Mr. Bonelli had a lot of dogs beside me.

Mr. Bonelli had a lot of dogs beside me. Some of them were big, and some were little. I was afraid of them at first, there were so many of them, but they were very friendly dogs,—not proud and snarly like Prince Coco and Fifine.

They were all trained dogs, and could do a great many wonderful tricks. Mr. Bonelli had trained them. After they were trained he took them to a big place called a theatre, and crowds and crowds of people came to see them do their tricks. Showing off his dogs was Mr. Bonelli’s business, just as going to the factory was Mr. O’Grady’s business.

Soon after I came to live with Mr. Bonelli he began to teach me tricks. He began with easy tricks, almost as easy as the ones Mr. O’Grady had taught me, but he went on to harder and harder ones. Some of them were very hard indeed, and some were funny. I never knew there were so many tricks a dog could learn. And the other dogs knew just as many as I did. At least some of them didn’t know as many, but some of them knew more. I had thought I was smart when I learned those three little tricks Mr. O’Grady had taught me, but I knew better now. I heard Mr. Bonelli say he had never had a dog that learned as quickly as I did.

Mr. and Mrs. Bonelli lived in a big house, but they didn’t live in all of it. They lived downstairs and some other people lived upstairs. There was a man upstairs who played a horn. When he played it I felt so sad it made me howl, but Mr. Bonelli always spoke sharply to me when I did that, so after a while I learned I mustn’t.

Back of the house was a yard, and every day we dogs were turned out there to run about awhile and get the fresh air. Trained dogs act just like any other dogs. They sniff about and play together, only never fight. Mr. Bonelli wouldn’t allow any fighting.

The dog I liked best was a little black dog named Sambo. He was just about my size, and we played together a great deal. We were great friends.Besides Sambo there was a poodle named Punch, and a terrier named Frisco; then there were Ruby—he was a setter—and Snaps, and Diamond, and Sancho and Frolic. I don’t know what kinds of dogs they were. There was a long-legged greyhound, too, who could jump further than any dog I ever saw. His name was Graceful.

There had been another dog, but he had died, and that is the reason Mr. Bonelli had come to the shop and had bought me.

When Mr. Bonelli first began to teach me my tricks he took me off in a quiet room by myself; but when I had once learned them, I had to do them before all the other dogs with Mrs. Bonelli making loud music on a piano.

At first it was harder to do it there before the others, and I made mistakes; but I soon became used to it, and then it wasn’t any harder to pay attention with all the others there than when I was in a room alone with Mr. Bonelli.

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