INCREDIBLE CRUELTY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2813, 12 February 1908, Page 67

INCREDIBLE CRUELTY.

THE "BOUNDARY" DOG. CHRISTCHURCH, February 6. There is one dog at least in Central Ot-ago which is certainly leading a " dog's life " of the worst kind. A Chrisiohurch visitor to that locality states that the canine is chained up right on the brink of the Clutha River on the road fiom Chde to Cromwell, and is what is termed a " boun-dary-keeper," his duties being to bark at stray sheep to keep them, off the road. Inquiries made of the driver elicited the information that the poor brute had been •chained up in solitary confinement for about five months, and had only once during that long period had a brief interval of liberty, the occasion being one on which he found life intolerable, and made a. dash for freedom. He was captured and chained up once more, and there he will probably remain till ho rusts out or dies of melancholia. Hi 6 only shelter from the elements consists of a small box, which lies on its side, and his bill of fare is a keg of water let into the ground and the bundles of raw meat thrown to him by the driver as the coach passes. On the occasion in question the exiled animal was so delighted at the sight of human activity that he nearly wagged his ta.il off in ecstasy, and took absolutely no notice of the meat thrown to him. "How docs he fare when the coach happens to miss a day?" queried the passenger of the driver. " Oh, then he doesn't get anything, that's all," was the answer.

A stock inspector informed a Wairarapa Times reporter last week that dairy herds in the Forty-mile Bush were none the worse for their long spel of dry feed. Mr Richard Withers, of Great Rollright, Oxfordshire, who is just 102, received a letter of congratulation from Major F. Ponsonby on behalf of the King.