Greetings, esteemed viewers, and welcome to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Today’s show features the third part of a three-part series on the thoughtful, classic short story “A Dog’s Tale,” by US author, humanitarian and outspoken animal advocate Mark Twain. This fine work published in 1903 is written from the perspective of a loyal canine companion named Aileen.

Besides being a central figure in US literature, renowned author and humanitarian Mark Twain was a prominent advocate of animal welfare who spoke out against abuses such as bullfighting and vivisection.

Animals were featured in many of Mr. Twain’s works, from his newspaper articles condemning animal cruelty to the thoughtful pieces written toward the end of his life, “A Dog’s Tale” in 1903, “A Horse’s Tale” in 1907 and his letter to the London Anti-Vivisection Society in 1899. Several of Mark Twain’s moving commentaries were widely circulated in the press and numerous copies were circulated as pamphlets to promote the cause of animal welfare. In his letter to the London Anti-Vivisection Society, he wrote:

“I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't... The pain which it inflicts upon un-consenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further.”

Today, we conclude our presentation of Mark Twain’s short story “A Dog’s Tale,” an engaging first-person narrative on the life of a loyal canine companion. Previously, the story’s main character, Aileen the dog, had risked her life to save that of her caregivers’ newborn baby from a fire, but instead of getting praise or words of encouragement, Aileen was chased and beaten by the male owner of the house. In utter confusion and terror, Aileen, now limping on three legs, went and hid in the home’s small attic.

They called and called— days and nights, it seemed to me. So long that the hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized that I was getting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal, and I did. Once I woke in an awful fright— it seemed to me that the calling was right there in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie’s voice, and she was crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken, poor thing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard her say: Come back to us— oh, come back to us, and forgive— it is all so sad without our —”

I broke in with SUCH a grateful little yelp, and the next moment Sadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the lumber and shouting for the family to hear, “She’s found, she’s found!”

The days that followed— well, they were wonderful. The mother and Sadie and the servants— why, they just seemed to worship me. They couldn’t seem to make me a bed that was fine enough; and as for food, they couldn’t be satisfied with anything but delicacies that were out of season; and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to hear about my heroism— that was the name they called it by, and it means agriculture.

I remember my mother pulling it on a kennel once, and explaining it in that way, but didn’t say what agriculture was, except that it was synonymous with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times a day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I risked my life to save the baby’s, and both of us had burns to prove it, and then the company would pass me around and pet me and exclaim about me, and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; and when the people wanted to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed and changed the subject, and sometimes when people hunted them this way and that way with questions about it, it looked to me as if they were going to cry.

And this was not all the glory; no, the master’s friends came, a whole twenty of the most distinguished people, and had me in the laboratory, and discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery; and some of them said it was wonderful in a dumb beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they could call to mind; but the master said, with vehemence,

“It’s far above instinct; it’s REASON, and many a man, privileged to be saved and go with you and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less of it that this poor silly quadruped that’s foreordained to perish";

and then he laughed, and said:

“Why, look at me— I’m a sarcasm! bless you, with all my grand intelligence, the only thing I inferred was that the dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the beast’s intelligence— it’s REASON, I tell you!—the child would have perished!”

They disputed and disputed, and I was the very center of subject of it all, and I wished my mother could know that this grand honor had come to me; it would have made her proud. Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a certain injury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but they could not agree about it, and said they must test it by experiment by and by; and next they discussed plants, and that interested me, because in the summer Sadie and I had planted seeds—I helped her dig the holes, you know —and after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up there, and it was a wonder how that could happen; but it did, and I wished I could talk —I would have told those people about it and shown then how much I knew, and been all alive with the subject; but I didn’t care for the optics; it was dull, and when came back to it again it bored me, and I went to sleep.

Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely, and the sweet mother and the children patted me and the puppy good-by, and went away on a journey and a visit to their kin, and the master wasn’t any company for us, but we played together and had good times, and the servants were kind and friendly, so we got along quite happily and counted the days and waited for the family.

Aileen’s heroism and intelligence won the hearts of family and friends, and her bountiful happiness and delight never seemed to end. When we return, we will continue her story. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants, where we now feature the conclusion of “A Dog’s Tale.”

And one day those men came again, and said, now for the test, and they took the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along, too, feeling proud, for any attention shown to the puppy was a pleasure to me, of course. They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the puppy shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering around, with his head all bloody, and the master clapped his hands and shouted: “There, I’ve won— confess it! He’s as blind as a bat!”

And they all said:

“It’s so—you’ve proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes you a great debt from henceforth,”

and they crowded around him, and wrung his hand cordially and thankfully, and praised him. But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my little darling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked the blood, and it put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in my heart it was a comfort to it in its pain and trouble to feel its mother’s touch, though it could not see me. Then it dropped down, presently, and its little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was still, and did not move any more. Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the footman, and said,

“Bury it in the far corner of the garden,”

and then went on with the discussion, and I trotted after the footman, very happy and grateful, for I knew the puppy was out of its pain now, because it was asleep. We went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have two, or it is no use.

When the footman had finished and covered little Robin up, he patted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he said: “Poor little doggie, you saved HIS child!” I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn’t come up! This last week a fright has been stealing upon me. I think there is something terrible about this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick, and I cannot eat, though the servants bring me the best of food; and they pet me so, and even come in the night, and cry, and say, “Poor doggie—do give it up and come home; don’t break our hearts!” and all this terrifies me the more, and makes me sure something has happened.

And I am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore. And within this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where it was sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on, said things I could not understand, but they carried something cold to my heart. “Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in the morning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie that did the brave deed, and who of us will be strong enough to say the truth to them: ’The humble little friend is gone where go the beasts that perish.’”

As the story ends, our hearts are saddened by the fate of the innumerable helpless, innocent animals dissected, infected, injected, gassed, burned and blinded while fully conscious in university and commercial research laboratories around the world. These innocent, intelligent beings, who have feelings and awareness the same as humans, are forced to be subjects in unethical, cruel and appalling experiments and procedures.

The fact is that animals are vastly different from humans with respect to anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and metabolism, so the results of experiments on animals are not valid for humans. For these reasons, we call for a worldwide ban on the practice of experimentation and demonstration on live animals, and look forward to soon-in-coming peaceful, harmonious future where all of humanity adopts the compassionate, ethical organic vegan lifestyle to preserve animals, humans and our precious ecosphere.

Our hero’s salute goes to the esteemed author and animal advocate Mark Twain for his insightful work promoting the welfare of animals. We also thank all anti-vivisectionists and concerned citizens around the world for their noble efforts to save our vulnerable animal friends. Intelligent viewers, thank you for your company today on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants. Up next is Enlightening Entertainment right after Noteworthy News. May we all live and let live in peace and unity.

Just as the uniqueness of each human being in our society is valued, the uniqueness of each species on our planet is a treasure we must protect. However, this treasure is rapidly disappearing. Esteemed botanist Dr. Peter Raven of the US believes our planet's Biodiversity is in severe danger.

In the past, in the geological record, we were losing about a dozen or so per year. Over the last 500 years, since people began writing about well-known groups of organisms, we’ve been losing hundreds a year. And now we seem to be losing thousands per year, going up towards tens of thousands

Please join us and learn more about the biodiversity crisis from Dr. Peter Raven, Wednesday, May 12, on Planet Earth: Our Loving Home.