Speaker’s corner

ONE of the characteristics of the urban stockades springing up wherever I look is that they have become infested – yes, that is the word – with fluffy little white dogs that seem to be specially bred for housing estates.

Among the Rottweilers, Bouviers and German shepherds that my family has had over the years we’ve also had two of these – both were Maltese terriers.

The first was named White Fang and the other, Susie. The latter was foisted upon us by a daughter who married a man whose two Alsatians had a poor tolerance for little white dogs.

I still have to work out a use for a Maltese terrier.

Rottweilers, for instance, are working dogs (although our old Rotty never did a stroke of work in his life) and, at night, they double up as security guards.

They are dumb though. If you put your head next to a Rottweiler’s you can hear the ocean.

Great Danes are also working dogs; retrievers are hunting dogs; Bouviers de Flandres are extremely bright and were used in the Belgium Army’s intelligence unit during World War II – which might explain why Belgium surrendered after 24 hours).

We had a Bouvier whose great granny was a spy and claimed she knew James Bond. But Maltese? Of what use are they? Could the people of Malta have used them in the army to drive the enemy mad with their yapping or, maybe, for getting under the enemy’s feet causing them to fall about?

Some time back, South Africans, jittery about the rising number of burglaries, were taking their funny little dogs to the SPCA to swop them for something bigger and fiercer. I took White Fang.* I had always resented the way it had been foisted upon me. (It was the day my daughter turned 6 and I was summoned by phone to come straight from the office to a shopping mall where I was to rendezvous with the females of my family, they outnumber me three to one, at a pet shop.

And there stood the birthday girl cradling a small bundle of white fluff whose two beady black eyes peered from deep inside the hair.

I said that I thought I had made myself clear: NO MORE DOGS! They looked at me as if I said something.

Anyway, White Fang grew up into a dirty, noisome bundle – as ugly as sin with an undershot jaw.

Because the face mercifully grew over with hair, both ends of the dog looked much the same.

White Fang looked like something that is kept in a broom cupboard. I once saw the gardener polishing the car with it.

I said to the lady at the SPCA, “I’ll give you this cute little doggy if you give me that black Alsatian with the impressive dental battery.”

She said, “But why do you want to get rid of such a darling little creature?”

I said I needed something that would eat burglars or at least carry them outside and dump them on the pavement.

Though it occurred to me that one bite from White Fang and a burglar would die of septicaemia but not in time to stop him stealing my cookie jar (I have no valuables unless you count my collection of beer mats.)

The SPCA lady, making those silly sounds that women make when addressing small dogs, was trying to tickle it under the chin. I said: “Its chin is at the other end.” She parted the hair at the right end to reveal two crossed eyes. She said: “I still think you are being very unkind to this dear little animal.”

So I took White Fang home and eventually bought a Rottweiler which was terrified of it.

(*I didn’t really.)