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Washington, United States
loves: you win if you guessed "pets" and "museums". Also books, art history, travel, British punk, Korean kimchi, bindis, martinis, and other things TBD. I will always make it very clear if a post is sponsored in any way. Drop me a line at thepetmuseum AT gmail.com !

Monday, November 21, 2016

in which a dog avoids the workhouse

thanks reusable art (PD)


In this recorded anecdote, a dog's good sense turns him from the path of drink.  Alas, his master was no wiser for the good example.
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A dog belonging to a man named John Godfrey (as is told by the Rev. Thomas Jackson), who worked at the wharf of a coal-merchant on the Surrey side of the water, had a dog, which used to attend him in his visits to a public-house in Gibson Street, Waterloo Road, where he was taught to drink malt-liquor, of which he gradually became excessively fond. One evening, a companion of Godfrey's said to him, "Jack, let's make the dog drunk," a proposal to which Godfrey readily assented; and an extraordinary quantity of liquor being given to the animal, he was unable, when he went home with his master, to ascend the stairs to the room where he used to sleep, getting up a step or two only to roll back. This afforded Godfrey and his companion much amusement; but the dog, who lived five years after this transaction, would never again taste malt-liquor, but showed his teeth and snarled whenever a pewter pot was presented to him. As for John Godfrey himself, he died in Lambeth Workhouse; and his companion, who retained his love of beer, was often told by his wife that he had not half the sense of Jack Godfrey's dog.
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Watson, J. S. 1804-1884. (1867). The reasoning power in animals. London: Reeve & Co.. 66-7

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