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grieve canine  May 2 2003  People want dogs to worship them, but
Justine Hankins writes that stories of endlessly grieving
animals deny them an existence outside our own.  In Landseer's
painting, The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner, a doleful sheepdog
rests its head at the foot of his master's coffin. This winsome
image - a spartan room, a dead shepherd, and a grieving dog -
had Victorian art lovers reaching for their lace hankies. In an
age before postmodern irony, sentimentality was nothing to be
ashamed of, and Victorians loved to upset themselves with
touching tales of humility, loyalty and loss.  Landseer's
painting combined two contemporary preoccupations: death and
dogs. One of the most popular canine heroes of the day was
Greyfriars' Bobby; a Skye terrier who kept vigil at his master's
grave, John Gray, in Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh, for 14
years until the dog's death in 1872. Bobby was honoured with an
obituary in the Scotsman and, a