Renni the Rescuer

by Felix Salten

  Chapter IV

  SOME WAY FROM HOME, IN the midst of the stubble fields, George made the acquaintance of a man. Really it was Renni who struck up a friendship with the man’s police dog, about his own age. The two dogs greeted each other with an unusual cordiality and immediately began to play. They tore about, gaily chasing each other, describing great circles, whirling unexpectedly, and rolling over and over.

  “Pasha!” cried the stranger, and when Pasha failed to obey immediately, he roared out in an angry, threatening tone, “Pasha, to heel!”

  The dog was visibly frightened. He came toward his master at a dead run, then stopped and crawled on his belly as though he were humbly begging forgiveness.

  “Call in your dog, why don’t you?” the stranger bellowed to George.

  “Oh, no,” he answered. “Renni may run all he wants to.” And in some astonishment he asked the stranger, “You don’t carry a whip, do you?”

  “Why, of course I do.”

  “But of course you wouldn’t strike him.”

  “When he deserves punishment, punishment is what he gets.”

  George was horrified.

  “Haven’t you any sympathy for the poor beast?”

  “Sentimental twaddle!” growled the stranger.

  He was perhaps forty years old, very slender, very tall, with a military bearing. His face was somewhat secretive, and George thought he could detect a strain of hardness in it. Still there was a weak look in his eyes too. George could not quite make up his mind what to think of him.

  “And you?” asked the stranger. “How do you punish your hound?”

  “I don’t.”

  The stranger reproved him, shaking his head. “Punishment is necessary for man and beast.”

  “Perhaps,” admitted George. “Perhaps. But I’ve never whipped my dog and I never intend to.”

  “You’re a queer bird,” laughed the stranger.

  “Would you favour whipping people too by way of punishment?” inquired George.

  “Well, it wouldn’t hurt any.”

  “And children?”

  “With children it’s absolutely necessary, just as it is with dogs.”

  “You mean that dogs are like children—children who can’t talk?”

  “With dogs or with children you can get quickest results by slapping them, or, if need be, by thrashing them.”

  “The results will be quick, all right, but I’m not so sure they’ll be good,” said George.

  Renni came running. He leaped up on his master, wagging his tail joyfully, and George gave him a friendly welcome.

  “You ought never to permit such liberties.”

  “Not permit them?” George bridled at the censure in his tone and went on petting Renni, who whirled around him, tail wagging madly. “These liberties as you call them are the finest thing I know. I want my dog to be as free with me as I am with him.”

  The stranger did not deign to answer. He studied Renni and with a rough jerk put Pasha up beside him. They were as like as two peas.

  “Have you got your dog’s pedigree?” he asked George, and when the latter admitted, “No, not yet,” he went on:

  “When you pay good money for a dog, you must always get his pedigree. Here’s Pasha’s.”

  He pulled papers from his pocket and handed them to George. It developed that Pasha and Renni were brothers. George read the long, long list of Renni’s ancestors with something like reverence. There was many a champion among them who had won blue ribbons. When he handed the papers back, the stranger introduced himself as Karl Stefanus. His grandparents had moved from the north and settled in this country.

  After this George and Karl met often and took long walks with their dogs. The dogs always got along better than the masters, who constantly argued over the question—to whip or not to whip. “I wish you’d humour me by not striking Pasha when I’m around.”

  “Of course I can’t promise that.”

  “Then I’ve had enough.”

  “You’re an odd piece,” grumbled Karl, but he didn’t strike Pasha.

  He thought George mildly and harmlessly insane. In time he came to have a certain sympathy for this man, who was so sincere and genuine and whom he accused of being wishy-washy and sentimental when he was neither. The only reason George kept up the acquaintance was on Pasha’s account. Sometimes Karl would call his dog in a harsh commanding voice. Pasha obeyed instantly and seemed, as he crept up on his belly, to be repenting for something wrong he hadn’t done.

  “Now you ought to praise him,” said George.

  “Wouldn’t think of it. Only spoil him.” But still he gave him a gruff “Good boy!”

  Then George called Renni and up he came rushing like a gust of wind, waving his tail, leaping beside himself for joy. George patted him.

  “See?” he said triumphantly. “See how much better this is?”

  The other did not answer. But the next time he wanted to know whether Renni was to be trained for anything useful. “What you need is a toy dog, a lap dog.”

  When George looked at him questioningly, he added, “A police dog like that needs some useful occupation. If he doesn’t get it, he’ll degenerate.”

  Meanwhile Renni and Pasha carried on a lot of conversation, canine fashion. Of course they didn’t use human words, but their way of talking worked perfectly for them.

  Renni would scratch eagerly at a mole hill. Naturally he wouldn’t get results. He’d ask Pasha, “Give me a little help here.”

  And immediately Pasha would answer, “He won’t let me.”

  Renni would chase a mouse and call out to Pasha, “Catch it!”

  Pasha would give the same answer: “He won’t let me.”

  “Can’t you have any fun at all?” Renni asked, wondering.

  Pasha would say sadly, “No. Practically everything is forbidden. I don’t know yet just what I am allowed to do and so I’m very careful.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I’m afraid.”

  Renni asked curiously, “Afraid of what?”

  “Why, you know! Of the pain.”

  Renni was amazed. “I don’t know. What’s pain?”

  “It’s something that comes from Him,” Pasha said. “Hasn’t your master ever caused you any pain?”

  “No, never.”

  “But surely you know that long slithering thing that whistles so when He brings it down on us—the thing that cuts so, clear to the bone?”

  Renni shook his head. He didn’t know what Pasha was talking about. It didn’t make sense to him. He suggested this must be the reason why Pasha was unhappy.

  “How can anyone be happy?” Pasha’s eye was sad. “Oh, to be sure, right at first, when I didn’t know about such things, I was happy. But the first time it happened my happiness was over. At the first blow I lost control of my feelings, I was so afraid. When the blows kept coming one after another, striking me down again and again, I was scared for good and all. You can’t imagine how horribly that thing hurts. It burns you through and through. It sets your blood on fire. When it reaches the worst, I simply lose all hope, all courage. That’s what makes me so sad.”

  “Oh,” cried Renni, “I would have bitten.”

  “I did try it . . . but the way the blows rained down . . . it was enough to kill me . . . . ”

  “You ought to have run away.”

  “Don’t say that! Run away from Him? Impossible! I love Him. In spite of it all I love Him more than anything else.”

  After this Renni timidly kept to George’s side when they went into Karl’s room for a visit. Pasha, at an order, crept at once to his place and did not dare make the slightest move. It was a modest room, sparingly furnished with hard chairs, a hard sofa, a bare table, cheap bric-a-brac. Karl offered George a little refreshment.

  “Have you made your mind up yet what your Renni is to be?”

  “Not yet,” George admitted uncertainly, stroking Renni, who had pricked up his ears at mention of his name.
>
  “I’m going to train Pasha for police work.”

  “How do you go about it?”

  “Well, the fundamental thing, absolute obedience, he already has. The other points I shall soon teach him. Here—” he interrupted himself—“take this book. You’ll find directions in it for all types of training—police work, messenger work, Red Cross service, and Seeing Eyes for the blind. You’ll soon get the idea how it’s done.”

  “Interesting!” George reached for the book. “I’m really very much obliged to you.”

  Renni was looking Karl steadily in the face as though he understood every word.

  “Of course you have to wait until the dog is full grown before you begin the training seriously.”

  “Oh, of course,” agreed George. And Renni seemed, to judge from his expression, to be entirely of that opinion.

  As they started to go, Karl smiled. “That book will cure you of your soft-hearted nonsense.”

  When he saw that George was about to give it back, he laughed aloud. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to train yourself to torture animals. Why, even I am not really cruel.”

  Pasha might have had something to say on that score if he’d been able to talk in human fashion.

  When George reached the street, he drew a long breath. Renni, feeling suddenly free, almost went crazy with joy. At home George showed the book to his mother. When she said, “Let me have it,” he did so readily enough, merely asking, “Why?”

  Her answer was a brief “Just so.”

  That, to be sure, was not a very clear reason, but it served between this understanding pair. Mother Marie held the book out to Renni. “Look at this. It’s meant for you.”

  The dog sniffed at it for a second and drew back as if afraid.

  “Maybe he guesses what’s in it.” She laughed.

  * * *

  After a few days she laid the book down before George.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “Read it yourself.” This time she did not smile.

  George repeated the question urgently. “I’d like to know what you think, Mother.”

  Mother Marie went out of the room without a word. George believed that he had her opinion. So he read it himself, but he was not, as Karl had prophesied, convinced by what he read, not by any means. Moreover, the soft-hearted nonsense remained uncured. Instead, it went wild. George became all excited. His gentle manner utterly vanished whenever he thought or spoke of what he had read.

  “What do you say, Mother?” he said, half-angry and half-worried. “ ‘Every once in a while a switching! Every once in a while a sound thrashing!’ What do you say to that?”

  “Everyone according to his own judgment,” said Mother Marie, trying to calm him. “There’s no denying the wonderful things dogs have accomplished.”

  George hastened to defend his position. “They would have done just as much if not more without punishment. A policeman told me once that while dogs were in training they were not allowed to be struck in any circumstances.”

  Mother Marie smiled. “That might be so.”

  “Of course it’s so. I saw the man working with his dog. The reason I spoke to him was because I liked the way he went about it and from then on my desire to own a dog like his became stronger and stronger.” He tapped the book. “Here they warn you not to attribute a soul to animals, or a real capacity to think. They settle everything with the word instinct. Instinct! Could there possibly be a word more meaningless than instinct? Oh, how arrogant men are! They think that they can settle the whole inner life of creatures as simply as that. These wonderful dogs are mysterious because they seek our company! They are made servile only by our craving to command! Just because they help us, because they want to help us!

  “We are a long, long way from valuing properly their unbounded love, their unquestioning yet intelligent devotion. We take it altogether too much for granted. We can’t appreciate their simple, candid natures, their inability to lie, because we don’t always tell the truth ourselves. Who was it said, ‘The more I see of men, the better I like dogs’?”

  George, ordinarily so quiet, had suddenly become an orator and a high-flying orator at that. His mother listened to him in astonishment. “Now, you’re going too far.”

  “I couldn’t possibly go too far.” His excitement swept him along. “Too far? Impossible! What have men ever done to repay all the loyalty, all the sacrifices, all the countless proofs of idolatry they have always taken as a matter of course? Feed them? Ridiculous! The dog was originally a beast of prey. He could very well have provided for his own food. To be sure, he might have become extinct if he hadn’t come to man of his own free will thousands of years ago. But it was a pretty poor piece of business for him when he did, though a very profitable one for man. Just think of all the irresistible ways they have of attaching themselves to us.

  “They don’t harm chickens, geese or other animals that belong to men. They guard and protect them. That’s been going on for thousands of years. You know how it is in hunting. The dog lays the game down at his master’s feet, no matter how great his temptation may be. That’s been impressed on him through countless generations, and no one takes the trouble to wonder at it for a second. Dogs serve and men command—and some men whip. Just like that! No one stops to think what a mountain peak of debt man owes to dogs. Perhaps in America they are more humane. I hear that hydrophobia is not so common over there.”

  At this moment Renni came slowly up, looked at his master questioningly and acted a bit timid. George’s violent words had puzzled the dog, for ordinarily he spoke in soft tones. George bent down, relaxed, laughed.

  “Well, what do you want, old fellow?”

  The dog immediately began a swift and joyous wagging of his tail, leaped up on George, laid his forepaws on his breast. “No,” whispered George. “No. I’ll never beat you. Never.” He caught the beautiful head in both hands, fondled his forehead at the point where, over the eyes, a slight furrow divided his skull and the silky hair felt even silkier. When he released him, Renni started tearing around and around the room, and cutting all kinds of capers. George’s laugh encouraged him. Mother Marie was saying, “Well, is Renni to go on without learning anything useful? That would be too bad.”

  “What do you mean, without learning anything useful?”

  “Didn’t you just now promise you’d never strike him? And if there’s no training without punishment . . . ”

  “Training, Mother? If that’s training, I don’t think much of it.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. It’s only a word. Maybe Karl likes the book because it expresses his own ideas. Maybe other books favour different methods, like your policeman friend. Anyhow, we have plenty of time, haven’t we, Renni?”

  At his name the dog, who had been scuffling with Kitty and was now standing directly over her, pricked up his ears. The cat seized the chance, slipped neatly between his legs and in the twinkling of an eye seated herself on Mother Marie’s lap, purring loudly.

  Chapter V

  ONE DAY GEORGE TOOK RENNI to the man from whom he had got him as a puppy. A friendly old housekeeper showed George in and patted Renni, who wagged his tail gently but acted a bit shy.

  “Fine fellow,” she praised. “One of ours?”

  George said he was.

  “Just come in,” she urged him. “The master will be pleasantly surprised.”

  A violent uproar sounded from within. “Mr. Vogg is just having a little understanding with his boy,” the housekeeper explained.

  When they entered his room, Vogg ignored them and went on swearing at the kennel boy who stood crushed before him.

  “You lazy rascal!” he cried. “You dyed-in-the-wool loafer! I’ll skin you alive!”

  While he went on roaring, George looked around the room. The furniture was old-fashioned. On the wall hung many photographs of proud white horses, sharp fox terriers, sturdy police dogs. The room had such an unmistakable air of comfort and content that George, in spi
te of the man’s yelling, felt himself at peace. Finally the kennel boy got away. Vogg turned to George and asked quite calmly, “Something I can do for you?”

  George said very politely, “I’d just like to know whether you’re pleased with Renni.”

  From the yard, evidently from the kennels, there came up a subdued but vigorous barking. Renni, his nose pointed straight down and his ears straight up, listened attentively toward the floor, but he did not even move when the man’s hand seized his coat rather roughly and pressed on his hind quarters trying in vain to push him down.

  “It’s he all right,” said Vogg. He took the dog by the head, lifted up his lips, opened his mouth and then turned him loose. “In good shape,” he murmured. Now Renni sniffed at the man carefully, wagged his tail first slowly then a bit faster, rubbed his neck against Vogg’s trousers, and finally lay down quietly. His head leaned more and more sharply forward at each outburst of barking from below. The two men looked at this byplay in silence.

  “Properly handled in every way,” Vogg said. A glance at George went with the sharp question, “Not too much whipping?”

  “No whipping at all,” smiled George. “I couldn’t strike a dog.” He felt a little uneasy and did not regain his composure until Vogg cried, “Good for you! That’s exactly my own idea.

  “Of the people who beat dogs, some use a whip,” he went on, “or even a stick, because it’s the most convenient and least troublesome way for them to come to terms. Perhaps they have a scrap of feeling for the animal. Others whip because it’s the easiest way to prove they’re masters of something. They are almost always browbeaten themselves by their bosses or their wives. When they start beating a dog, they’re simply getting even, relieving their humiliated feelings. They don’t think of the torture they’re giving the poor creature in their care. Worst of all are those who keep a dog only to give free rein to their cruel impulses. When they start beating him they actually enjoy it and that makes them keep on beating him. Curse their hides!”

  George was charmed to hear, from this expert, views so much like his own. “Do you think it possible to get results in training without whipping?”