A Dog's Mistake [In Doggerel Verse]

He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide,

He was just a wand'ring mongrel from the weary world outside;

He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair,

With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear

He was very poor and humble and content with what he got,

So we fed him bones and biscuits, till he heartened up a lot;

Then he growled and grew aggressive, treating orders with disdain,

Till at last he bit the butcher, which would argue want of brain.

Now the butcher, noble fellow, was a sport beyond belief,

And instead of bringing actions he brought half a shin of beef,

Which he handed on to Fido, who received it as a right

And removed it to the garden, where he buried it at night.

'Twas the means of his undoing, for my wife, who'd stood his friend,

To adopt a slang expression, "went in off the deepest end",

For among the pinks and pansies, the gloxinias and the gorse

He had made an excavation like a graveyard for a horse.

Then we held a consultation which decided on his fate:

'Twas in anger more than sorrow that we led him to the gate,

And we handed him the beef-bone as provision for the day,

Then we opened wide the portal and we told him, "On your way."