Dangerous dogs

Readers may recall that the Young family welcomed a new addition to the household about two years ago: a Hungarian Vizsla named Leo. He turned out to be incredibly high-maintenance. He demanded to be walked twice a day and invariably did something unspeakable, such as rolling around in fox excrement — or, worse, start eating it. Even after running the length and breadth of Richmond Park he would still have enough energy to tear around the house like a Tasmanian Devil, leaving havoc in his wake. I was delighted, obviously. I hoped he’d be an inexhaustible source of material for this column. Then Leo did something really bad and the

Leo, the Hungarian Vizsla my wife brought home unexpectedly last year, is approaching his first birthday and not getting any easier to manage. Caroline decided to buy him on the spur of the moment because she ‘liked the way he looked’, by which she means he looks like her. Not the face, obviously, but his figure — thin, athletic, muscular, big ears, big feet. Indeed, she was walking Leo in Gunnersbury Park a few days ago when another dog -walker, spotting them together, burst out laughing. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen an owner who looks more like her dog,’ he said. This may have been his attempt at flirting

Why won’t the middle classes shout at their dogs any more? My suspicion is that the bleeding heart liberals, having succeeded in stopping right-minded people from shouting at their children, have moved on to stopping us from emotionally scarring animals. The result, of course, is that our four-legged friends are becoming about as unpleasant as your average infant. The spaniel and I take our lives in our hands every time we venture on to Tooting Common, running the gauntlet of ADHD dogs throwing their weight about as their owners cower in the distance calling politely at them to desist. These are not dangerous dogs, in any official sense, you understand.

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_9_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Justin Marozzi and Caroline Kisko, Kennel Club Secretary, discuss vicious dogs” startat=1287] Listen [/audioplayer]It happened so quickly, as these things always do. My wife Julia and I were pootling about on Wells beach with our fluffy mongrel Maisie when suddenly two fighting dogs, English bull terriers, came flying towards us like calf-high missiles. Declining the usual canine politesse of a bit of bum-sniffing, one immediately locked its jaws around Maisie’s throat, the other clamped its teeth into her right back leg. They then tossed her around like a rag doll, as my wife and I desperately tried to haul them off. Maisie was howling in terrible distress. She

I’ve called the doggie hospital three times now to find out how Jessie’s getting on. She’s just come round, at the time of writing. I think it’s partly guilt which makes me keep ringing up: we’re paying to have her ovaries ripped out with a small hook-like device, which seems to me a betrayal of the trust shown in us by the dog. She thought she was just going for a quick ride in the car and clearly didn’t understand why everyone was being so nice to her, so solicitous. Seven months old and, before her first season, she is being deprived of the undoubted pleasures of being on heat.