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A sad little dog that waits in vain at a hospital for her beloved owner who has long since passed away has become Russia’s answer to Scotland’s ‘Greyfriars Bobby’. Masha has been turning up looking for her master since he passed away at the Siberian hospital last year. The case mirrors that of the loyal Skye terrier who became known as Greyfriars Bobby for refusing to leave his owner’s Scottish grave for 14 years.

Masha has become a well-known, and much loved, figure at the Novosibirsk District Hospital Number One, where patients and staff ensure she has a warm bed and food to eat.

Doctors are hoping someone will take pity on the dog and offer her a new home.

“You see her eyes, how sad they are — it’s not the usual shiny eyes for when a dog is happy. You can see this in animals in the same way as with people,” chief doctor Vladimir Bespalov told The Siberian Times.

He said: “There’s nothing medicine can do for her here, but we’re still hoping that Masha will be able to find another owner.

“One day, and we very much want this day to come soon, our Masha will trust somebody.’

Masha — who looks like a dachshund although staff do not know what breed she is — has been coming into the hospital’s reception every day since her owner was admitted almost two years ago.

The elderly man, from the village of Dvurechie, had fallen ill and came to the hospital with his pet.

While he was staying on the ward, Masha was his only visitor. At night she returned to their home to guard it against intruders, before returning to the hospital in the morning.

Something she has done ever since.

Nurse Alla Vorontsova said a family recently tried to adopt Masha. She was taken to their home on a Friday evening, but was back at the hospital by 3am the following day.

She said: “I don’t think she will ever leave here.”

When Greyfriars Bobby’s owner, police night watchman Constable John Gray, died in 1858 he was buried without a gravestone in Greyfriars Kirk, yet his devoted pet managed to find the spot and stayed there, guarding it and only leaving for food.

He was seen there every day by people in the Old Town of Edinburgh until his death in 1872.

A granite fountain and a statue were commissioned by a countess and erected a year later in his honour, and there have been a number of books and movies about his life, including one made by Walt Disney in 1961.

His own burial plot in the churchyard was eventually marked with a headstone in 1981.

There are also similarities to the story of the Japanese dog Hachiko, who kept turning up at a train station in Tokyo 10 years after his master’s 1925 death.

In 1935 the dog’s body was found in a Tokyo street and his remains were stuffed, mounted and put on display in Japan’s National Science Museum, while a bronze statue was erected outside Shibuya.

A Hollywood movie of the sad story, starring Richard Gere, was released in cinemas in 2010. — DailyMail.