a tendency to give him qualities that reflect political agendas. One radical writer has, for example, criticized the modern statue that inspired my column on the grounds that it is too twee and âheritageâ, and not as defiant as the original.
I find the Brown Dog a much richer and more intriguing subject than the tale of another dog commemorated by public monument â Greyfriars Bobby. We know much more aboutBobbyâs character than we do about the Brown Dogâs, and he seems pretty bonkers to me.
Bobbyâs story is well known. A Skye Terrier, he belonged to a certain John Gray, who worked as a constable and night-watchman for the Edinburgh police. Gray died of tuberculosis in 1858, just two years after acquiring Bobby, and was buried in Greyfriars churchyard. For the next fourteen years, until his own death in 1872, Bobby watched over his masterâs grave. He was nearly destroyed as a feral dog in 1867, but the Lord Provost of Edinburgh personally paid his dog-licence and gave him a collar. When he died Angela Burdett Coutts (the immensely rich Victorian philanthropist who, in a twist that brings together the Brown Dog and Greyfriars Bobby stories, was very much involved in establishing the NSPCC alongside the lawyer Stephen Coleridge) commissioned a statue to stand at the end of the George IV Bridge in his memory.
I find Bobbyâs story shockingly sad. There is a narrow line dividing doggy fidelity and canine monomania, and Bobby had definitely crossed it. I have met one or two Labradors who have become monomaniac in their devotion to tennis balls: they show almost no interest in anything but fetching and will continue to offer you a ball to throw for as long as you are prepared to do it. Bobbyâs fixation with his masterâs grave was a similarly unhealthy narrowing of his lifeâs focus.
But he has, of course, been widely celebrated as a model of fidelity, and his story has inspired books and films. The most famous of them is Eleanor Atkinsonâs sentimental novel
Greyfriars Bobby
, first published in 1912 and reincarnated as a Disney filmin 1961. Ms Atkinson was born in the American Midwest and never visited Edinburgh, but that did not stop her giving her imagination full rein when it came to evoking âScottishnessâ: John Gray, Bobbyâs master, becomes âAuld Jockâ, and some of Atkinsonâs renditions of the local dialect are completely impenetrable. Here is the graveyard caretaker, Mr Brown, explaining why he enjoys Bobbyâs visits to his sickbed: âIlka morn he fetches âis bane up, thinkinâ it a braw giftie for an ill man. Anâ syne he veesits me twa times iâ the day, juist bidinâ a wee on the hearthstane, lollinâ âis tongue anâ wagginâ âis tail, cheerfuâ like. Bobby has mair gude sense in âis heid than mony a man wha comes ben the house, wi lang face, to let me ken Iâm gangin to dee.â No? Me neither. But the book is considered a classic.
Of course, the really bonkers behaviour is not Bobbyâs, it is that of his fans. There is now a red granite headstone erected in his memory, and people put sticks there for him to chase.
6
Mad Dogs, Hero Dogs and Your Health
I hope happiness hasnât gone to the dogs
17 April 2010
KUDU DID A SPELL at boarding school while we spent a weekend in Scotland. His best friend, the boisterous Poodle, Teddy, was there too, and I know he felt at home because the headmistress told me he tried to climb on to her bed.
But his behaviour on his return suggested he had been delivered from the fires of hell. Whimpering with excitement, he found as many of his toys as he could and delivered them as sacrificial offerings. Hemade victory circuits of the garden, sprinted from the top of the house to the bottom of the basement stairs, and licked the cats until they dripped with slobber. It was only three days, for goodnessâ sake!
It had been a
I find the Brown Dog a much richer and more intriguing subject than the tale of another dog commemorated by public monument â Greyfriars Bobby. We know much more aboutBobbyâs character than we do about the Brown Dogâs, and he seems pretty bonkers to me.
Bobbyâs story is well known. A Skye Terrier, he belonged to a certain John Gray, who worked as a constable and night-watchman for the Edinburgh police. Gray died of tuberculosis in 1858, just two years after acquiring Bobby, and was buried in Greyfriars churchyard. For the next fourteen years, until his own death in 1872, Bobby watched over his masterâs grave. He was nearly destroyed as a feral dog in 1867, but the Lord Provost of Edinburgh personally paid his dog-licence and gave him a collar. When he died Angela Burdett Coutts (the immensely rich Victorian philanthropist who, in a twist that brings together the Brown Dog and Greyfriars Bobby stories, was very much involved in establishing the NSPCC alongside the lawyer Stephen Coleridge) commissioned a statue to stand at the end of the George IV Bridge in his memory.
I find Bobbyâs story shockingly sad. There is a narrow line dividing doggy fidelity and canine monomania, and Bobby had definitely crossed it. I have met one or two Labradors who have become monomaniac in their devotion to tennis balls: they show almost no interest in anything but fetching and will continue to offer you a ball to throw for as long as you are prepared to do it. Bobbyâs fixation with his masterâs grave was a similarly unhealthy narrowing of his lifeâs focus.
But he has, of course, been widely celebrated as a model of fidelity, and his story has inspired books and films. The most famous of them is Eleanor Atkinsonâs sentimental novel
Greyfriars Bobby
, first published in 1912 and reincarnated as a Disney filmin 1961. Ms Atkinson was born in the American Midwest and never visited Edinburgh, but that did not stop her giving her imagination full rein when it came to evoking âScottishnessâ: John Gray, Bobbyâs master, becomes âAuld Jockâ, and some of Atkinsonâs renditions of the local dialect are completely impenetrable. Here is the graveyard caretaker, Mr Brown, explaining why he enjoys Bobbyâs visits to his sickbed: âIlka morn he fetches âis bane up, thinkinâ it a braw giftie for an ill man. Anâ syne he veesits me twa times iâ the day, juist bidinâ a wee on the hearthstane, lollinâ âis tongue anâ wagginâ âis tail, cheerfuâ like. Bobby has mair gude sense in âis heid than mony a man wha comes ben the house, wi lang face, to let me ken Iâm gangin to dee.â No? Me neither. But the book is considered a classic.
Of course, the really bonkers behaviour is not Bobbyâs, it is that of his fans. There is now a red granite headstone erected in his memory, and people put sticks there for him to chase.
6
Mad Dogs, Hero Dogs and Your Health
I hope happiness hasnât gone to the dogs
17 April 2010
KUDU DID A SPELL at boarding school while we spent a weekend in Scotland. His best friend, the boisterous Poodle, Teddy, was there too, and I know he felt at home because the headmistress told me he tried to climb on to her bed.
But his behaviour on his return suggested he had been delivered from the fires of hell. Whimpering with excitement, he found as many of his toys as he could and delivered them as sacrificial offerings. Hemade victory circuits of the garden, sprinted from the top of the house to the bottom of the basement stairs, and licked the cats until they dripped with slobber. It was only three days, for goodnessâ sake!
It had been a
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