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There I was on the Tube last week, daydreaming, when this salivating, red-eyed beast rose up and put its legs on my lap, a repulsive bull terrier. I screamed in terror. The creature shuffled up closer to my face, which was now paralysed. Did anyone think to rescue me? Of course not. Some commuters looked at me as if I were an abuser who should be locked up, others went ooh! and aah! over my assailant.
His owner - young, male, shades, iPod - carried on chewing his gum and looking macho. I am sure if the fiend had sunk teeth into me the passengers would have smiled and patted its fleas. The same people who cannot bear "feral" children are perfectly content to let feral dogs wound at will.
New statistics show that there has been a 100 per cent increase in dog bites in London over the past four years. A dog bite can be very serious indeed, can cause permanent scarring, disable nerves and muscles and make victims lose mental and emotional equilibrium. A child in our neighbourhood was attacked by a dog on the common; the injuries were on one calf and did heal but the child developed agoraphobia.
Many more people now own dogs - some seven million - and the nation loves them to distraction. Domestic animals should never be maltreated but they don't have to be cosseted beyond reason.
From the upper to the lower classes, indigenous Brits readily put up with dogs behaving appallingly. My British friends own alsatians and huskies and Great Danes who dip their noses into food, rub up indecently against guests and act up. When I object they pity me and claim their dogs are special, harmless, wonderful, warm, on and on.
Princess Anne and Claudia Schiffer have dogs that allegedly nip or terrify passers-by; kids are chewed to death by canine killers and the owners still defend the animal, weep when it is put down. Dog rights are defended more passionately than human rights.
Perhaps our new citizenship conditions should include a pet test: are applicants prepared to go native on dogs? When a barking dog is brought to them, do they scream or pat it fondly? That would soon stop the rush of migrants from Africa and the Indian subcontinent: for us, dogs are animals, not family, not accessories and certainly not spoilt brats to be endlessly indulged. And that terrifying incident with the dog on the Tube showed me how impossible it is to be really, truly, madly British.
Reader views (1)
"Perhaps our new citizenship conditions should include a pet test"
I think this is a brilliant idea. It would teach people the correct way to behave around our animals and how to elicit the best behaviour from them.
Do you know that dancing around in terror when you see a dog will always attract its attention, would you try to attract a gunman looking for a target?
- Dogjon, London, 29/02/2008 12:43
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