SOME FAMOUS DOGS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23121, 20 August 1938, Page 9 (Supplement)

SOME FAMOUS DOGS

OF all animals the dog is per- ' haps the greatest favourite of man, the horse coming a close second. The ancient Egyptians venerated dogs, which may be seen carved or painted on most of their friezes; and the dog was always linked in their thoughts with the Dog Star, the sign of the annual overflowing of the Nile. The Shepherd's Friend In Ethiopia a dog was elected as king. If lie fawned on his attendants he was supposed to be pleased with their proceedings; if ho growled lie was supposed to be displeased. Long ago the Greeks had dogs much like ours to-day. Without his dog the shepherd would find it a most difficult task to work his sheep. St. Bernard dogs are usually acknowledged to be among the most sagacious of all. four-footed creatures; and every now and then the world is amazed at some wonderfully clever dog, a Rin-tin-tin which seems almost human. King Arthur's Hound Of famous dogs there seems no end. There was Byron's Boatswain, now sleeping in the garden at Newstead Abbey. There was Landseer's magnificent Brutus; Hamlet and Slaida, favourites of Sir Walter Scott; and Geist and Kaiser, Matthew Arnold's dachshunds. There was Dash, Charles Lamb's dog; and Flush, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel. Still more famous was Sir Isaac Newton's little dog. He was known as Diamond, and one day he upset a candle on his master's table, thus destroying papers on which were the results of experiments

of great importance. Sir Isaac was not angry. All lie said was: " Oh Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done." Still more dogs run through literature and the classics. There was Argo3, the dog which recognised Ulysses when he returned from the wars; and Beth Gelert, the hound that Llewellyn slew because he thought it had killed his son, though all the time the brave dog had been defending the child from the attacks of a wolf. There were Actaeon's 50 dogs, and there was Cavall, King Arthur's favourite hound. Legend tolls us that the Seven Sleepers had a dog called Katmir which stood on guard for 309 years. Still another famous dog is Toby, without whom it is difficult to imagino a Punch and Judy show. An Old, Old Story Dogs have found their way into our everyday speech. We speak of every dog having his day, of giving a dog-a bad name, of a dog in the manger. We say a living dog is better than a dead Jion» and that barking dogs seldom bite. Often when we think it wise to leave well alone we say: Lot sleeping dogs lie. * One of the oldest, certainly one of the best known, of all.stories is of the dog which ran off with a piece of meat and saw its reflection in a stream. Thinking the piece of meat in the water to be bigger than the one he held in his mouth, he tried to seize it, and in doing so lost the good dinner he might have had. Rudyard Kipling dearly loved dogs, and wrote charmingly about them. And it was Senator George Graham Vest who paid to the dog one of the greatest tributes of all time:--Gentleman of the jury: The one absolute, unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.