They’re separated by an ocean and a continent but they’re mutt brothers… here’s Edinburgh and San Diego a tale of two doggies.
We’d never dream of passing by the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, made a freeman of the city, on George IV Bridge, without a nod.
Although the city’s burghers have long been fighting a losing battle trying to stop people rubbing his nose.
A Bum note
Less heralded but just as deserving is Edinburgh’s ‘other’ doggie statue, Bum.
Bum, like Bobby whose story so charmed Walt Disney he made a film about him, has a home in a graveyard.
In Bobby’s case it is Greyfriars Kirk, or church, next to his master ‘Old Jock’ on whose headstone he slept for 14 years.
In Bum’s case it’s the still older St Cuthbert’s Graveyard, in West Princes Street Gardens at the foot of Edinburgh Castle Rock.
And along from the National Gallery which has its own faithful dog and generous benefactor story.
That Bum is commemorated here at all, and we’re very glad he is, is down to Edinburgh and San Diego being twinned.
The best of mutts
And canineophile councillors on each side of the Atlantic tightening the bonds formed in 1977, thirty-one years later.
And who can blame them if they got a trip out to each other’s city for the ceremony?
So, for those not from San Diego or Southern California, here’s Bum’s story, and quite a tail it is too.
Where Bum came from nobody knows, he arrived as a stowaway into San Diego in 1886.
Pooch pals
But where he was headed for was the hearts and history of the San Diegan people.
Who took him in, fed him and even treated him we injured his leg in a dogfight… hence the stump you see in his statue.
The half-St. Bernard, half-Spaniel mascot became such a part of San Diego life.
That when the city issued its first dog license, an image of Bum adorned it.
We’d like to think in a different world these two survivors Bobby, the Skye Terrier and Bum, the crossbreed, would have been firm friends.
At least the San Diegans think so, bringing them together with their own plinths in Gaslamp Museum Pocket Park.
And us too, as we passed ten minutes in the sun with new friends.
Jim, a C&W singer, and Andrea, from San Diego next to Edinburgh Bum’s statue.
Just spitballing about Edinburgh and San Diego a tale of two doggies.