The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

In my opinion the gray wolf of North America (like his congener in the Old World) is the most degenerate and unmoral mammal species on earth. He murders his wounded packmates, he is a greedy cannibal, he will attack his wife and chew her unmercifully. On the other hand, his one redeeming trait is that he helps to rear the pups,--when they are successfully defended from him by their mother! The wolverine makes a specialty of devilish and uncanny cunning and energy in destroying the property of man. Trappers have told us that when a wolverine invades a trapper's cabin in his absence, he destroys very nearly its entire contents. The food that he can neither eat nor carry away he defiles in such a manner that the hungriest man is unable to eat it. This seems to be a trait of this species only,--among wild animals; but during the recent war it was asserted that similar acts were committed by soldiers in the captured and occupied villas of northern France. The domestication of the dog has developed a new type of animal criminal. The sheep-killing dog is in a class by himself. The wild dog hunts in the broad light of day, often running down game by the relay system. The sheep-killing dog is a cunning night assassin, a deceiver of his master, a shrewd hider of criminal evidence, a sanctimonious hypocrite by day but a bloody-minded murderer under cover of darkness. Sometimes his cunning is almost beyond belief. Now, can anyone tell us how much of this particular evolution is due to the influence of Man upon Dog through a hundred generations of captivity and association? Has the dog learned from man the science of moral banditry, the best methods for the concealment of evidence, and how to dissemble?