In the interest of dogs everywhere the following true story, by Albert Payson Terhune, is presented:

"The Christmas Pup"

Up to the preceding day, the baby collie had lived costly in the puppy yard along with his gentle mother and his three brothers and sisters. It had been a peaceful and jolly life. From humans he had known nothing but friendliness. The world, to him, was a wondrous nice place to live in; a friendly and amusing place.

Then he had been put into a crate and sent on a bewilderingly long and jolting train trip that had lasted for a whole day. Still his faith in the friendliness of the world had not wavered, nor had his gay courage been shaken. From the train his crate had been loaded on a truck, and presently he had been lifted out at this strange and brightly-lit house, and had been tied to a chair in a strange and brightly-lit room and left there alone--he who never before had been in a house or been awake at such a late hour.

It had not occured to anyone that he might be dead tired from his long trip, or that he might be half starved or suffering from thirst-- as he was--or that rest and quiet are the first and greatest needs of a puppy on reaching a new home. But he was a gallant little chap, and eager for new, happy adventure. So he did not cry out nor give other signs of his growing physical malaise. Then to him avalanced a mob of young humans, who caught him up and pulled him about and yelled to him, and, in their grabbing, bruised his pudgily tender little body. It was a bedlam of noise and rough handling and of slowly dawning terror........

The parents beamed fondly on the pretty sight. They were pleased that they had made their children so happy by this expensive gift.

The puppy whimpered as one child yanked him away from another. There was a roar of laughter, as someone suggested the little collie was trying to sing. To cause an encore of the "song", the oldest girl tweaked his tail.

Panic and pain had begun to replace the puppy's first gladness at meeting these new humans. Panic and pain and bewilderment. The sharp tug at his sensitive tail completed the wreck of his highstrung nerves. Not knowing what he did, he turned and snapped, in feeble protest, at the torturing hand. One milk tooth scratched lightly the girl's thumb. At once her father strode forward, snatched the puppy from his precious daughter and struck him heavily over the head; then kicked him into a corner.

"They've sent me a vicious dog! The crooks!", he thundered, while his wife stooped to kiss the abraded thumb. "The filthy brute has hydrophobia. Look at him!"

The puppy was lying in a quivering heap in the corner, whither he had been kicked. Foam was flecking his mouth; his eyes were rolling. Physical agony enforced by hideous terror had thrown him into a convulsion.

Next morning the ashman poked curiously at a rumpled and moveless little bundle of soft brown fur on the top of the garbage can. The father's brave promptitude had saved countless people from being bitten by a rabid brute. And now he knew from terrible experience that a collie is an incurably savage dog, and no safe pet for a child.........