“Our Hearts are in the Highlands”

(illustration by emmalawrence.com)

When driving the ‘office dogs’ up north to Scotland they always follow the same routine. They fall asleep about a mile from home, and as we cross the Scottish border some hours later they awake with a start and get very excited when they see the ‘Fàilte Gu Alba’ sign, almost as though they can read (and speak Gaelic at that). They certainly seem to know that they are back in their homeland, where they should be, and we feel the same too.

Driving back down south it is a very different story and they know all too well when we pass the sign that tells us with a heavy heart ‘You are now in England’. We always feel so guilty, and know that for a few days they will seem to be in a state of depression, as though their minds are elsewhere. It happens every time, and we understand that feeling all too well.

Reading a bit of Robert Burns this evening I happened across a favourite poem, ‘My Heart is in the Highlands’ which pretty much sums up how they must be feeling.

No better time then to put up some photos of them where they are happiest. One wonders whether dogs possess an inbuilt sense of where they belong, which takes them back to their roots. These Highlanders certainly seem to.

My Heart’s in the Highlands – Robbie Burns

“My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here, 

My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer; 

Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe, 

My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North, 

The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth ; 

Wherever I wander, wherever I rove, 

The hills of the Highlands for ever I love. 

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover’d with snow, 

Farewell to the straths and green vallies below; 

Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods, 

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. 

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here, 

My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer; 

Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe, 

My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.”


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