Greyfriars Bobby Was a Scam to Lure Tourists.

[jones jones]

I must say I have always been sceptical when people have attributed human feelings and emotions to their pets. Dogs in the wild, before they were domesticated by man, operated in packs and what was good for the pack was good for the dog.

In my humble opinion dogs know nothing about love at all and what we conceive to be human traits are simply our own desire to believe this. Dogs only recognise dog stuff, namely: hunger, thirst, pain and the need to mate. Everything else is simply our imagination.

(Reuters) - The most faithful dog in the world, which kept a 14-year vigil at his master's grave in Edinburgh, Scotland, was nothing but a Victorian business stunt, according to historian Jan Bondeson.

The 140-year-old story of Greyfriars Bobby continues to draw tourists to the graveyard that was once inhabited by the Skye Terrier commemorated by a bronze fountain erected in his memory in the cemetery and immortalised on the silver screen by Walt Disney in a 1961 film.

But Bondeson, a senior lecturer at Cardiff University, claims that Bobby was far from the dependable dog portrayed in the tale of undying Scottish devotion.

He says the story was a fabrication, created by cemetery curator, James Brown, and restaurant owner, John Traill, to drum up custom for local businesses -- and that Bobby was a stray mutt, bribed with food to stay in the graveyard.

"The entire story is wrong --the account of the dog on the drinking fountain who supposedly kept vigil at his master's grave in all kinds of weather is not accurate. Bobby would go out hunting rats in the church and was kept well fed by the locals. He was not a mourning dog at all -- he was a happy little dog," Bondeson told Reuters.

The trusty terrier - as the story goes- kept watch over the grave of his beloved master, Edinburgh policeman John Gray, from his death in 1858 until the animal died in 1872.

However, after studying drawings and contemporary accounts of Bobby while researching his book, "Amazing Dogs," Bondeson also realised that he was looking at two different pooches.

"I noticed that the two dogs looked quite different. The first Bobby was quite an ugly dog but in later paintings he looks just like the statue on the drinking fountain," Bondeson said.

The first Bobby, an old mongrel, died in 1867, leaving Brown and Traill with a problem on their hands, Bondeson said.

"A dead bobby was no good for business, so they replaced him with a pure-bred Skye terrier who lived for a further five years until 1872 -- after which it time did not take long for the fountain to be erected," said Bondeson.

(Edited by Paul Casciato)

[fuzzywuzzy]

they just made a film about it ...but the dog in the film is a west highland white terrier

[Snooz]

Another one: Hachik

[gmc]

There'll be an element of truth in it, a stray dog will hang around where it's being fed whether it realised it's master was buried there or not is a moot point.

Greyfriars Bobby - Some Friends of Bobby

He lived at 28 Candlemaker Row overlooking the Greyfriars Kirk Yard and used to see Bobby running after the cats . He befriended Bobby and encourage him to recognised that the boom of the One o’clock Time Gun, was a call for dinner.



William Dow a cabinet maker at George Heriot’s Hospital (now a School) frequently used the path through the Kirkyard to the eating house. His daughter, writing in The Scotsman newspaper in 1953, said that she had stroked and held Bobby in her arms many times and that she went to the Eating House with her father where Bobby would have his dinner.

Robert Richie and his daughter used to see Bobby chasing the cats in the Kirkyard, also James Anderson, an Upholsterer, both lived in Candlemaker Row overlooking the Kirkyard, both tried to encourage Bobby, during the harsh weather, to come inside but to no avail.



This area in Candlemaker Row is now occupied by Bobby’s Bar. Previous occupiers of the Eating House, where Bobby had a good meal, were in 1857 -1858 Wm. Ramsey: 1858 -1859 Mrs Ramsey: 1859 - 1861 Wm. Pattison: 1861 - 1862 James Currie.



From May 1862 John Traill, the new owner, gave Bobby his dinner, until Bobby’s death on 14th January 1872. According to records Bobby died in John Traill’s home and friends got together and buried him in the triangular flower bed beneath the tree in front of the old Greyfriars Kirk, on unconsecreated ground. They marked the spot with a stone but it was later removed.


It's a nice story though, don't know if you have ever been there edinburgh is an old city it was built in a time when no one had cars - there are still people living in candlemakers row looking down at the kirkyard where burke and hare also went about their grave robbing business. Expensive place to buy a flat nowadays. Dog breed in those days look very little like the ones we think of when we talk about breeds and thety were all mongrels at some point and any mongrel given a wash and groomed looks very different afterwards.

[Snooz]

I forgot to mention that just because some people came in after the fact and exploited the story doesn't mean that the original Bobby mythos didn't have some basis in fact.