Winston, a blue merle Australian Shepherd, likes to be helpful. In this case he has retrieved a newspaper: one can only hope that whoever had it last had finished reading it. As the accompanying story attests, some dogs can be a little too eager to help.
Mr C. Hughes, a son of Thespis,* had a wig which generally hung on a peg in one of his rooms. To accommodate a brother player, he one day lent the wig to him and, some time after, called on his friend.
Mr Hughes had his dog with him, and the man happened to have the borrowed wig on his head. After some conversation, they parted; but the dog remained behind, and stood, for some time, looking the man full in his face, then, making a sudden spring, he leaped on his shoulders, seized the wig, and ran off with it as fast as he could, and, having reached his home, with the prey in his teeth, endeavoured, by jumping, to hang it up in its usual place.
The same dog one day, passing through a field in the skirts of Dartmouth, where a washerwoman had hung out her linen to dry, stopped, and surveyed one particular shirt with attention; seizing it, he dragged it away, through the dirt, to his master, whose property it happened to be.
* That is, an actor, a Thespian. Thespis (fl. 6th century BC) of Icaria (modern-day Dionysos in northeastern Attica) is remembered as the first stage-performer to have acted a role, rather than appearing as himself. He and his fellow-players worked from scripts and adopted masks as costumes, an acting style acknowledged as the foundation of Western theatre. He is also thought to be the first actor to go on tour, transporting his masks and costumes in a horse-drawn wagon.
Précis
An eager dog once used his initiative to recover his master’s ‘stolen’ wig, snatching it directly off the head of the man to whom his master had lent it. On another occasion, he retrieved one of his master’s missing shirts, trailing it home through the mud from the washing line of the lady who did nis master’s laundry. (58 / 60 words)
