A greyhound will start out in the morning with three lame legs,
but as soon as he sees a hare start he MUST go. He utterly forgets
his sorrows in the excitement, just as a rowing-man, all over
boils and blisters, will pull a desperate race without feeling any pain.
Such dogs are not easily excited by anything but a chase,
and a burglar might come and rob the house and murder the inmates
without arousing any excitement among them. Guarding a house
is "not their pidgin" as the Chinese say. That is one great reason
for the success of the dog at whatever branch of his tribe's work
he goes in for -- he is so thorough. Dogs who are forced to combine
half-a-dozen professions never make a success at anything.
One dog one billet is their motto.

The most earnest and thorough of all the dog tribe is the fighting dog.
His intense self-respect, his horror of brawling, his cool determination,
make him a pattern to humanity. The bull-dog or bull-terrier is generally
the most friendly and best-tempered dog in the world; but when he
is put down in the ring he fights till he drops, in grim silence,
though his feet are bitten through and through, his ears are in rags,
and his neck a hideous mass of wounds.

In a well-conducted dog-fight each dog in turn has to attack the other dog,
and one can see fierce earnestness blazing in the eye of the attacker
as he hurls himself on the foe. What makes him fight like that? It is not
bloodthirstiness, because they are neither savage nor quarrelsome dogs:
a bulldog will go all his life without a fight, unless put into a ring.
It is simply their strong self-respect and stubborn pride which will not
let them give in. The greyhound snaps at his opponent and then runs
for his life, but the fighting dog stands to it till death.