This exalted value of Skye Dog, in a commercial point of view, has, of
course, given rise to the manufacture of a spurious article; whence it
comes, that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the animal palmed
off on the unsophisticated as genuine has nothing of the real stuff in
his constitution, but is simply a shallow imitation, compounded
according to prescription,--one part common cur-terrier to two parts
insignificant French poodle. And so I take leave of the Skye terrier
with a _caveat emptor_ to the purchaser who does not want to be sold
while he buys.
The sense of humor must surely exist in individual dogs; otherwise it
would puzzle me to account for the singular practical jokes played off
by a water-spaniel once possessed by me. This individual, whose name
was Muff, was a rather small-sized one, of the pure Kentish blood;
liver-colored, with a white ring on his neck, and white paws;
close-curled, wicked-eyed, deep-chested, and remarkably powerful for
his size. Professionally a retriever,--and one of great promise,
although never fully tested with the gun,--his leisure hours, which
included every one in the twenty-four, were passed in the invention and
perpetration of curiously regulated mischiefs, with all of which he
took pains to combine an element of the ludicrous.
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