WATCH OUT FOGLE! MY CHIHUAHUAS MIGHT GIVE YOU A NIP

WHAT foolishness is this? In last Thursday’s Mail, Ben Fogle denounced that splendid breed, the Chihuahua: ‘What is the point of such yappy little dogs? You can’t go for lovely long walks with them’.

We have three delightful Chihuahuas who all adore going for walks, of any duration. Why would they not? As Fogle points out, little dogs have oodles of energy.

His article was a commentary on a recent report from the University of Helsinki that ‘small breeds are by far the most likely to attack humans’.

That may be — but if owners of Chihuahuas thought like Fogle and never took their dogs for a walk, it is obvious the poor mutts’ pent-up energy might result in aggressive behaviour.

It would be yet another demonstration of the rule ‘ blame the owner, not the dog’. And Chihuahuas get a bad name precisely because too many owners wrongly consider them a ‘handbag dog’ and treat them accordingly.

In fact, their origins in Mexico were as ratters — and their tiny size was engineered to enable them to hunt in apertures too small for standard breeds.

We have certainly benefitted from this: it is only our Chihuahuas’ ‘ high prey instinct’ (as the textbooks call it) which has kept our infestation of rats down to tolerable levels.

On many nights we hear a penetrating squeal — which is the noise a rat makes when suddenly seized in the jaws of one of our Chihuahuas.

And, for the record, they’ve never done that to a human.

They might make an exception if they came across Ben Fogle, however, because they are sensitive creatures, and resent hurtful comments.