A few thoughts about dogs

by Wyn Evans

My first dog was a smooth-haired Jack Russell terrier, Carlo; named by my mother in honour of Charles Prince of Wales. Alternatively, he was named by my father in honour of Dafydd Iwan, who wrote the song ‘Carlo’, a cheeky little riff pointing out that “at last, we have a true prince, a truly Welsh prince of Wales”. This was in 1969 at the time of Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales. As an aside, the soccer fans amongst you who watched Wales beat Austria last week will have noticed that the pre-match singalong was led by Dafydd Iwan, singing another of his own compositions, “Yma o Hyd” (“We’re still here”), a paean of praise not only to Welsh footballers, but to the Welsh in general.

Now, where was I? Ah yes, Carlo. The dog, not the prince. Dad, with a yen to be a farmer, uprooted us from Cardiff’s beautiful Lakeside for a smallholding in even more beautiful Sir Benfro – a village in the Preseli hills called Mynachlogddu. Finding ourselves almost overnight ersatz sheep farmers and turkey rustlers, my younger sister and I told my parents that if we were going to live the life of farmers we needed to get a farm dog. Quite how we ended up with a Jack Russell rather than, say, a sheepdog, continues to escape me. Still, Carlo was adept at having to be dug out of rabbit holes and playing Tonto to our tabby cat, Jaco’s, Lone Ranger When we moved away from the farm some five years later (we weren’t very good sheep-shearers or turkey-pluckers!) I performed my final service to Carlo: burying him in the back garden of our new home in Kidwelly. He had run out into the main road and discovered he wasn’t as robust as the hourly Kidwelly to Llanelli bus. And therefore he died.

The years passed. I got a couple of degrees and married Not The Boss. Not The Boss and I ended up

with three cocker spaniel bitches. But we didn’t end up together. This led to Not The Boss’s parents taking one bitch and my parents taking two. My dad reckoned they had gotten off easily and were quite pleased with their two new bitches.

A couple of poochless years went by until I met The Boss. Not that she was The Boss at first. No, she was Potentially-The-Boss for some months before we actually tied the knot. But once we did tie it The Boss brought her Old English Sheepdog into our nascent family. Star was lovely but, sadly she was allergic to her own white blood cells. And therefore she died. We decided that we needed a dog that was a decent enough size that we’d all get a proper workout twice a day, and one big enough that you’d not have to wear it as a slipper. Thus we bought two SmoothHaired Hungarian Vizslas into our midst. And we have followed those up with four Wire-Haired Hungarian Vizslas.

Now, regular readers will remember that I have gotten into a fist-fight because a fat bald man kicked my perfectly well-behaved puppy, then hit me when I remonstrated, and others may recall how my dogs have twice pulled me into rivers (my fault – a mixture of poor commands and forgetting that I have Parkinson’s). You may remember how on my first date with The Boss her Old English draped itself across my shoulders like a stole (I was driving!)And said dog was sick as soon as we got out of the car (The Boss wants me to write once again I was driving!) girl’s family would now think again about introducing the bully XL into its midst. This is one of the fiercest legally-available dogs. Breeders usually say that it’s all the fault of the owners; that their dogs are no different from any others. This is not so. Only six per cent of pet dogs in America are Pitbulls, but they are responsible for sixty-eight per cent of attacks on humans. So far in the present century forty-three people — many of them children — have been killed in the UK by dogs. Of that number, Pitbulls, Staffies and similar breeds were implicated in no fewer than thirty-one cases(2). Surely, licensing ought once again to be considered, with lessons being learned from previous licensing schemes. Some dogs ought to be prohibited from common ownership. Some people ought never to be allowed to own dogs, or never allowed to own certain breeds of dog.

I believe that every dog is trainable but not that everybody is capable of training a dog. You would totally accept that the forwards coach of the Wales rugby team needs to be familiar with all aspects of forward play, of the rules of the game, of physical, psychological and physiological factors, etc. Not every player is going to be able to make the transition to coach or manager. That’s why there are national and local tiers of coaching, allowing everyone to find a level commensurate with their skills and inputs. Why do so many dog owners either just not care that they haven’t the skills to train any dog or totally fail to differentiate why this particular animal or breed is beyond my/their particular skill set.

Last month, a baby aged seventeen months, was killed at home by an American bully XL dog. It savaged the little girl as her mother screamed(1). This dog is a member of the Pitbull family. I imagine that the little Footnotes 1&2. Taken from Rod Liddle, The Sunday Times 27.03.2022