Heartbroken dog still waits at hospital where owner died over a year ago

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When his owner, police night watchman Constable John Gray, died in 1858 he was buried without a gravestone in Greyfriars Kirk, yet his devoted pet managed to find the spot and stayed there,

guarding it and only leaving for food.

He was seen there every day by people in the Old Town of Edinburgh until his death in 1872.

A granite fountain and a statue were commissioned by a countess and erected a year later in his honour, and there have been a number of books and movies about his life, including one made by

Walt Disney in 1961.

His own burial plot in the churchyard was eventually marked with a headstone in 1981.

There are also similarities to the story of the Japanese dog Hachiko, who kept turning up at a train station in Tokyo 10 years after his master's 1925 death.

Hachiko used to greet his owner, agricultural science professor Hidesaburo Ueno, off the same train at Shibuya station every afternoon at 4pm.

In 1935 the dog's body was found in a Tokyo street and his remains were stuffed, mounted and put on display in Japan's National Science Museum, while a bronze statue was erected outside

Shibuya.

A Hollywood movie of the sad story, starring Richard Gere, was released in cinemas in 2010.

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