In which I hug my collies even closer

Thursday. A man was coming to clean the rugs and the stair carpet (Gracie’s stress wee) and so Nic stopped by to take the dogs out of the way. As she did so, Gracie fell over. She wasn’t hurt, but she looked embarrassed. She falls over more and more often. I’m in constant fear she will gag again and pass out. She is on all sorts of medication. Each night, when I’m ready for bed, she stands with her two front paws on the mattress, ready to be hoisted up. I keep looking at the screensaver on my laptop: a photo of her as a puppy, pink tummy deep in snow. She has been the most difficult dog I have ever known, but I cannot lose her.

Many dog owners will have been hugging their animals close after the news of the young woman who was killed by some of the eight dogs in her care.

And the terrible news of the four-year-old girl, mauled by a pet dog. I’m hugging my four collies closer as I read this.

I can only imagine that now we dog lovers will be seen ever more keenly as pariahs. We’re already classed as outcasts.

Hotels and holiday lets, if they allow dogs at all, shout meanly: ‘An extra £15 will be charged for one small dog. Keep your dog on the lead at all times. You can eat in the bar, but no dogs in the dining room.’ Even my favourite hotel, The Pig at

Combe, says: ‘We only permit guide dogs into the property. Dogs are welcome to join you on a stroll but keep them out of the kitchen garden and away from our animals.’ I presume they mean ‘farm animals’.

Those signs on country walks, ‘Dogs frighten livestock’, make me want to add a graffito: ‘It’s farmers who frighten livestock.’

I have a sepia photo of my parents, taken not long after the war, on a picnic with my two oldest siblings. Nestled next to them is their much-loved bulldog. He’s unrecognisable to the bulldogs of today, with a much longer nose. One day, while my two oldest brothers were playing in the garden, he mauled my brother Nick quite badly, who bore the scars to the day he died. I’m not sure what happened to the dog; my parents never said.

When my dad, still in the Army, was posted along with his family to East Africa in the early 50s, they adopted a dalmatian called Bruce. He used to catch snakes and scorpions. When posted back to England, they left Bruce behind. I still wonder what became of him.

Growing up, we had a labrador retriever called Pompey. He would sleep ‒ a big, yellow lump ‒ at the foot of the stairs. My mum, even then almost crippled from arthritis, arms full of laundry, had to step over him, and as she did he would stir, and she would end up riding him, rodeo fashion.

Dogs can be unpredictable. Gracie used to chase joggers; she has stopped that now but only because she’s 14. Mini, whom I could leave with a newborn baby without worry, used to chase cars and tractors. Missy hates the wheelbarrow, the hosepipe, the vacuum cleaner; she was abused as a puppy on a farm in Ireland before being abandoned, so I can’t blame her for being nervous. I tend not to light my fire at night as she’s terrified of crackles. Missy would never snap at a human, but when stressed she takes it out on poor old Gracie.

With any animal you must be vigilant: dear God, a horse can kill you. But surely men are worse: I wouldn’t leave a child with a man I’d only known a few weeks. In 2022, ten people were killed by dogs in the UK. Compare that to the number of women killed by men: two every single week. I know which I prefer.

For months I’ve been railing online at the terrible abuse meted out to Turkey’s street dogs. I couldn’t help but watch the images on TV of sniffer dogs helping to find anyone alive after the earthquake. Dogs really are better than us. We don’t deserve them.

Gracie has been the most difficult dog I’ve known but I cannot lose her