A dog has given a new meaning to loyalty by remaining at his dead owner’s graveside for more than 10 years after the man passed away in Argentina.
Miguel Guzmán, Capitan’s owner, died in 2006 and was buried in a cemetery. One day after the funeral, the German Shepherd vanished from the family home on Cordoba and went to the grave where he has remained since then till date.
Cemetery workers, unable to get him to leave, have been feeding and caring for him. They say it seems as though he’s waiting for the day when he’ll finally be reunited with his master.
Though almost totally blind and barely able to walk, Captain who is now 15 years old continues his ritual of sitting by his master’s grave.
Mr Guzmán bought Captain in 2005 as a pet for his 13-year-old son Damian before he died the following year. The day after the funeral, Mr Guzmán’s wife and son couldn’t find the canine so they launched a search for the dog and finally found him a 45 minute drive away in the village where Mr Guzman had been taken to be buried. It was a mystery how Captain found the grave considering that he had not been taken there before.
Efforts by Damian to take the animal home proved futile as he always escaped and returned to the grave side, so they decided to leave him there.
The cemetery’s director Hector Baccega remembers the day he first saw the dog.
He said: “He turned up here one day, all on his own, and started wandering all around the cemetery until he eventually found the tomb of his master. During the day he sometimes has a walk around the cemetery, but always rushes back to the grave. And every day, at six o’clock sharp, he lies down on top of the grave stays there all night.”
