Diary of a Dog-walker Read Free Page A

spouses, whose spending habits have featured in the newspapers. When the first of these columns appeared, I sent a text message to an MP friend who suffers badly from DVP; his constituents would be quite shocked by the depth of his passion for Magda, his fine-boned Welsh Springer.
    My message read,
Hope you have seen handsomest dog in Britain on front page of Daily Telegraph
. He was in Singapore at thetime, and a nervous question came back:
Why is Magda on front of D Tel? Have they worked out that I employ her as my diary secretary?
    Nearly two and a half thousand years ago the prolific Greek writer Xenophon – who seems to have had views on just about everything – wrote a treatise on how puppies should be trained for hunting, and it includes a passage of instruction on naming them. It could have been written yesterday. He says the names should be short so the dogs can be easily called, and the list he offers suggests that the Ancient Greeks liked to project human qualities on to their pets in just the way that we do. Here are some of my favourites:
    Thymus, meaning ‘courage’
    Porpax, meaning ‘shield hasp’ – a little anachronistic, but the pun is fun
    Psyche, meaning ‘spirit’; a beautiful word, although I suppose it could lead to misunderstanding today
    Phylax, meaning ‘keeper’; good for a guard dog
    Xiphon, meaning ‘darter’; perfect for a Whippet
    Phonax, meaning ‘barker’
    Phlegon, meaning ‘fiery’; pretentious to modern ears, perhaps, but worth the social risk for a really noble beast – say, a Mastiff?
    Alce, meaning ‘strength’
    Chara, meaning ‘gladness’
    Augo, meaning ‘bright eyes’
    Bia, meaning ‘force’ – but, like the Hausa word ‘Iska’, tricky for a male dog because it sounds feminine
    Oenas, meaning ‘reveller’
    Actis, meaning ‘ray’ (as in sunlight)
    Horme, meaning ‘eager’ – just right for a dog like Kudu, although of course people would make it ‘horny’, and just occasionally he is that too
    I did not discover this list until long after we had named Kudu, and I am almost tempted to get another dog simply for the pleasure of choosing one of these names. In almost every case the original Greek word is so much sweeter on the ear than its modern English equivalent.
    The heat is on and it’s time to escape old haunts
    27 June 2009
    The lake at Battersea has turned whiffy in the heat – one of the Chelsea ladies declared it ‘could do with a jolly good hoover’. The joggers are there in droves, sweating about the place in a purposeful way quite at odds with the agreeable aimlessness of the damp-weather dog-walking crowd.
    A book I have been recommended opens with a reference to the park’s ‘popular cottaging areas adjacent to the public toilets and the athletics track’– it is almost a throwaway line, as if everyone knows, but it is news to me and, I am sure, to the Dog.
    Familiar haunts suddenly feel alien. It is time to escape.
    Dogs need to believe that their owners behave logically – just as soldiers must, to stay sane and brave, believe in the wisdom of their generals, and priests in the compassion of their gods. The Dog has formed the view – on the sound evidentiary basis of experience – that green spaces are designed for his pleasure. As we drove past Hyde Park without stopping, his usually phlegmatic disposition gave way to indignation, moving up through the gears to squealing hysteria by the time we hit the A1.
    Kudu has become a minor celebrity: the
Stockwell News
gave him a headline after my disobliging comments about our local park. But his host at our destination, a venerable Border Collie, was the real thing. Bertie’s home is rented out to filmmakers, and he has had several pad-on parts. Kudu treated him with due deference.
    Bertie’s coup was being stroked by Geraldine