In 1858 a funeral procession entered the old Gray Friar's grave-yard in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the funeral of a poor man, and the chief mourner who followed the hearse was the poor man's dog.
After the funeral all the human friends of this poor man went to their homes, but the dog would not leave his master's grave. Day after day people tried to get the dog away, but he would keep coming back to his master’s grave. Finally, it became known through the city, and the neighbors fed the dog and gave him shelter in cold weather, and the Lord Provost, or Presidente of the City, gave him a collar; and for about fourteen years, up to his death in 1872, he did not leave the neighborhood of his master's grave.
A few years ago that excellent English lady, the Baroness Burdett Coutts, caused a monument to be built for him near the entrance to the Gray Friar’s Churchyard, and it will probably stand hundreds of years to tell the people of Edinburgh about this faithful dog.
And now let us see what dogs do for us. In the cold Northern countries where there are no horses or oxen, dogs are used to draw the sleds over the ice and snow. In other countries they are used to hunt wolves and other wild animals, and sometimes to follow bad men who have committed crimes. In countries where large numbers of sheep are raised, they guard the sheep, keeping off all wild animals. In some countries it would not be possible to keep sheep if there were no dogs to guard them. In some places it would not be possible, without dogs, to protect chickens and poultry from foxes and other wild animals.
Thousands of human lives have been saved by them, ——lives of persons who have fallen into the water and would have drowned if dogs had not jumped in and pulled them out. In one case, while I was in London, about eleven years ago, a man fell into the water and sank to the bottom, and a good dog dove to the bottom and brought him up, and brought him safe to the shore. Some of us gave money to buy a beautiful collar for this dog, and on it we had written: “A MEMBER or THE ROYAL HUMANE SOCIETY.” Sometimes dogs save shipwrecked sailors by swimming with ropes from the wreck to the shore.
They have saved the lives of many persons who have been almost frozen or buried under the snow. In one case I knew of, three little children at Gloucester, Mass., going home from school in a great snow-storm, lost their way and were covered with snow, and would have died if a good dog had not found them.
And then dogs guard our houses in the night when we are all asleep, and drive off robbers and other bad people, or if bad people try to get in, they bark and awaken us. Only a short time since, I knew of a case in which a whole family would have been burned to death in their house, in the night, if the dog had not barked and waked them.
There are many books filled with stories about the good things dogs have done, and many other books might be filled with other stories just as good. They have always been the friends and companions of human beings, and are generally, when kindly treated, very kind to children. A great writer of books, named CUVIER, who has studied this whole subject, thinks that men could spare any other animal better than they could spare dogs.
Some dogs that have been badly treated become cross and dangerous. Some men and boys treat them cruelly, but when they have been treated kindly, I think they are almost always kind. Some of the greatest and best men that have ever lived have been very fond of dogs, such men as Sir Walter Scott and Sir Edwin Landseer. And poor men often find them their best friends. A poor, sick colored man, sometime since, travelled on foot many miles to the hospital at Louisville, Kentucky, to see if he could get cured, having with him his dog. But when they told him he must abandon his dog and turn him into the street, because they would not have any dog in the hospital, the poor man took the dog in his arms, and with tears running down his face, said he would rather die with his dog than turn him into the street and go to the hospital. I am glad to say that when they found how much he loved the dog, they let the dog enter with him.
Many more things-I should be glad to tell you about dogs, but it would make this lesson too long.
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