Chicken Soup for the Cat & Dog Lover's Soul by Jack Canfield Read Free Book Online

He was carried out through the window and slowly lowered onto the ground. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Another mystery solved.
    When my husband came home, we discussed how we could stop another “window escape.” We replaced the screen and nailed boards across the window at intervals that were too close for Sonny’s head to fit through. The boy pouted, and the horse whinnied on the other side for a few days—until Sonny managed to get his teeth between the boards and rip off the new screen. His head still wouldn’t fit, but now he could at least get his nose between the boards.
    With Wayne now safe in his room, I enjoyed walking by and seeing Sonny’s black muzzle thrust through the slats. And when my husband came home from work, often his first view of the house showed a huge, black horse pressed against the white boards with the lower part of his face disappearing inside the window.
    Even when the cold weather forced me to close the window, Sonny remained outside with his face pressed against the glass, the comfort of a stable forsaken to be near his boy.
    Alicia Karen Elkins

Greyfriars Bobby
    I n death they were not parted.
    2 Samuel 1:23
    Sometime in the mid-1850s, a Skye terrier came to live on a farm in the hills outside of Edinburgh, Scotland. Named Bobby, the little dog attached himself to Auld Jock, the farmer’s shepherd.
    Auld Jock was a fixture in those Scottish hills, and soon he and Bobby became inseparable, tending the farmer’s sheep and traveling once a week to market in the capital. Market day always featured a special lunch at the Greyfriars dining rooms. When the Edinburgh Castle gun sounded at 1:00 P.M., Jock and Bobby left whatever they were doing and headed for the dining room where the man and his dog shared their meal . . . sometimes over the protests of the manager.
    Within a couple of years after meeting Bobby, Jock’s age began to weigh on him, and he contracted tuberculosis. He headed into retirement, taking small quarters in Edinburgh. Forced to leave Bobby at the farm, Jock sadly bid his companion good-bye and moved to the capital alone.
    However, the next day, when Jock showed up at the Greyfriars dining rooms at the sound of the one o’clock gun, he was astonished to see Bobby rushing in to join him. Bobby had escaped from the farm and run all the way down from the hills to make sure he kept up their market-day custom. Reunited, the two friends enjoyed their lunch, then returned to Jock’s rooms where the old man made plans to return the little terrier to the farm the next day.
    It was never to be. Before he could return Bobby, Jock’s tuberculosis overtook him, and he died. Two days later neighbors found Bobby guarding the body, at first not allowing anyone to come near. Jock’s few friends arranged a simple funeral.
    As the mourner’s procession moved through the streets of Edinburgh, a small, distraught dog trailed behind them, following the casket containing his friend to Greyfriars Cemetery. The cemetery used for the royalty of Scotland was the final resting place for Auld Jock.
    When the funeral service ended and the mourners departed, Bobby remained, lying on the grave, forlorn, a lone dog mourning his adored master. However, such revered ground wasn’t for the convenience of dogs. James Brown, the sexton, spotted Bobby lying on the newly made mound and chased him from the hallowed ground.
    But the next morning, when Brown started doing his chores, he again spotted a sleeping dog on top of the most recent grave. Bobby must have sneaked back to the grave as soon as the sky had turned dark and spent the night there.
    Brown chased him from the cemetery again, but that night Bobby returned and lay down once more on his master’s grave. The next morning was cold and wet and when the sexton saw the faithful animal lying shivering on the grave, he took pity on him. He gave him some food, and though it meant breaking the cemetery’s rules, Brown allowed