Lad: A Dog QUOTES

1 " Any man with money to make the purchase may become a dog's owner. But no man --spend he ever so much coin and food and tact in the effort-- may become a dog's Master without consent of the dog. Do you get the difference? And he whom a dog once unreservedly accepts as Master is forever that dog's God. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

2 " Any man with money to make the purchase may become a dog’s owner. But no man—spend he ever so much coin and food and tact in the effort—may become a dog’s Master without the consent of the dog. Do you get the difference? And he whom a dog once unreservedly accepts as Master is forever that dog’s God. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

3 " A poet would have vowed that the still and white-shrouded wilderness was a shrine sacred to solitude and severe peace. Lad could have told him better. Nature (beneath the surface) is never solitary and never at peace. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

4 " ignored with disdain by "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

5 " The born watchdog patrols his beat once in so often during the night. At all times he must sleep with one ear and one eye alert. By day or by night he must discriminate between the visitor whose presence is permitted and the trespasser whose presence is not. He must know what class of undesirables to scare off with a growl and what class needs stronger measures. He must also know to the inch the boundaries of his own master’s land. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

6 " But of a sudden his head went up; his stiff-poised brush broke into swift wagging; his lips curled down. He had recognized that his prospective foe was not of his own sex. (And nowhere, except among humans, does a full-grown male ill-treat or even defend himself against the female of his species.) "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

7 " Lad detested guests. He met their advances with cold courtesy, and, as soon as possible, got himself out of their way. He knew the Law far too well to snap or to growl at a guest. But the Law did not compel him to stay within patting distance of one. The careless caress of the Mistress or the Master—especially of the Mistress—was a delight to him. He would sport like an overgrown puppy with either of these deities, throwing dignity to the four winds. But to them alone did he unbend—to them and to his adored tyrant, Lady. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

8 " But, with Lad beside her, Baby is in just about as much danger as she would be with a guard of forty U. S. Regulars,” went on the Master. “Take my word for it. Come along, Lady. It’s the kennel for you for the next few weeks, old girl. Lad, when I get back, I’ll wash that shoulder for you.” With a sigh, Lad went over to the hammock and lay down, heavily. For the first time since Baby’s advent at The Place, he was unhappy—very, very unhappy. He had had to jostle and fend off Lady, whom he worshiped. And he knew it would be many a long day before his sensitively temperamental mate would forgive or forget. Meantime, so far as Lady was concerned, he was in Coventry. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

9 " There are two things—and perhaps only two things—of which the best type of thoroughbred collie is abjectly afraid and from which he will run for his life. One is a mad dog. The other is a poisonous snake. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

10 " I mean it is the nature of all animals to crawl away, alone, into the forest to die. They are more considerate than we. They try to cause no further trouble to those they have loved. Lad got his death from the copperhead’s fangs. He knew it. And while we were all taken up with the wonder of Baby’s cure, he quietly went away—to die.” The Mistress got up hurriedly and left the room. She loved the great dog, as she loved few humans. The guest dissolved into a flood of sloppy tears. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

11 " A puppy needs an unbelievable amount of educating. It is a task to wear threadbare the teacher’s patience and to do all kinds of things to the temper. Small wonder that many humans lose patience and temper during the process and idiotically resort to the whip, to the boot toe and to bellowing—in which case the puppy is never decently educated, but emerges from the process with a cowed and broken spirit or with an incurable streak of meanness that renders him worthless. Time, patience, firmness, wisdom, temper control, gentleness—these be the six absolute essentials for training a puppy. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

12 " I’m not given to mawkish sentiment,” went on the Master shamefacedly, “but on the day your fool law for dog exterminating goes into effect there’ll be a piteous crying of little children all over the whole world—of little children mourning for the gentle protecting playmates they loved. And there’ll be a million men and women whose lives have all at once become lonely and empty and miserable. Isn’t this war causing enough crying and loneliness and misery without your adding to it by killing our dogs? For the matter of that, haven’t the army dogs over in Europe been doing enough for mankind to warrant a square deal for their stay-at-home brothers? Haven’t they? "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

13 " The dogs were kept in kennel buildings and in wire “runs” like so many pedigreed cattle—looked after by paid attendants, and trained to do nothing but to be the best-looking of their kind, and to win ribbons. Some of them did not know their owners by sight—having been reared wholly by hirelings. The body was everything; the heart, the mind, the namelessly delightful quality of the master-raised dog—these were nothing. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

14 " As Lad passed in through the doorway, he halted involuntarily in dismay. Dogs—dogs—DOGS! More than two thousand of them, from Great Dane to toy terrier, benched in row after row throughout the vast floor space of the Garden! Lad had never known there were so many dogs on earth. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

15 " It was really his fault—and he realized it now—that the man had made such a racket. Would the Master punish him? Perhaps. Humans have such odd ideas of Justice. He— "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

16 " First it had been the natural impulse of the thoroughbred —brute or human—to guard the helpless. Then, as the shapeless yellow baby grew into a slenderly graceful collie, his guardianship changed to stark adoration. He was Lady’s life slave. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

17 " Not one of these people—not even the policeman himself—had any evidence that the collie was mad. There are not two really rabid dogs seen at large in New York or in any other city in the course of a year. Yet, at the back of the human throat ever lurks that fool cry of “Mad dog!”—ever ready to leap forth into shouted words at the faintest provocation "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

18 " Gently, the Master called him downstairs and across the living room, and put him out of the house. For, after all, a shaggy eighty-pound dog is an inconvenience stretched across a sickroom doorsill. Three minutes later, Lad had made his way through an open window into the cellar and thence upstairs; and was stretched out, head between paws, at the threshold of the Mistress’ room. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

19 " He would not confess, even to himself, that age was beginning to hamper him so cruelly. And he sought to do all the things he had once done—if the Mistress or the Master were looking. But when he was alone, or with the other dogs, he spared himself every needless step. And he slept a great deal. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog

20 " I do not pretend to say whether or not dogs have a language of their own. Personally, I think they have, and a very comprehensive one, too. But I cannot prove it. No dog student, however, will deny that two dogs communicate their wishes to each other in some way by (or during) the swift contact of noses. "

― Albert Payson Terhune , Lad: A Dog