Diary of a Dog-walker (5 page)

So – I offer this nervously and after deep reflection – when owners take bitches into public places in their season, they have primary responsibility for the behaviour of other dogs, and should not brandish their newspapers at Spaniels.

But I can also offer them help. In Sweden the neutering and spaying of dogs used to be outlawed (as an infringement of doggy rights), so bitch-owners give them a contraceptive injection like the pill. I know of one Spaniel owner who uses it here; she faced fierce resistance from vets, but she is medically trained and insists the modest health risks are a small price to pay for the freedom her bitch enjoys courtesy of her ‘chemical
burqa
'.

This piece provoked exactly the kind of vociferous and varied response I had hoped for. I was accused of sexism (‘This is such a male article') and irresponsibility, and there was something of a hue and cry for Kudu's castration (the very thought makes me wince and cross my legs). But there was also heavy website traffic in support of my polemic. The offering I most enjoyed – for its pithy irascibility – was: ‘When your bitch is
on heat you should be responsible enough to keep it away from dogs and not frequent places like Clapham Common, where there is ample sexual activity from humans to keep anyone disgusted.'

At three months into my columnist's life, I was beginning to stretch my legs and march with a swagger – even risking a little experimentation with the form. One week I gave the space to a piece by Kudu himself.

Writing in the persona of your dog is a delicate business, and it is all too easy to overstep the mark. If you asked me whether I know my dog well, I would, of course, say yes, but in truth the characteristics I can identify with anything close to objective certainty are relatively few. He is certainly affectionate (but even aggressive dogs can be affectionate towards their owners), and he seems sensitive to human illness or distress. He is gregarious to the point of social promiscuity, and un-aggressive to the point of wimpishness. I suspect – though this is just a theory – that he has the sort of sunny nature that often goes with good looks: if everyone is always pleased to see you it is bound to incline you towards a benign view of the world.

But beyond that, everything is speculative. Do those deep brown eyes really speak of a certain soulful melancholy? Do the arched eyebrows reflect a baffled concern about the ineffable mysteries of the human world? How does a dog ‘think' anyway, and would he recognize an ineffable mystery if he saw one? All these questions are unanswerable, and in trying to imagine a ‘voice' for Kudu, I found myself constantly coming up against his essential ‘otherness'. If I pushed things
too far, I realized, I really would turn him into a two-dimensional literary device.

When the piece was published the
Telegraph
reversed our mug shots, giving him pride of place at the top of the page and consigning me to the foot of the column.

The world beyond this kitchen is so very cruel

19 September 2009

I have – so everyone tells me – expressive eyes, and have found that widening them works wonders with humans; I confess I have in the past exploited their power to solicit a treat or two. But my Master, the wisest of men, has noticed that real melancholy now lies behind them, and he asked me to reflect here on the shame that has come upon my country.

Usually, flopped on the kitchen floor in dreamy anticipation of a plate that needs licking, I enjoy the hour or so of early-evening gossip between Master and Mistress. But last week she brought shocking news from something called the Dogs Trust. There has, it seems, been a record rise in the number of my species being abandoned: 107,228 of us (what can such a monstrous number mean?) were rescued from the streets of this so-called dog-loving nation. She pointed to a headline: ‘Big Leap in Stray Dogs as Recession
Bites'. That human appetite for doggy puns be damned! The story told how nearly ten thousand homeless dogs were – in that chilling euphemism – ‘put to sleep'.

Once, this would not have worried me: when you are young there are simply too many bottoms to sniff. But my journey to the park takes me past Battersea Dogs Home, and the harrowing howls telling tales of homelessness have become almost too much to bear. Sometimes I meet inmates being walked in the park; one or two are angry – part of the puzzle of life is that some dogs are just not very nice people – but more often they are simply bowed by their misfortunes.

The park brings the gap between rich and poor sharply into focus. All my friends are back with the autumn, greeting one another with Australian kisses (like French ones, but down under) and telling tales of exotic holidays – there are two terriers who spent a seaside summer on the Isle of Wight, and one flirty young bitch with a collar-bell claims to have flown to Tuscany. I live less glamorously than the Chelsea Set and, of course, have my complaints: why, for example, does my Master root out my carefully hidden bones just as they reach delicious maggoty maturity? But we are all so much more fortunate than our abandoned brothers and sisters.

We are, of course, all pedigree and, yes, I do take pride in the fifteen Field Champions I count among
my great-great-grandparents; my mother, Madeline of Meadowlea (her Kennel Club name), was born of the champion Springer Steadroc Sker and Miss Tickle, no less. But now that my social conscience has been pricked, I wonder a little about this obsession with breeding. There is a Battersea regular whose mistress introduces him, with a flamboyant French flourish, as a ‘Boar-hunting Grand Basset Griffon Vendéen'; he is a nice enough fellow, but how many boars are there in Battersea? And my Master recently brought news to dinner of a Labour peer buying a ‘Madagascan Coton de Tuléar'. Can we really tolerate such frivolity on the Left?

All sorts of distressing news drifts down from the kitchen table: thousands of dogs have been clubbed to death in China because of a rabies scare, and a Danish MP wants to cull every one of his country's mongrels to eliminate aggressive genes from the pool. How can the world beyond this comfortable kitchen be such a cruel place? There was a time when we could look down on these brute foreigners and their dog-phobic ways, but I wonder if that is really still so?

Perhaps I should drop the ‘English' from my name and become simply a ‘Springer Spaniel'.

I shall not often have a public voice of this kind. May I add a personal message? I understand from my
Master that my sister Mielie is not well, having eaten a plate of sausages with the cocktail sticks still attached; I wish her a full recovery.

3

The Humanness of Dogs

A sixth sense, or just howling at the moon?

3 October 2009

I HAVE RECEIVED AN
affecting letter from a reader, which I quote, minus a couple of identifying details, with his permission.

In 1984 my first wife was dying in hospital, and my son and I took it in turns to spend time with her. Our dog, a super Welsh Springer Spaniel, would not sleep in the kitchen while she was away, he insisted on sleeping in either my bedroom or my son's. My wife died when I was at the hospital. At 3.30 a.m., I
phoned my son. ‘I know Mum died at three o'clock,' he said. ‘Basil got up and howled.' It was the only time in his fourteen years he did so.

My correspondent wondered whether other readers might offer stories of canine ‘sixth sense'.

I take Hamlet's view: ‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth,' he tells his rationalist friend Horatio after the Ghost appears, ‘than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' An openness to such stories seems saner than a Dawkins-esque broadside against science-denying sentimentality. But researching the relevant literature has tilted me in the Dawkins direction: this story is from an American collection called
Angel Dogs
.

The narrator, a retired marine, is walking his Jack Russell in a cemetery. I am afraid he has called the dog Corporal J.R. and given him his service number, USMC 21264539. We soon know that he might be a tiresome walking companion: ‘I always carry water, collapsible water bowl for J.R., J.R.'s first aid kit, a Swiss Army knife, a snack for both of us, my bird identification manual and my trusty Nikon 7x5 binoculars.'

J.R. suddenly begins digging frantically, and our hero notices that the dog is uncovering a military grave. He helps shift the debris and … ‘My heart pounded as I read the inscription: “Jack A Russell,
Texas, Cpl, Signals Corps, 1928–1952”.' Our man describes how ‘Corporal J.R. laid his head on the headstone of Corporal Jack Russell, a soldier with his own name who was killed in the Korean War,' and declares, ‘I continue to marvel how a little dog paid honour and respect by bringing new meaning to the belief that no soldier should ever be forgotten.'

There is also a tale of an Arizona man whose religious confidence is restored when Temujin, his Mastiff, leads him to an abandoned baseball cap carrying the legend ‘No Fear'. I have lived in America and am a diehard Yankophile, but really!

The commonest evidence of dog sixth sense is finding an eager animal waiting in the hall when we turn the door key. Kudu does this act terribly well, thumping his tail and, like the gun-dog he was bred to be, bringing a shoe as a welcome (he has a good soft mouth and, an incident involving a pair of Jimmy Choos belonging to a son's girlfriend notwithstanding, the footwear usually survives).

Here I definitely favour the rationalist explanation. I work at home, and often see the build-up to this performance behind the scenes: Kudu is just as excited when the postman approaches the front steps as he is in the moments before one of the family walks in. There is some science around about this, and it suggests that dogs have extremely sensitive hearing – a faculty that may also explain the well-attested
cases (the first was recorded in Greece in the fourth century
BC
) of dogs becoming agitated before earthquakes.

And then, as I mulled on the evidence for this column, my eighty-seven-year-old father-in-law came to stay, recovering from an infection. He was still weak, and had a couple of bad shivering bouts – Kudu immediately went into a severe fit of sympathetic whimpering. When the invalid retired to bed, the Dog accompanied him and spent hours keeping a watchful eye on his condition until he felt well.

A sixth sense or acute sensitivity? It does not really matter what you call it, does it?

This column provoked one of the most intriguing and amusing reader responses I have had. Checking the
Telegraph
Opinion website after the piece was published, I found the following story from someone called Craig:

Some years ago, my friend had a black Labrador. He lived in a downstairs maisonette in London. It was an ordinary dog – friendly, well behaved and not particularly remarkable although obviously intelligent. My friend was divorced and lonely and the dog and I were his only real friends.

On this particular occasion, we were sitting in his lounge and discussing women. He said that he had given up on dating agencies and lonely hearts ads
and couldn't meet anyone. The dog was in the room and I suppose ‘listening'. I remember the dog was there because he always sat at my feet when I came around. After a while, my friend said to the dog: ‘Merlin, find me a perfect woman, will you?' and we both laughed. Minutes later we were in his kitchenette making a coffee when he heard Merlin barking really loudly in the front garden which he had accessed from the backyard. ‘Probably someone at the door,' I said.

We went to the front door and opened it and Merlin was standing next to a truly stunning-looking woman and barking. She said, ‘Hallo, is this your dog? He just jumped into my car as I opened the door to go … I have been visiting someone a few doors along!' We stood there staring and dumbfounded.

My friend Chris married Stunning-Sarah eighteen months later.

I would love to know whether Chris and Stunning-Sarah lived happily ever after, and whether the magician-dog Merlin cast any more such happy spells on his master's life. Craig (or Chris or Stunning-Sarah), if by some extraordinary piece of serendipity, you chance to read this, do please get in touch.

Marshall McLuhan, the high-priest of modern media theory, famously described television as a ‘cool medium' and radio as a ‘hot' one. When I worked on television I found that
the screen put a certain distance between me and the audience: people sometimes treated me as if I was not quite real. Radio is very different: listeners feel a much more intimate connection with the voices that come into their bedrooms and bathrooms, and they are often surprisingly uninhibited about berating or praising you for what they have heard you say.

But a column is, I have discovered, even ‘hotter': readers take what you write very personally indeed. I got into terrible trouble for the column on Covehithe (
see here
): my flippant comment about allowing the ‘casual canine desecration of several ancient gravestones' did not go down at all well, and a local landowner tracked me down through my agents with a furious letter. I had to write her an abject apology, and it was upsetting because I really had thought Covehithe to be a magical place. It was a good lesson in the importance of weighing words carefully.