GIVE ME BACK MY ARM
Rory Knight Bruce is savaged
in style by a stately rottweiler
FOR almost a week now I have taken an exceptional interest in the registration of dogs. Its defeat, albeit narrow, in the House of Commons on Monday I watched with some misery, much pain. For last Saturday night, along with thousands who creep in fear along the walkways of council estates, I was savaged by a rottweiler.
The circumstances and location of my gnashing were however highly untypical, giving lie to the belief that it is just the ignorant working class who own pit bull terriers, rottweilers, Rhodesian ridgebacks or even bandogs, as the latest weapon in the canine armoury are called.
Last weekend in Scotland, I was a guest at the Fife Foxhounds Point-to-Point. There were hundreds of dogs, all well behaved, except the two collies surround- ing a third belonging to a friend. 'I didn't think it would matter that she was on heat,' he said attempting to boot the amorous suitors off his dog's behind, and eventually his own leg.
But afterwards I accepted the invitation of another friend to visit his stately home, look at his garden improvements, and see how his four-year-old rottweiler, which I had last seen as a puppy, was coming along. Having arrived shortly after the main party, I could not get into the house as the security was so good (not to mention the absence of any front-door bell) that it took 15 minutes of banging and waving before I was admitted.
Once inside I was shown into the famil- iar drawing-room where several pictures by Grecian Williams, Zoffany and even a Poussin bore gently down on perhaps ten house guests, some English, some Scottish, in their early thirties. Drinks having been served, it was the moment for the party piece. To a guest, all clamoured to see the pet which, our host mischievously pointed out, also doubled as houseguard. In lumbered the black and tan creature, with all the friendliness and fascination of a holidaying Sumo wrestler, to a chorus of admiring gasps which house guests tend to vent when being nervously polite. There was some concern (a couple of the girls announced they would be taking their evening bath a little early), but this was allayed by our host who playfully encour- aged the dog to jump up on him, to sit down and so forth. It was impressive obedience.
But left on his own, as our host went for more drinks, the dog began not to growl but to snarl in a most ferocious manner. (A couple of the men now left to bathe too). It bayed, jaws wide, as if unsure who should have been rightly there. Fuelled by folly as much as the drinks, I asked my returning host if the creature had been shown the guest list and knew the difference between an invited guest and an intruder. Why not see, he asked, by calling its name myself? How could I refuse, as I now had a captive if depleted audience and saw myself as something of a Daniel in the lions' den? 1 was no taker of the early bath.
'I wish we'd thought of this.' Just by calling the dog's name, I activated what must have been its mental burglar alarm and it leapt full height upon me.
Though I was wearing a corduroy coat (perhaps it particularly disliked the colour yellow, which I grant is not to everyone's taste) and a thick pullover, the dog swiftly sunk its teeth into my defending forearm and drew blood. It returned to the Persian rug, baying more loudly than before, until it was ushered out, with little more than a tiny scolding from my host. His attitude was that I had asked for it. Not wishing to renew my aquaintence with this northern hound of the Baskervilles, I left, assuring my host with what strength remained that as a reasonable guest I would not be requesting the dog's extermination.
But the other guests had been genuinely alarmed. Somehow the civilised surround- ings had lent a security to the belief that such a dog would not attack an invited guest. It was an unfounded security.
As I waited in the Western General hospital in Edinburgh for the necessary tetanus and typhoid injections, I pondered the common notion that only dogs kept in confined spaces and undernourished react like this. My canine aggressor is kept in a large house with several thousand acres in which to roam. He would look at a mere rabbit with all the satisfaction with which a glutton would view a peanut.
One step in the right direction would be to insist that such dogs are named some- thing cautionary by their owners like 'Cro- codile' or 'Alligator', as old pet names like `Gnasher' and 'Nipper' seem woefully in- adequate now. Another would be a special registration of dogs used for guarding purposes. These should not then be allowed into drawing-rooms unless to de- vour whole unwanted guests.
The reason for my benign behaviour towards both my host and his mutt is that I too have been a lifelong owner and lover of dogs. My last was a terrier called 'Thatch- er', who arrived in that distant age of the Prime Minister's appearance at Number Ten. Apart from faithfully registering him each year, and insuring him against biting the postman, I took the precaution to warn people that he could be ill-tempered if annoyed and asked them to act according- ly. The only damaging habit he ever possessed was eating every cheque that came through the door, of which I was more tolerant than my bank manager. My terrier came from the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home — the very people who, like the RSPCA, have to deal every day with these ferocious dogs against which the Govern- ment refuses to legislate. Every year I try to send the Edinburgh Dog and Cat Home some money. When my arm finally recov- ers, I shall be sending them as much as I can to help them continue their en- deavours.
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