I have drawn upon one of our Sunnybank collies for the name and the aspect and certain traits of my “Treve” book’s hero. The real Treve was my chum, and one of the strangest and most beautiful collies I have known.
Dog aristocrats have two names; one whereby they are registered in the American Kennel Club’s immortal studbook and one by which they are known at home. The first of these is called the “pedigree name.” The second is the “kennel name.” Few dogs know or answer to their own high-sounding pedigree names. In speaking to them their kennel names alone are used.
For example, my grand old Bruce’s pedigree name was Sunnybank Goldsmith;—a term that meant nothing to him. My Champion Sunnybank Sigurdson (greatest of Treve’s sons), responds only to the name of “Squire.” Sunnybank Lochinvar is “Roy.”
206Treve’s pedigree name was “Sunnybank Sigurd.” And in time he won his right to the hard-sought and harder-earned prefix of “CHAMPION”;—the supreme crown of dogdom.
We named him Sigurd—the Mistress and I—in honour of the collie of Katharine Lee Bates; a dog made famous the world over by his owner’s exquisite book, “Sigurd, Our Golden Collie.”
But here difficulties set in.
It is all very well to shout “Sigurd!” to a collie when he is the only dog in sight. But when there is a rackety and swirling and excited throng of them, the call of “Sigurd!” has an unlucky sibilant resemblance to the exhortation, “Sic ’im!” And misunderstandings—not to say strife—are prone to follow. So we sought a one-syllable kennel name for our golden collie pup. My English superintendent, Robert Friend, suggested “Treve.”
The pup took to it at once.
He was red-gold-and-snow of coat; a big slender youngster, with the true “look of eagles” in his deepset dark eyes. In those eyes, too, burned an eternal imp of mischief.
I have bred or otherwise acquired hundreds of collies in my time. No two of them were alike. That is the joy of collies. But most of them had certain well-defined collie characteristics in common with their blood-brethren. Treve had practically none. He was not like other collies or like a dog of any breed.
Gloriously beautiful, madly alive in every inch of him, he combined the widest and most irreconcilable range of traits.
For him there were but three people on earth;—the Mistress, myself and Robert Friend. To us he gave complete 207allegiance, if in queer form. The rest of mankind, with one exception—a girl—did not exist, so far as he was concerned; unless the rest of mankind undertook to speak to him or to pat him. Then, instantly, such familiarity was rewarded by a murderous growl and a most terrifying bite.
The bite was delivered with a frightful show of ferocity. And it had not the force to crush the wing of a fly.
Strangers, assailed thus, were startled. Some were frankly scared. They would stare down in amaze at the bitten surface, marvelling that there was neither blood nor teeth-mark nor pain. For the attack always had an appearance of man-eating fury.
Treve would allow the Mistress to pat him—in moderation. But if I touched him, in friendliness, he would toss his beautiful head and dart out of reach, barking angrily back at me. It was the same when Robert tried to pet him.
Once or twice a day he would come up to me, laying his head across my arm or knee; growling with the utmost vehemence and gnawing at my sleeve for a minute at a time. I gather that this was a form of affection. He did it to nobody else.
Also, when I went to town for the day, he would mope around for awhile; then would take my cap from the hall table and carry it into my study. All day long he would lie there, one paw on the cap, and growl fierce menace to all who ventured near. On my return home at night, he gave me scarcely a glance and drew disgustedly away as usual when I held out my hand to pat him.
In the evenings, on the porch or in front of the living room fire, he would stroll unconcernedly about until he made sure I was not noticing. Then he would curl himself 208on the floor in front of me, pressing his furry body close to my ankles; and would lie there for hours.
The Mistress alone he forbore to bite. He loved her. But she was a grievous disappointment to him. From the first, she saw through his vehement show of ferocity and took it at its true value. Try as he would he could not frighten her. Try as he would, he could not mask his adoration for her.
Again and again he would lie down for a nap at her feet; only to waken presently with a thundrous growl and a snarl, and with a lunge of bared teeth at her caressing hand. The hand would continue to caress; and his show of fury was met with a laugh and with the comment:
“You’ve had a good sleep, and now you’ve waked up in a nice homicidal rage.”
Failing to alarm her, the dog would look sheepishly at the laughing face and then cuddle down again at her feet to be petted.
There was another side to his play of indifference and of wrath. True, he would toss his head and back away, barking, when Robert or myself tried to pat him. But at the quietly spoken word, “Treve!”, he would come straight up to us and, if need be, stand statue-like for an hour at a time, while he was groomed or otherwise handled.
In brief, he was the naughtiest and at the same time the most unfailingly obedient dog I have owned. No matter how far away he might be, the single voicing of his name would bring him to me in a swirling rush.
In the show-ring he was a problem. At times he showed as proudly and as spectacularly as any attitude-striking tragedian. Again, if he did not chance to like his surroundings or if the ring-side crowd displeased him, he prepared to loaf in slovenly fashion through his paces on the block and in the parade. At such times the showing 209of Treve became as much an art as is the guiding of a temperamental race-horse to victory. It called for tact; even for trickery.
In the first place, during these fits of ill-humour, he would start around the ring, in the preliminary parade, with his tail arched high over his back; although he knew, as well as did I, that a collie’s tail should be carried low, in the ring.
I commanded: “Tail down!” Down would come the tail. But at the same time would come a savage growl and a sensational snap at my wrist. The spectators pointed out to one another the incurably fierce collie. Fellow-exhibitors in the ring would edge away. The judge—if he were an outsider—would eye Treve with strong apprehension.
It was the same when I whispered, “Foot out!” as he deliberately turned one white front toe inward in coming to a halt on the judging block. A similar snarl and feather-light snap followed the command.
The worst part of the ordeal came when the judge began to “go over” him with expert hands, to test the levelness of his mouth, the spring of his ribs, his general soundness and the texture of his coat. An exhibitor is not supposed to speak to a judge in the ring except to answer a question. But if the judge were inspecting Treve for the first time, I used to mumble conciliatingly, the while:
“He’s only in play, Judge. The dog’s perfectly gentle.”
This, as Treve resented the stranger’s handling, by growl-fringed bites at the nearest part of the judicial anatomy.
A savage dog does not make a hit with the average judge. There is scant joyance in being chewed, in the pursuit of one’s judging-duties. Yet, as a rule, judges took 210my word as to Treve’s gentleness; especially after one sample of his biteless biting. Said Vinton Breese, the famed “all-rounder” dog-judge, after an Interstate show:
“I feel slighted. Sigurd forgot to bite me to-day. It’s the first time.”
The Mistress made up a little song, in which Treve’s name occurred oftener than almost all its other words. Treve was inordinately proud of this song. He would stand, growling softly, with his head on his side, for an indefinite time, listening to her sing it. He used to lure her into chanting this super-personal ditty by trotting to the piano and then running back to her.
Nature intended him for a staunch, clever, implicitly obedient, gentle collie, without a single bad trait, and possessed of rare sweetness. He tried his best to make himself thoroughly mean and savage and treacherous. He met with pitifully poor success in his chosen rôle. The sweetness and the obedient gentleness stuck forth, past all his best efforts to mask them in ferocity.
Once, when he bit with overmuch unction at a guest who tried to pat him, I spoke sharply to him and emphasised my rebuke by a slight slap on the shoulder. The dog was heart-broken. Crouching at my feet, his head on my boot, he sobbed exactly like a frightened child. He spent hours trying pitifully to make friends with me again.
It was so when his snarl and his nip at the legs of one of the other dogs led to warlike retaliation. At once Treve would rush to me for protection and for comfort. From the safe haven of my knees he would hurl threats at his assailant and defy him to carry the quarrel further. There was no fight in him. At the same time there was no taint of cowardice. He bore pain or discomfort or real danger unflinchingly.
211One of his chief joys was to ransack the garage and stables for sponges and rags which were stored there for cleaning the cars. These he would carry, one by one, to the long grass or to the lake, and deposit them there. When the men hid these choice playthings out of his way he would stand on his hindlegs and explore the shelves and low beam-corners in search of them; never resting till he found one or more to bear off.
He would lug away porch cushions and carelessly-deserted hats and wraps, and deposit them in all sorts of impossible places; never by any chance bringing them back.
From puppyhood, he did not once eat a whole meal of his own accord. Always he must be fed by hand. Even then he would not touch any food but cooked meat.
Normally, the solution to this would have been to let him go hungry until he was ready to eat. But a valuable show-and-stud collie cannot be allowed to become a skeleton and lifeless for lack of food, any more than a winning race-horse can be permitted to starve away his strength and speed.
Treve’s daily pound-and-a-half of broiled chuck steak was cut in small pieces and set before him on a plate. Then began the eternal task of making him eat it. Did we turn our backs on him for a single minute—the food had vanished when next we looked.
But it had not vanished down Treve’s dainty throat. Casual search revealed every missing morsel of meat shoved neatly out of sight under the edges of the plate or else hidden in the grass or under nearby boards or handfuls of straw.
This daily meal was a game. Treve enjoyed it immensely. Not being blessed with patience, I abhorred it. So Robert Friend took the duty of feeding him. At sound of Robert’s distant knife, whetted to cut up the 212meat, Treve would come flying to the hammock where I sat writing. At a bound he was in my lap, all fours and all fur—the entire sixty pounds of him—and with his head thrust under one of the hammock cushions.
Thence, at Robert’s call, and at my own exhortation, he would come forth with mincing reluctance and approach the tempting dish of broiled steak. Looking coldly upon the food, he would lie down. To all of Robert’s allurements to eat, the dog turned a deaf ear. Once in a blue moon, he consented to swallow the steak, piece by piece, if Robert would feed it to him by hand. Oftener it was necessary to call on Wolf to act as stimulant to appetite.
"Then I’ll give it to Wolf,“ Robert would threaten. ”Wolf!"
Treve got to his feet with head lowered and teeth bared. Robert called Wolf, who came lazily to play his part in the daily game for a guerdon of one piece of the meat.
Six feet away from the dish, Wolf paused. But his work was done. Growling, barking, roaring, Treve attacked the dish; snatching up and bolting one morsel of meat at a time. Between every two bites he bellowed threats and insults at the placidly watching Wolf,—Wolf who could thrash his weight in tigers and who, after Lad and Bruce died, was the acknowledged king of all the Place’s dogs.
In this way, mouthful by mouthful and with an accompaniment of raging noise that could be heard across the lake, Treve disposed of his dinner.
Yes, it was a silly thing to humour him in the game. But there was no other method of making him eat the food on which depended his continued show-form and his dynamite vitality. When it came to giving him his two raw eggs a day, there was nothing to that but forcible feeding. 213In solid cash prizes and in fees, Treve paid back, by many hundred per cent., the high cost of his food.
When he was little more than a puppy, he fell dangerously ill with some kind of heart trouble. Dr. Hopper said he must have medicine every half hour, day and night, until he should be better. I sat up with him for two nights.
I got little enough work done, between times, on those two nights. The suffering dog, lay on a rug beside my study desk. But he was uneasy and wanted to be talked to. He was in too much pain to go to sleep. In a corner of my study was a tin biscuit box, which I kept filled with animal crackers, as occasional titbits for the collies. Every now and then, during our two-night vigil, I took an animal cracker from the box and fed it to Treve.
By the second night he was having a beautiful time. I was not.
The study seemed to him a most delightful place. Forthwith he adopted it as his lair. By the third morning he was out of danger and indeed was practically well again. But he had acquired the study-habit; a habit which lasted throughout his short life.
From that time on, it was Treve’s study; not mine. The tin cracker box became his treasure chest; ............