The Dog Would Put Mr Darcy To Shame

Kudu

From The Telegraph:

One of the Dog's admirable qualities is an instinct for friends with elegant owners, and it is a glamorous gaggle that gathers around the bandstand on this fine May morning. We are in Battersea Park, across the river from Chelsea, and one or two of the hacking jackets on display are cut with just a little more dash than is strictly necessary for dog-walking.

How can you not like an article with a first paragraph like that?

They are all there – the sniffers and trotters, the sprinters and plodders, the yappers and slobberers, the shaggy and the soignée. While they do their doggy thing about our feet, we, their masters and mistresses (or perhaps their servants?), do ours. We talk.... This easy-going social intercourse is the great revelation of dog-owning in middle age. If you are accompanied by a dog you can talk to anyone, and anyone can talk to you – about anything.

Those of you who remember back to my blog's beginning may recall that I once had a picture of Jane Austen next to the link to my profile. She's my all-time favorite fiction writer in the whole world, and I've read her few published works over and over. Whenever I see or hear something about Jane or one of her characters, I perk up, so, of course, when Lapin sent me the link to the article with Mr Darcy's name in the title, I paid attention.

But I digress. The writer goes on to say that "a dog is just a dog". But wait! That's not quite the case, is it? A dog is much more than "just a dog", or the dear creatures would not gain such a strong hold on our affections. We would not take the trouble with our dogs if they were "just dogs". It's not we humans who own them; they own us. For heaven's sake, we pick up their poop and sometimes clean up their pee. Is that not true love?

The reward is that dog-walking becomes like reading a novel, or watching a play; disbelief is suspended and, for an hour or so, we are given licence to escape ordinary life. Fantasy flourishes, and really quite trivial moments in a dog's life become a source of wonder to be repeated, discussed, laughed about and even worried over with its human family.

The novel the Dog and I enjoy in Battersea is at the Jane Austen end of the market. He can do a noble profile that would put Mr Darcy to shame. One of his admirers bought him a collar while skiing in St Moritz which is studded with golden cows; it gives him the slightly foppish air of the Alexander Pope dog whose collar carried the legend: "I am his Highness' Dog at Kew;/Pray tell me sir, whose dog are you?"

The Dog who owns the writer even received a proposal of marriage at Battersea Park, but only after a thorough investigation of his pedigree. Apparently, the article is the beginning of a series which will follow the further adventures of Kudu and his human.

When I walk Diana in my neighborhood, the folks we meet generally do not have dogs with them. On the occasions when we meet a dog and his/her human, we may have a word or two about the dogs, but nothing novel length or even short story length. Dullsville, some might say, but I would never say that. I like my quiet walks. Diana never talks to me. She just makes ME heel and stop whenever she wants to mark a spot or take a poop, which she leaves for me to pick up and tote home.