Another fence story concerns my old Bully and his mortal enemy, a white Spitz, which
lived in a house whose long, narrow garden flanked the village street and was bordered bygreen wooden railings. Along the thirty yards of this fence the two heroes would gallop backwards and forwards, barking furiously and only stopping for a moment at the turning points at both ends in order to curse each other with all the gestures and
sounds of frustrated fury. One day, an embarrassing situation arose: the fence was undergoing repairs and parts of it had been carried away for the purpose. The upper fifteen yards of the fence, that is, the part furthest from the Danube, still remained,
while the lower half was gone. Now Bully and I came down the hill from our house, on our way to the river. The Spitz of course, had noticed us and was waiting growling and quivering with excitement at the topmost corner of the garden. First of all, a
stationary cursing duel took place as usual, then the dogs, one each side of the fence, broke into their customary gallop along its front. And now the disaster happened: they ran past the place where the fence had been removed and only noticed their error
on their arrival at the lower corner of the garden, where a further cursing match
was due. There they stood with bristling hair and brutally bared fangs and—there
was no fence. Immediately their barking ceased. And now, what did they do? As one dog, they turned about and rushed flank to flank back to the still remaining fence
where they recommenced their barking as though nothing had happened.