Daily Mail 2005

WHY PETS ARE GOOD FOR THE SOUL

She’s extremely small but her importance in my life is out of all proportion to her size. In the old sensible days I couldn’t have imagined that an inconvenient pet could reduce me to the kind of woman I once laughed at - a lady with a lap dog, a sadly-self-styled ‘Mummy’ of a miniature mutt. But here I am -  and that’s why I think it no laughing matter that Britain is ceasing to be a nation of pet lovers. For sharing your space with a living creature from another species can teach you as much as a ten  self-help manuals. I know, because I’ve learned so many lessons myself.

New research has has just shown that for the first time less than half of British households own a pet, and  some of the reasons reveal melancholy truths about the way we live now. I still possess one or two children’s books which date from the fifties which show the happy nuclear family on a day out with the dog. Looking at such sweetly old-fashioned images you know that Mum would have been ready, in her pinny, to clean up the muddy footprints when Fido came in from the garden, and Janet and John expected to don their gabardine macs and take him for a long walk in the rain. Come to think of it, children and dog alike would have accepted their obedience training.....Nostalgic? You bet.

The Mintel report shows a very different picture, and seems to herald the end of our reputation as a nation of doting pet owners. For one thing, there are far more single households than ever before (31 per cent compared with 17 per cent in 1971) which means that having a canine companion is impossible, because you can’t leave a dog alone all day whilst working. Single people can keep a cat, of course, because cats don’t mind being left (and over the years I bonded variously with Micky, Sammy, Dizzy, Django, Thelonius and Louis), and there is something very comforting about the cat mewing around your ankles when you come home.

But a part of me suspects that there may be another factor, quite apart from singlehood. For we seem to be becoming more and more fussy as a society, picking up the absurd health and safety rules which beset the jobsworths on local councils (remember all those bans on conkers and so on?) and fretting about pet hairs, the open tin of pet food in the fridge, paw marks on furniture and so on. Too much hand-washing and hand-wringing goes on for the real health of the nation, and such neuroses are incompatible with keeping an animal.

I remember a young couple coming to visit my old home some years ago. They had a baby who was fascinated by our two dogs and four cats (there were none at home) and wanted  to touch. Each time the pudgy little paw reached out with a delighted gurgle to pat a passing head, Mum looked worried and insisted her husband leap up for a babywipe, just in case of germs. It was absurd - but sad too, because you knew the anxiety would communicate itself to a child who would never know the delight of rolling on the floor with a slightly whiffy dog.

When our son was young he longed for a dog more than anything in the world but I wouldn’t let him have one and I swear it’s the only thing from his whole childhood he holds against me. I didn’t like dogs, and that was the end of it. Much later, when my husband was approaching fifty I knew what would please him more than anything - and so Billie, the Labrador puppy came into our family. She was followed by a raggy border collie we called Sam, because by then I’d changed. I knew the inexpressible relaxation of fondling Billie’s velvet ears, and the irresistible flattery of Sam’s nervy devotion - and was happier in that knowledge.

On a summer evening, alone at the farm, I’d stroll down the track and see the three cats following the dogs in the evening light - and then truly, God was in his heaven and all right with the world. Though feeding time was like the zoo, those pets were a comfort when I was lonely and a constant source of entertainment too. I just wished I had learned sooner - and given the children such pleasure when they were small. Mind you, I did get Brownie points by walking around with teenage Dan’s white rat Osric on my shoulder, pink naked tail curling round my neck.....

There’s no doubt that pets can be a nuisance and a tie,  but it helps curb our natural selfishness - because when my Maltese dog Bonnie hasn’t been out at all during the day, I have to make time to take her for a walk, even if only round the block. Even if I don’t want to. I can’t just go out for hours leaving her alone; because she is totally dependent my routine must be be structured with her in mind.  If this lesson is good for adults, it is beyond invaluable for children. One of the depressing conclusions of the recent report is that children aren’t given pets because they are growing up in an age of electronic gadgetry which harnesses all their attention. How deeply sad to think of Janet and John stuck in their bedrooms with computers, games consoles and mobile phones, lavishing what little attention they have to spare on a  so-called ‘virtual’ pet. That’s no way to bring up rounded human beings.

When daughter Kitty was little she had a succession of hamsters, all of whom met unfortunate ends. There was always a squabble about who would clean out the cage (yes....me, usually) but those funny little creatures taught her that such chores are necessary because you can’t leave a pet in squalor, that the water bowl must be watched, and that things don’t (in the end) go as you want - because a pet may get lost or die, despite all your care, and then the loss poured out in your tears will edge you that little bit further towards coping with some of life’s inevitable sadness.

Teaching a dog to ‘sit’ and ‘stay’, grooming the cat, feeding the rabbit - all these tasks form an important part of a child’s development. I connect it with the larger awareness of the natural world for which we are responsible - so that children become aware that just as their pet needs fresh water, so also it matters how farm animals are reared, and what happens to dolphins when tuna is fished for the mass market, and why the loss of bird species diminishes us all. When I read of people convicted for keeping hundreds of pets in terrible, over-crowded conditions, I suspect that as children they did not learn these important moral lessons. Nobody taught them that we don’t own these creatures, we owe them.

And what do I owe my adorable Bonnie, who came from the Bath RSPCA Home exactly three years ago, having been found abandoned, tied to a tree in a park? At the darkest time of my life, when my marriage ended, she gave me such comfort that recovery lay in the gleam of those little black eyes. She may have a brain the size of a walnut but she is intelligent, responsive, funny, and perpetually loving, and no matter how busy I am, makes me calm down and stop. She’s taught me that an enormous soul (yes!) can exist within a tiny animal’s body...

And the humble truth is - she isn’t my pet at all. I’m hers.