Taffy's Faithful Watch

Michael Gareth Llewellyn in his book of reminiscences, Sand in the Glass, tells this moving story of a sheep-dog. Taffy was the faithful companion of Shon the shepherd, and when his beloved master died Taffy followed the cortege to the little graveyard on the hill.

“The funeral dispersed, the sexton filled the shallow grave, but Taffy would not follow Shon’s son when he was the last of the family to leave that sad resting-place of his father. “Let him be,” said one of the farmers, “he will run home when he is hungry.”

But Taffy did not come home. Day and night he lay on that grave and would not be comforted. For a whole week he lay there, pining for his dead master. In the spring Welsh mountain sheep often tend to stray into the villages.

From Hafod Olaf to the village was five miles, but that spring, for the first time within living memory, sheep from this farm strayed into the village, and of all places, into the churchyard. Past their late owner’s grave they strayed. Taffy knew them at once. He sat up.

His professional instincts were aroused. Though tired and exhausted, he shepherded the straying sheep along the road to Hafod Olaf. Safe to the fold there he brought them. Taffy had at last come home.

And it was duty that had brought him home. Duty is the pathway to God.