Border dogs with real character

hey were a sight to behold: a pack of 50 Dandie Dinmont terriers assembled by the Tron Kirk off the Royal Mile, many neatly attired in black-and-white tartan waistcoats. What they were doing there has as much to do with literature as the lowlands from where they originate. The Dandies had come from all over Scotland and England at the request of Edinburgh financier and philanthropist Sir Angus Grossart. They were to take part in his day of national celebration for the life of Sir Walter Scott, whose character Dandie Dinmont, in his second novel, , gave these short, wirehaired, low-slung terriers their name. Sir Angus had requested that they should be present in the service in St Giles’ Cathedral to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Sir Walter’s birth last autumn. I was to lead them into church and on the procession, which followed down The Mound to the Scott monument on Princes Street. Also at his request, I was to be dressed as Dandie Dinmont (from the 1827 portrait in the National Gallery in London, based on John).