And at such shows, the Mistress and the Master were always on hand to pet and reassure him.

Yet, here, he had suffered himself to be tied by a smelly rope to the rotting post of a lean-to, by a comparative stranger.

And, in the open ground below the hillock, his deities moved back and forth without so much as an upward glance at him.
Then, to his dismay, truck and car had made off down the mountainside; and he had been left alone in his imprisonment.

Except for a single unheard bark of protest, Lad made no effort to call back the departing humans.

Never before had they forsaken him.