[ London Times ]
This newspaper, most correctly known simply as The Times, began publication in 1785 and continues to this day.
The edition of October 26, 1858, carried a brief story about a Newf who found multiple ways of demonstrating his "sagacity," the word so beloved of 19th-Century commentators on the intelligence of Newfoundlands:
SAGACITY OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. — A large Newfoundland dog, that may be seen any day at No. 9, Argyle-street, Glasgow, has added one more instance to the many of record of the extraordinary sagacity of dogs. It seems that being, like other juveniles, sometimes rather fond of fun, he required to receive occasional discipline, and for that purpose a whip shaft was kept beside him, which was occasionally applied to him. He evidently did not like this article, and was found occasionally with it in his teeth movingly slily to the door with it. Being left at night on the premises, he found the hated article, and thrust the small end below the door, but the thick end refused to go. A few nights afterwards the whip shaft was left beside him, and was never seen again. He had put the small end below the door, and some one had pulled it out. On the dog being asked where it was, he looked very guitly, and slunk away with his tail between his legs. The same dog gets his provisions brought to him in a tin can. Taking a walk he saw a child carrying a tin exceedingly like his. He quietly seized it by the handle and carried it to his quarters, the child holding on and screaming all the way. When shown h is own he seemed quite astonished of his mistake, and allowed the frightened child to go with the tin he had mistaken for his own. This sagacious dog is in the habit of begging money from his biped acquaintance, with which he marches to a baker's shop and buys bread, which he comes home with, and eats when hungry. — Glasgow Examiner