I finally get why my son is so staunchly vegetarian

REGULAR readers will know that my middle son detests meat. No matter how I try to camouflage it in herbs or gravy, he just can’t stomach the sight of a dead animal on a plate.

‘Why do we kill animals?’ he asks plaintively, before feigning a bout of nausea. I don’t know where he acquired this phobia against red meat. There has never been a vegetarian in the Dooley family. In fact, his grandfather and great-grandfather were both in the meat trade.

Whence, therefore, his instinctual loathing of something even his brothers enjoy? And it doesn’t stop there: his tender care extends to the earth, its creatures and all creation. His morality is loving kindness to everyone and everything.

‘You just have to accept that I don’t like meat, Dad,’ he tells me.

I tried to sneak some steak into the Christmas diet and was caught red-handed. Enough is enough, I thought, he doesn’t like meat and that’s the end of it.

It’s not so much that he dislikes the taste of meat. What bothers him is that we haven’t evolved sufficiently enough to see that we are senselessly consuming fellow creatures. This does not mean he thinks we are on a par with the animals, but that we ought not to consume them when we have alternatives.

Neither is this something he has picked up at school. It has been with him from the dawn of reason. No point, therefore, in resisting what won’t go away.

So, no more meat for my little nine-year-old. But, as I say, his love for creation extends far beyond budding vegetarianism. He desperately yearns to adopt a dog.

That’s right, the Dooleys don’t have a dog, a cat, a rabbit, or, indeed, any quadruped. There are many reasons for this, not least the fact that I am obsessed with keeping an orderly house. And, as a child, I remember my poor grandmother battling against an irrepressible tsunami of dog hair.

When his daughter emigrated to the US, my grandfather took her dog Bobby. Bobby was a handsome and kindly mongrel that shed his hair everywhere. Wherever Bobby went, he deposited a full coat. One day, I arrived to find my grandmother sweeping her carpet. There she stood in a haze of hair looking distinctly like Miss Havisham. Bobby, who was reclining royally on an armchair, barely acknowledged me before falling back asleep.

It is an image I have never forgotten, and it haunts me whenever the Dooleys discuss getting a dog:

Middle child: ‘Oh, please let us get a dog, Dad!’

Dad: ‘A dog? Do I look like I’m able for a fourth child, because that is how it will end up! I will end up walking, feeding, cleaning and caring for it.’

Middle child: ‘Yes, but you love walking and you never stop cleaning, so it will be no bother at all.’

Dad: ‘As Ian Paisley used to say, “Never, never, never!”.’

THAT was until I recently met a parent in the schoolyard. She was holding a most beautiful dog named Milo. I watched in awe as he lovingly interacted with a bunch of little children. ‘What a lovely dog!’ I said, to which she replied: ‘He has transformed our lives.’ It transpired she’d had similar concerns about getting a dog until the pressure from her children became too great. She took the plunge and a miracle happened.

Her four children became more loving and caring towards each other. Their stresses and strains simply subside once they begin to play with Milo. Gazing adoringly at her new best friend, she said: ‘It is the best decision we ever made.’

Out stepped Ian Paisley and in came St Francis of Assisi.

Why should my obsessions and phobias prevent such a source of love and joy from entering our lives? In Milo, I saw what my little son sees in every animal.

We have not yet taken the plunge and we certainly have not raised any expectations. However, I now see this is something whose potential benefits far exceed worries about a few dog hairs. It is something our little son intuitively realised when he first asked for a dog.

Unlike his father, he saw that when something offers the gift of love it is worth any amount of trouble. All of which explains why, when looking upon creation, he does so with such respect and reverence.

All of which explains why he has taken his last mouthful of meat.