A Dog of Flanders is a novel about a boy Nello and his dog Patrasche written by Marie Louise de la Ramée under the pseudonym Ouida in 1872.

Story

Nello is an orphan and lived with his grandfather in a small village, Hoboken Antwerpen near the city of Antwerp. They adopt a dog that obviously has been beaten, and name him Patrasche. Nello and his grandfather have difficulties feeding the dog due to harsh conditions they have to live. The dogs helps pulling the milk cart that Nello uses to sell milk in the town.

Nello has a friend, Aloise, the daughter of a well-off man in the village. The father doesn't want his daughter to have a poor boyfriend.

Nello who is talented wants to be an artist but when his luck turns, his grand father dies and he is accused of causing a fire, his life becomes desperate.

Nello strongly had a desire to see Rubens's triptic in the cathedral of Antwerp. But he had no enough money to go and look at it. One very cold winter night, he and Patrasche went to Antwerp and by chance found the door to the church, where he finds the painting he loves very, open. The next morning people found a dead boy with his dog in front of the triptic.

In 1970s Japanese animation company Nihon Animation made this story into TV animation.