Love Labradors?

Never underestimate the ability of a relative to astonish and astound. I’m not quite sure how the conversation veered towards the luxury market for canines but when it did, astonishment was not the word to describe the nth degree of luxury lavished on some pampered pooches.

One colleague once told me that she felt that something was wrong in the domestic management of her household when she realised that she been to the supermarket to get something for tea and had bought steak for the dog and baked beans for the kids. To be fair she told the story against herself and vehemently denied that this was anything more than a glitch and the dog would soon be back to his normal feed of Pâté de foie gras stuffed lobster on a bed of caviar and truffle potatoes dauphinoise with Spillers Dog Biscuits crudite. Such a relief that I didn’t have to phone ChildLine!

My aunt was telling me about the kennels in which my cousin places his dog when he is away: a recent trip to Amsterdam saw his paying more for the accommodation of the dog in GB than for himself in Holland!

The kennels are called apartments and some apartments are suites, with names like The Elizabethan. The surrealistic (though in this country, easy to imagine) description continued with a list of ‘extras’ that owners could purchase for their dogs. These included things like films and videos for the fury inmates to the disturbing payment of a few quid for ‘cuddles’ which sounds worryingly like some form of shady escort service. The truly depressing thing is that given these as starting points you can fill in the more exotic details which are no doubt enumerated in astonishing detail in the high-gloss heavy-paper brochure (probably antique vellum) which is gifted to each besotted owner before the poor little doggie is left stranded, abandoned by his owner like a Getty on a yacht.

Anything that I can write from my imagination would probably be shown to be woefully inadequate to the fabulous reality.

I’ve not been able to find it (this canine Utopia) on the web (you probably need to be a high ranking member of some sort of Bilderberg Group to know the true location) but it is apparently called the Triple AAA Kennels – do let me know if you find it, and break to me gently the most outrageous extravagance that it contains.

I remember a Punch cartoon (god that dates me!) which showed the nameplates on the door of an office block. The drawing concentrated on two: the first a polished metallic plaque with elegant engraving displaying the initials RSPCA; beneath this expensive nameplate was a grubby scrap of paper attached to the wall by a drawing pin on which were scrawled the initials NSPCC. The point was clearly made, but facile.

It is too easy to be negative about the British approach to animals and, if they are little rat dogs (that is intentional ambiguity), it becomes a positive duty to be viciously vindictive; but what if the canine in question is, for example, a yellow Labrador bitch? All bets are off and luxury is the least you can bestow on such deserving animals. The Labradors in question, of course, would accept any little pleasures you could afford (in both senses of the word) with extreme equanimity and, as they lie in their exorbitantly priced rented penthouse having the canine equivalent of peeled grapes (specially softened Chews, in case you were wondering) one glance from those liquid brown eyes would make you feel guilty and inadequate.

And you have to buy them in the first place! And they are unbelievably expensive! It would be easier to buy yourself a ball and chain: at least you could take it with you on holiday without having it vaccinated and it having to have a passport. And it probably poses no rabies threat.

I’ve travelled with people going to Spain from Cardiff and Bristol who looked far more likely to be harbouring life threatening qualities than any Labrador that I have seen.

What was the point I was making about people and animals again? Gone! Gone: like a stick thrown for a Labrador who has no intention of indulging you by actually finding the thing, let alone brining it back to you. No wonder they take dogs to Old Folks Homes and Hospitals. When the ill and the aged see such smooth, placid examples of smug self satisfaction they surely have a real incentive to assert their humanity to try, at least, to emulate their doe eyed masters, return to the real world and become the highest thing to which a human can aspire: a paid companion (with no remission for supine behaviour) for a dog.