Dog tired and pie-eyed

All that Little Dog wanted after eight days of following her injured master, Matthew Briggs, through rugged West Coast terrain was seven Jimmy's mutton pies and her bed.

Little Dog finally arrived home, in Middlemarch, last night and although the local policewoman offered to take her in, she would not leave her cushion at the back door of Mr Briggs' home at the Middlemarch Store.

Store manager Dennis Bowers said Little Dog had been delivered to Wanaka by the hunters who found Mr Briggs and she was then returned to Middlemarch by a friend.

"Little Dog was just skin and bone."

Mr Bowers said Little Dog had been mistreated before Mr Briggs took her in "out of pity".

"He thought maybe the dog would be useful for possuming . . . It finds all the traps. And it rides on his motorcycle."

Little Dog got her name because, originally, Mr Briggs was not planning to keep her.