Yet we are quite sure that additional precautions ought to be taken against the assaults of savage dogs. A dog that is known to be savage has no proper place in city life. We can see no cause for the maintenance of a bulldog in a great city. The race is fierce and treacherous. The mastiff, the Dalmatian hound (often called the coach dog), the Great Dane, and the setter generally are highly intelligent, and always are highly courageous. The terrier is apt to be "snappy" if provoked, even when the provocation is playful. The "spitz" happily has fallen into disrepute-he is of the distinctly dangerous class; he is not highly courageous but he is highly vicious. The dachshund is as plucky, honest, gentle, and wise as he is homely. The pug is a fad; he is good for nothing and bad for nothing. Dogs are like men; a few of them abominable, a few of them are admirable, most of them are to be tolerated rather than accepted as intimates.
The dog problem is the man problem, with considerable modification. How to encourage that which is good--and that there is good in dogs is proven by the affection that great men have cherished toward them, and they toward men, from the time of the Homeric Ulysses of Ithaca to the time of the American Ulysses of Appomattox--and how to destroy that which is evil is the question to be solved.
The bulldog ought to be eliminated from city life, and so ought all dogs, mongrel or otherwise, of savage temper.
Daily Inter Ocean, May 24, 1896; vol xxv; Issue: 61; section: part four page 32
