So how about a Dangerous Humans Act to protect dogs?

DOGS had a bit of a bad press last week. I’m referring to the labrador-cross which, unprovoked, attacked a small boy, only to be thwarted by the lad’s rather wonderful pet tabby. Now, I’m a cat lover. I have 17 living in and around my home. But one of them, Mummy, will, if cornered, shred your face. (She’s a beautiful, feral tabby with headlamps for eyes who was rescued from the Olympic site).

I also have a glorious tabby called Sweetie, who was beaten by her previous owners and consequently has terrible balance – she falls in ponds and emerges, fishy and embarrassed. Once, in terror, she scaled my head, her claws just missing my eye.

All animals can be unpredictable and dangerous. But there have been no new, draconian laws brought into effect to protect the populace from cats.

Unfortunately, the amended Dangerous Dogs Act came into force last week. If you have a dog as a companion, please read the report on page 26, and familiarise yourself with the new rulings.

Basically, someone can come into your house or garden, feel that the dog ‘may injure them’, and the dog will be instantly seized, even if he or she hasn’t bitten anyone. This is clearly ridiculous, and will leave owners terrified. It also leaves us open to blackmail and threats.

I live at the end of a no-through lane, but a lot of walkers pass my way. Many brandish crosscountry ski poles, which my dogs, all rescues, find alarming.

One day, a man sat on my wall, clutching his leg. ‘Your dog bit me,’ he said. I could see no wound, although I offered him a plaster. ‘Give me a cheque, and I’ll walk away,’ he said. I refused.

Later, a police van turned up. The policeman, who clearly thought people shouldn’t walk in sheep country if they don’t want to meet a border collie, asked me to build a fence, which I did at the cost of £6,000. I have since had another threatening letter from the walker demanding money. I joke, sometimes, that my dog now has an Asbo.

But the issue is very serious: the law change means every walk or frolic in the garden is now a nightmare just in case some nutter, seeing that I live in a gorgeous house and love my dogs more than most people love their children (I’d never shout at them, or get them to move out at 18), decides to blackmail me.

And don’t even get me started on the abuse dog owners get during lambing: in Somerset, a farmer turned up in my garden, pointed a gun at me, and said if he ever saw my collie in a field he would shoot him dead. That collie was 17, arthritic, and had no teeth.

It is unfair to demonise all dogs because of a small number of incidents. You only had to watch The Supervet on Channel 4 on Wednesday to see how much companionship these animals give their often lonely, bereaved owners, and how much abuse they themselves have suffered.

The show featured Daphne, a dog rescued from a Thai beach having had her front leg hacked off with a machete. She was brought to the clinic of Noel Fitzpatrick to have her other, almost severed, paw rebuilt.

Also, in the interests of balance, do watch a film showing nine beagles, liberated from a Nevada lab, enjoying freedom for the first time (look on Youtube for Beagle Freedom Project Viva Las Vegas Rescue). We inflict far more cruelty on canines than they could ever inflict upon us. PS I’VE just seen Nymphomaniac: Vol I and Vol II – controversial and very explicit movies about sex addiction. I’m still in shock. Yet there’s barely a whisper of dissent on the blogosphere, while a bit of rough and tumble in Game Of Thrones, as outlined here last week, was universally condemned as rape. When it’s ‘art’, abuse of women is OK. When it’s entertainment for the unwashed masses, it seems the poor dears need to be protected…