset. I was at home for one thing, and for another breakfast was an hour later, which meant that he had a little run and his grooming before the meal instead of after. It we had not changed our habits, I do not think he would have recognized Sunday Irom any other day.
Supposing I had a day off in the middle of the week, however, and set off for a walk, realizing that something was different he would be reluctant to go without his mistress. If we started out for a walk together and then separated he would be terribly upset, running. backwards and forwards doing his best to bring us together again. Sometimes he would stand midway between the two gazing, and torn between two By taking advantage of these peculiarities wise men and women train their dogs into doing what they want. A lesson that is repeated time after time for a week or perhaps more becomes consolidated into a habit, and a habit once formed will grow into permanency so long as a dog is not allowed to forget it in the plastic stages. One thing at a time is a wholesome precept, any attempt at imparting too much leading inevitably to confusion in the mind of the pupil. Fortunately, most dogs are blessed with good memories, not forgetting easily what they have once mastered. If this were not the case
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.