One nineteenth-century owner of a dog related a tale about canine vengeance. Later, his story was published in an English newspaper in 1868. Here is the story almost verbatim.

I purchased “Watch,” the hero of my tale, when he was only six months old, from a farmer in the island of Foulness. He was then, as large as an ordinary Newfoundland dog, but particularly shy and sheepish in expression; indeed, he looked and acted more like a stupid and very young calf than a puppy of ordinary intelligence, and when taken from his native home to the house of my good friend the doctor, to wait my sending for him, he melted the heart of his pretty daughter Lucy by crying (as she declared) so uncommonly like a child, that she laid his huge head in her lap in which comfortable position he soon whined himself to sleep. However, foolish he looked he soon provided himself to be of the true breed, and not to be insulted with impunity, for quiet as these dogs are, good-tempered and gentle to those who treat them well, they are fierce and unforgiving to their enemies, and are sure, sooner or later, to revenge any injury offered to them, and, as the sequel will show, “Watch” could both plan and execute his own vendetta with almost human sagacity and intelligence. Continue reading →