[ Annual Register for 1808 ]
The Annual Register is a publication that analyzed cultural, political, and historical developments; it was started in 1785 by the well-known publishing firm of James and Richard Dodsley in London, and was initially edited by the important Irish writer and political figure Edmund Burke. The Annual Register continues to publish to this day. [ click here for more information on this long-lived journal ]
The issue for 1808 features two anecdotes extolling the sagacity of Newfoundland dogs. Text is from the 1820 reprinting of the 1808 issue (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy).
The first story also involves the Newfoundland's famed life-saving ability.
A singular instance of canine sagacity occurred a few days since in the Thames below Blackwall: Mr. Turnbull, the master of a coasting trader, kept a Newfoundland dog on board. Whenever the vessel dropt anchor in the river, the dog swam to shore, and generally swam on board again the same evening. Having recently attempted to get to the ship in his usual way, the tide drifted him with so much velocity, that he could not reach the vessel; he was consequently forced to re-land, and to the astonishment of all who witnessed the sagacity of the animal, he went near half a mile from the spot where he had first started up the bank, and by swimming across the stream, made an angle, which enabled him to gain the ship. The master of the dog does not say the animal is a mathematician, but he asserts, with reference to this instance of sagacity, no waterman on the river could have reached the ship with more judgment. (35)
A singular instance of the sagacity of a Newfoundland dog occurred a few days since on the river. As Mr. Cook, who keeps a tavern in Cleveland-street, and a party of friends, were returning from Richmond, where they had been spending the day, the boat upset a little below Kew-bridge, in consequence of Mr. C., who is a very corpulent man, shifting from his side of the boat too suddenly. Having a Newfoundland dog on board, the faithful animal immediately laid hold of his master, and took him on shore, and returned again with an astonishing speed to the boat, and continued to go backward and forwards until he had rescued six men from their perilous situations in less than a quarter of an hour, to the admiration of a multitude of spectators, who had assembled on the bridge. (67)