The Loyal Subject - in literature and in The Odyssey

Odysseus the crafty wanders across Ithaca in disguise - as noted in yesterday's post I'm not sure the disguise was really necessary and that his "disguise" was most likely that he'd aged 40 years - and is taken in by his most loyal subject, an old swineherd, the template for about a thousand characters who followed in world literature of the loyal, self-sacrificing, non-sexual servant - that is, the aristocrat's view of the ideal subject - who feeds him and offers him a the best comfort he can. Odysseus - for reasons we don't yet quite understand - maintains his disguise and launches onto a long cock-and-bull story about his wanderings after the Trojan War - tells of a voyage to Crete along with the King of Crete's son, Idomeneo. Today's readers may recognize this story of Idomeneus (sp?) that now has a life of its own, captured in one of Mozart's lesser-known but still beautiful operas. What's Odysseus' motive here? He wants to enter the palace, his own home, stealthily to get a leg up on the competition - the many suitors who have gathered, seeking to marry Penelope, eating and drinking up all the available food, plotting to kill Telemachus - and at this point I suppose it's trust nobody - even his most loyal subject might give the game away. All dog-lovers, however, will remember that when O arrives at the courtyard he is greeted by his elderly dog (Argo?), who licks his hand and then dies: now that's the definition of a truly loyal subject! We can accept that with dogs, but why must the serfs and peasants, ever loyal to their masters (in literature, at least, if not in life) have to live like dogs?