Part 8

This gave me confidence, and that day we did additions up to twenty, all of which were successful. Indeed, the dog showed much interest in her work, and came to it readily. As a rule ten to fifteen minutes in the morning, and another quarter of an hour in the afternoon was lesson-time. As the results were generally successful, I was sometimes tempted to continue my questions for a little longer, and she would go on answering until at length she began to sigh--then I knew that she was tired. And after such extra exertion I would notice the next day both by the pupils of her eyes and her nervous trembling, that she had been over-worked--and the thought of it makes me feel ashamed, even to this day; for, was I not undertaking the whole study for the sake of animal creation, and to think that I might have been inflicting any cruelty was unbearable. And, indeed, as time went on, this did not occur again, for I kept a keener watch. Soon, too, her capabilities increased, and she was able to fulfil more easily the greater demands made on her when answering to questions. With regard to decimals and units, I made a discovery which is, I think, worth stating. The dog did not look at me, but seemed, on the contrary (on this occasion), much interested in gnawing the leg of a chair, and I thought she could not have understood me, or else she would surely have looked up at me. Yet, she had apparently only done this to cover her confusion--as it were! Indeed, this was evident from her expression, and she had heard everything right enough, for she then--and ever after--rapped her replies without "visualizing"--and I mentally returned thanks to Karl Krall for the practical advice he had given me, and which had been so opportune. Rolf rapped with one paw only, as has already been stated; one was, therefore, obliged at length to put the question to him: "1 or 10?" And Rolf would then say "yes" or "no," as the case might be. This is confusing for the onlookers, and, as a matter of fact, when I saw him at Mannheim I never knew for certain what number he had indicated. But with Krall's method of using alternate hoof or paw, any confusion or doubt is ruled out.

CONTINUED TUITION

Lola and I had now become to some extent accustomed to each other, and the daily progress assisted this mutual understanding. I felt that I had become calmer and more self-possessed, and this, too, reacted on the dog. I did my best to make the subjects interesting, and I soon had only to call her to lessons for her to scamper up to me quite eager to begin. I also attempted to make her understand that she would be able to help other dogs--in fact, help all dear animals, if she was industrious, thus showing people how much a dog could do--when it was able to count and spell! I told her how much kinder people would then be to animals, instead of treating them as though they were no better than wood or stone, and I instanced all Rolf could do, and told her of the good uses his abilities had been put to. And from thence forward I rewarded her for every good bit of work with either biscuits or sugar, on the principle that any creature that works is worthy of wage, since man receives either food or money. And I would here like to say that I once heard that the judges examining both Rolf and the horses had taken exception to the fact of the animals being encouraged to work by being given "rewards"; where, I wonder, is the man who will labour unrequited? There will, of course, always be exceptional individuals who will do a thing for its own sake--yet--after all--do not they, too, seek their reward? albeit in a more idealistic manner, since it will consist in the success of their undertaking.

Yet these gentlemen thought that animals ought to exhibit the ethical single-mindedness of exceptional individuals! The "mere beast"--so belittled, as a rule that it is vouchsafed less "right to the earth" than is the sole of a man's foot! How significant this may be said to be of the mental attitude in which these gentlemen sat in judgment: men, who, doubtless, considered they were doing their very utmost in the service of science!

After Lola had mastered the numerals as far as twenty I started her at simple multiplication, explaining these again on my fingers and the counting frame and here, too, I found her a ready pupil. Indeed, there really does seem something so very obvious in 2 and 2 things being 4 things! and we proceeded by degrees to multiply up to fifty.

I would say, for instance, over the morning coffee: "Lola, to-day the fours are to have a turn: 1 × 4 = 4, 2 × 4 = 8," and I would let her multiply with four about three times, straight on from the beginning first, and then dodging about irregularly. She usually did this without any mistake whatever, and I was now getting quite used to the celerity with which she worked. The only difficulties were in connexion with 10 × 3 and 10 × 4, where she would constantly make a slip, for then the left paw came into action, and her consciousness was not yet sufficiently concentrated on that left paw. Dogs and horses must, I imagine, have a most splendid faculty for visualizing figures--to judge from the rapidity with which they work.

It took us nine days to accomplish the multiplication table from two to ten, keeping up, of course, a repetition of what had already been learnt. This great speed is another point that often gives rise to doubts, yet it is found to be equally the case with all animals who are taught: I cannot account for it--I can merely say that it is so. I have thought at times that the reason may lie in the fact that dogs and horses have but a short span of life in comparison to man's, and therefore, a briefer period of youth wherein to acquire their stock of learning; that this might account for an animal being quicker than a child, which has ampler time and seems to need it all in order to lay a thorough foundation, since the multitude of subsequent impressions would otherwise swamp all our earliest rudimentary learning.

Lola answered splendidly. It now happened at times that I myself made mistakes and believing the fault to be hers, have said: "That is wrong!" But she was not to be put out, and stuck to her reply. Then, on going over it I would find that she was right after all!

I often put my question thus: "7 × 4 = ?" and the reply would be--left paw 2, right paw 8: then: "9 × 3 = ?" Answer: left paw 2, right paw 7; and again, "6 × 6 = ?" Answer: left paw 3, right paw 6. How accurate a test this was might be gathered from the sure and quiet way in which she tapped the palm of my hand, first with her left paw three times, and then with the right, six. I held my hand quite flat, slantingly and immovable--there was nothing about it that could convey any sort of sign to her, otherwise she would not sometimes have rapped either less or more than I expected, as has happened both in her spelling and at her sums.

My thoughts now turned to the business of spelling and the replies to be here obtained. A total of figures from 1-40 would suffice in order to give expression to all the letters, while the same degree of comprehension of my spoken word was all I required. Then I began to tell Lola some four or five letters of her alphabet daily, questioning her as to each. Every day I repeated the lesson learnt on the previous one, and added four or five more letters. Her alphabet sounds as follows:

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+------+------+ | a | e | i | o | u | au | ei | | - | - | - | - | - | - | -- | | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | +-------|-------|-------|-------|-----|------|------+ | b & p | d & t | f & v | s & k | ch | ü | h | | ----- | ----- | ----- | ----- | -- | -- | -- | | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 20 | 21 | 24 | +-------|-------|-------|-------|-----|------|------+ | l | m | n | r | s | w | z | | -- | -- | - | - | -- | -- | -- | | 25 | 26 | 27 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | +-------|-------|-------|-------|-----|------|------+ | | | ja | nein | | | | | | | -- | ---- | | | | | | | 2 | 3 | | | | +-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+------+------+

It is particularly to be observed that the letters were pronounced as follows: K as k,' not as ka ( = kay); H as h,' not as ha ( = aitch); R as r, not as er ( = ar;) L as l,' not as el: this was so as to free her "writing" of any extraneous difficulties. Rolf of Mannheim rapped out the "e" in "w" ( = vay being the German pronunciation of "w"), as also in "g" ( = gay being the German pronunciation of "g"); thus, if he wanted to write "wegen," he simply rapped "w g n." Now, I wanted Lola to learn to rap the entire word--"wegen," for instance, for this simplification of expression, as put into practice by Rolf, would be of no use to her in view of the method of pronunciation I was adopting with the consonants. Those who had taught Rolf understood his spelling quite as well as I in time came to understand Lola's, but with regard to their system the objection was frequently put forward (more especially by persons bent on maintaining an unfriendly attitude) that "any construction might be placed on these answers," and, I must admit, that there was some truth in this. Not that this objection could always be justified, yet there were sufficient grounds for it. The great value of Rolf's mode of expressing himself was shown in the way in which he added letter to letter in accordance with their sounds (and I doubt whether any mechanical aids or accessories would have been likely to achieve the same results), thus giving proof that he was capable of independent expression. Their system proved incidentally to have what I might call a "side value," for Lola's mode of expression, due to my own method of teaching led to quite different results--yet on the same level.

Lola now practised her alphabet in the morning and in the afternoon we continued multiplications; rather more slowly than at first, but we ultimately reached a hundred. New work was then added in the form of division and subtraction. She soon had this all so firmly fixed in her little head that I was able to put her to easy sums and ask: "What is 3 x 3 + 10 - 5?" The answer after a few seconds being "14." A hundred was rapped out with her left paw = ten raps.

As soon as she had mastered the entire alphabet I proceeded to contract the letters into words. I said: "Lola, now attend; you are going to learn to spell: you must rap out a word made of the letters you have learnt; now--Wald (wood or forest) is w, a, l, d," and I accentuated each letter very distinctly. "How many letters are there in this word?" I added, and the answer was "4."

"Good," I said, adding: "What is the first letter?" and she tapped in reply: "36/w"; "and the next?" "4/a"; "and then?" "25/l"; "and further?" "4/a." "Lola now listen to all the words I am going to say: essen ( = to eat, also "food"), e, s, s, e, n; gut ( = good), g, u, t; milch ( = milk), m, i, l, c, h"; and so on. For many days I continued to name the words which lay nearest to her understanding, and each day I got her to do a little spelling, after first having divided the letters. But at the end of eight days I no longer took the words to pieces merely saying, very distinctly: "rap Ofen" ( = stove), and she would tap: "7 16 5 27" = o f e n. "Rap Haus" ( = house). This answer was: "24, 4, 9, 35" = h, a, u, s. Whenever she rapped I jotted down the figures in order to translate them later on into letters, for it was some time before I could sufficiently memorize their equivalents, and was constantly making mistakes after Lola had become an "expert." Indeed, one's memory is easily liable to play tricks here in a way that may lead to endless confusion, for the sequence of the numbers is so at variance with what one is accustomed to.

Once I asked--by way of experiment--"What is this?" touching her nose. At first she seemed uncertain, but then came the reply: "3" = nein (no); so I said: "Lola, that is your nose; tap nose!" and she tapped--"27, 4, 35, 5" = nase (nose). "Good!" I said, "and what is this?" and I touched her eye, to which she at once replied with--"9, 17" = aug (auge = eye); she had apparently not been quite sure of what I wanted when I touched her nose.

And so we went on practising--sometimes doing too much, and this would give her a headache, but she had also learnt how to communicate this fact to me and would rap: "36, 5" = we (weh = pain, or hurt); nor was this malingering, for she worked willingly, doing so, indeed, to the utmost limits of her strength, when it would become apparent, alas! to anyone who saw her that her head was aching. This tendency to "keep going" is common to all our faithful domestic animals: more particularly is it the case with draft-animals, who will go on till they drop. There are very few that consciously resist work, or who humbug us by pretending they are ill. Yet, as I had told Rolf, we had one of these exceptions at the farm; it was an ox that would always lie down and sham dead, if not in the mood to work; he then stretched out his limbs and looked at his last gasp ... but no sooner did we leave him to himself than he was on his legs again and off to his stall. No amount of chastisement brought him to reason. And it was this immoral action that had jumped with Rolf's views when--without having been asked--he at once remarked: "Hat recht, lol sagen Bauchweh!" an excuse he is reported to have made very often of late.

I now tried to teach Lola to read the numbers, for she was thoroughly at home in all we had practised so far, so it did not seem too much of a venture. I cogitated, therefore, how best to begin; and finally I wrote on a sheet of paper as follows:

1 2 3 4 5 6 . .. ... .... ..... ......

and so on up to 10.

I then held this a few inches (40 centimetres) from her eyes and, pointing to each, said: "One dot looks like 1," etc. And then I wrote a 2 on a slip of paper and asked her what number it stood for. At the start this gave her a good deal of trouble, and I had to do a great deal of talking. She saw the dot right enough, but would give no attention to the figure. I helped her twice to compare the two, and then set the sheet up near the place where she usually lay, taking for granted that in the course of the day her eye would be bound to rest on it so frequently that she would probably have retained the impression by the next day. And something of this kind must have happened; for on the following morning after having gone through the explanation once more, and put the sheet aside, I wrote the figures at random all over another sheet of paper when she actually "spotted" them all--with the exception of "7," and a comparison of the two sheets soon enabled her to put this right, too. There could be no doubt but that she had really mastered her lesson, for the replies were rapped out with absolute certainty. I next attempted two-figured numerals; nor was this very difficult, for in 32, for instance, the 3 was rapped by the left--the "decimal" paw--and therefore meant "30," while the "2" was added by two raps from the right paw; in fact, she memorized this without any trouble--and for a few days we practised "reading numbers" assiduously, so as to get her perfect.

Here is an example:

20 + 14? Answer: 34. 24 + 32? Answer: 56. 11 + 15 + 2? Answer: 28

Here again the most surprising thing was the celerity with which the replies were given. I was at first inclined to make her look at the paper attentively, but she would merely glance over it, then came a moment of quick thought--and the answer was ready. (I propose to return to this point again in the chapter on "Seeing.")

In the course of such exercises it is no exaggeration to say that one does actually see, by an alteration in the eye, that the dog is thinking; the gaze is withdrawn, so to speak, as it is in the eye of a person engaged in the process of thinking; and then brightens when the result has been attained. I have often been so absorbed in contemplating this process in Lola that I have almost forgotten to continue the work we were engaged on.

As the lessons progressed it became easy to teach her to read the letters, for she now knew what it was all about, and she soon picked up the figures requisite for any given letter. Personally, I always use the Latin script for writing, and it was therefore more convenient to teach her this form rather than the Gothic, but for the sake of simplicity I made use of the small characters only. I wrote these out on a sheet of paper, taking care to make them very large, and with the equivalent figure under each--thus:

a e i o u au ei 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

and so on.