TRUE STORY OF A SHEPHERD’S FAITHFUL DOG.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1726, 29 March 1905, Page 14

TRUE STORY OF A SHEPHERD’S FAITHFUL DOG.

A good example of a dog’s reasoning from false premises is the following:—A Highland shepherd possessed a collie which he had reared from puppydom. He was exceedingly kind to the animal, and it is needless to say the dog loved him, and was his constant companion day and night. In th& Highland hills and glens—up Loch Carron way, where the event I am about to relate took place —snowstorms are frequent in winter. It is the shepherd’s duty then to look well after his flock, lest any get buried, and, if necessary, to drive them down to the lower land. It was with, the latter intention that D took to the hills one day with his dog. It was calm in the morning, but a wild snowstorm was raging in the mountain and glen long before sunset. It will never be known whether or not the shepherd lost himself; the probability is he sat down to rest in the lee of a rock, and fell into a deep sleep, from which lie awoke no more.

Next day his dog appeared at the man’s cot; he AA’as very excited, and did AA’hat he had neA 7 er been knoAvn to do before—snatched a bannock from the table and rushed out with it. The opportunity to follow the dog Avas not neglected, for collies Avill often bring assistance to a master who has fallen over rock or cliff.

They tracked the poor collie through the siiow, up the glen, and over the hills, till at last they found him sitting AA’oefully by the body of his dead master. But the bannock ? It Avas found laid up against the shepherd’s cheek, the dog evidently having imagined it AA’as from hunger liis master suffered Many a time and oft had that Highlander shepherd shared his frugal meal Avith his collie; and hoaa’, collie must have thought; "I must try to do something for poor master.”