a dog pranks a chicken, 1888

thanks pixabay

From a collection of dog-tales sent by readers to The Spectator:

{July 28, 1888.]
A recent anecdote from one of your correspondents about a dog and a hen brought to my mind an incident, related to me by an eye-witness, of a dog who had a constant feud with the fowls, which were prone to pilfer from the basin containing his dinner. On one occasion he was lying in front of his kennel, quietly watching a hen as she made stealthy and tentative approaches to his basin, which at length she reached and looked into, finding it perfectly empty. The dog wagged his tail.
J. R.

-- Dog Stories From the "Spectator": Being Anecdotes of the Intelligence, Reasoning Power, Affection And Sympathy of Dogs, Selected From the Correspondence Columms of "The Spectator". New York: Macmillan, 1895. pp. 168-9