Dandy: A Story of a Dog

He was of mixed breed, and was supposed to have a strain of Dandy
Dinmont blood which gave him his name. A big ungainly animal with a
rough shaggy coat of blue-grey hair and white on his neck and clumsy
paws. He looked like a Sussex sheep-dog with legs reduced to half their
proper length. He was, when I first knew him, getting old and
increasingly deaf and dim of sight, otherwise in the best of health and
spirits, or at all events very good-tempered.

Until I knew Dandy I had always supposed that the story of Ludlam's dog
was pure invention, and I daresay that is the general opinion about it;
but Dandy made me reconsider the subject, and eventually I came to
believe that Ludlam's dog did exist once upon a time, centuries ago
perhaps, and that if he had been the laziest dog in the world Dandy was
not far behind him in that respect. It is true he did not lean his head
against a wall to bark; he exhibited his laziness in other ways. He
barked often, though never at strangers; he welcomed every visitor,
even the tax-collector, with tail-waggings and a smile. He spent a good
deal of his time in the large kitchen, where he had a sofa to sleep on,
and when the two cats of the house wanted an hour's rest they would
coil themselves up on Dandy's broad shaggy side, preferring that bed to
cushion or rug. They were like a warm blanket over him, and it was a
sort of mutual benefit society. After an hour's sleep Dandy would go
out for a short constitutional as far as the neighbouring thoroughfare,
where he would blunder against people, wag his tail to everybody, and
then come back. He had six or eight or more outings each day, and,
owing to doors and gates being closed and to his lazy disposition, he
had much trouble in getting out and in. First he would sit down in the
hall and bark, bark, bark, until some one would come to open the door
for him, whereupon he would slowly waddle down the garden path, and if
he found the gate closed he would again sit down and start barking. And
the bark, bark would go on until some one came to let him out. But if
after he had barked about twenty or thirty times no one came, he would
deliberately open the gate himself, which he could do perfectly well,
and let himself out. In twenty minutes or so he would be back at the
gate and barking for admission once more, and finally, if no one paid
any attention, letting himself in.

Dandy always had something to eat at mealtimes, but he too liked a
snack between meals once or twice a day. The dog-biscuits were kept in
an open box on the lower dresser shelf, so that he could get one
"whenever he felt so disposed," but he didn't like the trouble this
arrangement gave him, so he would sit down and start barking, and as he
had a bark