Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

The Captain of a trading vessel, who now resides at Brighton, picked up lately a dog at sea, more than twenty miles from land. This circumstance may throw some light on the fact of dogs, which have been sent to France or Ireland from England, finding their way back. The present earl of L….., sent some drafted hounds from his kennel in Cumberland to Ireland, where they were safely received, and a receipt given for them to the person who brought them over. Three weeks afterwards, two of those hounds made their appearance at Lord L….’s kennel, though in a very exhausted state. A gentleman told me, that a pointer dog, which had been left at Calais, made its way over to England. The most amusing fact of this kind that I know of, is one that was related to me by a gentleman on whose veracity I can place the most implicit reliance; and though it may appear to some of my readers to border upon the marvelous, I think it too entertaining to withhold it. He informed me that a friend of his, an officer in the forty-fourth regiment, who had occasion, when in Paris, to pass one of the bridges across the Seine, had his boots, which had been previously well polished, dirtied by a poodle-dog rubbing against them. He in consequence went to a man who was stationed on the bridge, and had them cleaned. The same circumstance having occurred more than once, his curiosity was excited and he watched the dog. He saw him roll himself in the mud of the river, and then watch for a person with well polished boots, against whom he contrived to rub himself. Finding that the shoe black was the owner of the dog, he taxed him with the artifice; and after a little hesitation, he confessed that he had taught the dog the trick in order to procure customers for himself. The officer, being much struck with the dog’s sagacity, purchased him at a high price, and brought him to England. He kept him tied up in London sometime, and then released him. The dog remained with him a day or two, and then made his escape. A fortnight afterwards, he was found with his former master, pursuing his old trade on the bridge.