Then the dogs suddenly decide that they have done enough for the day.
Watching their opportunity, they silently steal over the fence,
and hide in any cool place they can find. After a while the men notice
that hardly any are left, and operations are suspended while
a great hunt is made into outlying pieces of cover, where the dogs
are sure to be found lying low and looking as guilty as so many thieves.
A clutch at the scruff of the neck, a kick in the ribs, and they are
hauled out of hiding-places; and accompany their masters to the yard
frolicking about and pretending that they are quite delighted to be
going back, and only hid in those bushes out of sheer thoughtlessness.
He is a champion hypocrite, is the dog.

Dogs, like horses, have very keen intuition. They know when the men
around them are frightened, though they may not know the cause.
In a great Queensland strike, when the shearers attacked and burnt
Dagworth shed, some rifle-volleys were exchanged. The air was full
of human electricity, each man giving out waves of fear and excitement.
Mark now the effect it had on the dogs. They were not in the fighting;
nobody fired at them, and nobody spoke to them; but every dog
left his master, left the sheep, and went away to the homestead,
about six miles off. There wasn't a dog about the shed next day
after the fight. The noise of the rifles had not frightened them,
because they were well-accustomed to that.*

* The same thing happened constantly with horses in the South African War.
A loose horse would feed contentedly while our men were firing,
but when our troops were being fired at the horses became uneasy,
and the loose ones would trot away. The excitement of the men
communicated itself to them.