The dog that bites its own tail.

As a child I used attend Thomas Duignan's shop at Lawlesses Cross,where my aunt used buy her groceries when Lawlesses shop  closed down.This was in the late 1950's and early 1960's and I am not moaning when I say money was as scarce as hen's teeth.
It didn't close too early and was more of a ceilidhe house than a shop at evenings when the locals would gather to converse and socialise.
The craic was always good and lies told to beat the band.
I specifically remember one conversation about the merits of various dogs.(never house dogs but always working dogs in those times.)
One guy said that the best dog he ever saw was Billy Darcy's collie,which Willie could communicate with in a series of grunts and whistles and such was their mutual understanding that Willie could command the dog to go to fields far out of current sight and bring back to Willie either sheep or cattle unseen and the dog would do so.I saw this myself and it was true.
Other guys tried to best this but in truth no one could until Paul Rhattigan ,the undisputed king of the white lie did best it.
To general consensus he put the proposition that it took a great dog indeed to herd suck calves especially if their mothers were not with them,as when they were being milked apart from their babies.
He claimed to know a man "above and beyond" who had such a dog.Were the cows being milked in the milking parlour for example and assuming the farmer wanted the calves brought there by the dog,he would tell the dog to do so and the dog would dip his bushy tail in a bucket of milk and head carefully down to the relevant pasture,where he would go from calf f to calf alllowing them to have a brief suck from his milk impregnated "tit"and thereby line up after him and follow him back to the parlour,stopping to give a fresh nibble to any straggler.
Some story and some dog.
And then the conversation devolved to what type of dog you would like to be were you reincarnated a dog.
One guy said a Jack Russell as you could be very useful and in demand as a ratter.
Another said a fox terrier as you could save lambs from death by foxes.
Another said that an Irish Retriever was the business to retrieve shot game.
Another said a collie was the best dog type for the reason outlined above.
And so it went,each to his preference.
Paul again had the last word,
He said he would like to come back as a strange dog.Why said the stooge,"Well he said ,when I would make my entrance amongst all of your dogs you would all smell my hole,and that would be grand".
And so it went.
There was common consensus's that the absolute worse type of mutt was "one that bit its own tail ,"no good to man nor beast."
I suppose the human equivalent is a self harmer.
These thoughts came to mind when I consider the actions of certain people hogging the limelight for various reasons,especially the strange dog types and the bite your own tail types,