The Harvest Hound
In a small town across hills of rolling golden beauty, there was a dog who made his living eating anything the people of this town happened to leave out. Tomatoes, fruits, bread, seeds, grass, rocks that happened to look like the right size that were quickly spit back out. The dog was chased away each time, but slowly the townspeople realized that the dog wasn't just in their town - he was out in the fields, barking away at crows and groundhogs and any pest that might've taken away the fruits of the earth. The townspeople started leaving things out for him on purpose, for the more he barked up a storm, the more they could harvest.
As the hound got older, his eyes mistier and his joints slower, he barked less - sitting out in the fields and watching plows move and cows wander. But still, foragers stayed away from wherever he wandered. He moved less, choosing hilltops and edges of town that let him watch and sniff as much as he could. And surely, the townspeople still gave him his gifts, leaving him a basket or presents throughout the day. Even when he stopped eating, the town left him his gifts. And the wilds took them away, surely. Many people loved this hound, and when he left for the last time, they still left their gifts at his favorite hilltop, building a stone slab and markers for him to be remembered by.
Folks slowly moved away from town, carrying his legend with them and building their own shrines to the Harvest Hound. As their farms grew with bounty and gold, others heard of the Hound's story and started building their own shrines to him. His story spreads far and wide, and now many of the villages across the world have shrines dedicated to the Harvest Hound, and many dogs that would be otherwise stray are taken in by farmers.
Followers of the Harvest Hound are rarely divinely blessed - he is, above all else, a folk hero to farmers and their sheepdogs, hunters and their bloodhounds, and spinsters with their lap dogs. His holy symbol, a cornucopia often woven from straw, reminds people of their community. Even those that seem to do nothing but take have value in a society - and when people offer you something, you do something for them in kind.
Town elders have many stories about the hound, and to villages lucky enough to have one of these storytellers, puppy dogs have outpaced teddy bears and ragdolls as the most popular toys. Even farmers will decorate their scarecrows out in the field with floppy dog ears.
People that leave offerings at shrines to the hound and act in accordance with his ideals - community, charity, and husbandry - may find themselves blessed with:
- The language of dogs and canines.
- Stronger senses of hearing and smell.
- Knowledge of cooking and foraging.
- The assistance of his emissaries - dogs, both alive and passed on as they await their owners in the afterlife.