Dereliction of Duty ?
The Oliviers' Pekingese is the latest recruit to the conspiracy of silence embracing practically every dog whose master's house has been visited by a ladder-gang. There were three dogs in my house when it was successfully burgled by one of these " gangs " (it actually consisted of two young men) about eighteen months ago, and they came in for a certain amount of criticism afterwards. But I don't think they deserved it. A dog can detect an intruder with, one or more of three senses; but if, as most dogs are after dinner, he is asleep, neither his eyes nor his ears or his nose are on the alert. If the windows are open and the wind in the right quarter, he might, I suppose, theoretically have a chance of singling out from the pervasive scents of the human beings in the room a faint whiff from the felon on the lawn outside; but I don't think this has ever happened yet. As for his eyes, he cannot, generally, see as well as his master can; and what' with people talking, and the wireless or the television going, neither of them can be blamed for not hearing very much—if indeed there was anything to hear. All the same, though I don't blame all these dogs for not doing what very few of them have been trained to do, it would make a nice change to see in the news columns—and the event would deserve a certain prominence—the headline: DOG BARKS AT BURGLAR.
STRIX.
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