A dog is the greatest friend and the best personal trainer you’ll ever have
THE ten million dogs in the UK never felt more like man’s best friend than they do in these lockdown days.
When death and suffering are all around, when there is so much anxiety and fear everywhere, owning a dog can’t fail to put a smile on your face, a spring in your step and a lust for life in your heart.
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Separated from our friends, family and so much of what constitutes normal life, having one keeps ten million of us sane.
It is hard to feel too sorry for yourself when there is a man’s best friend gazing up at you as if you are the greatest thing in the world.
And it is hard to feel down for very long when you see how glad your dog is just to be alive.
They are the best personal trainers in the world.
Unlike a gym, walking your pet is not optional. You have to do it.
They keep us fit — or at least, far fitter than we would ever be if they weren’t compulsory walkies waiting for us at the start (and end) of every new day.
I would never dream of jumping out of bed at dawn if it was not for Stan, our ruby-coloured, eight-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel, who is always keen to get out into the world and sniff a few lampposts, greet four-legged friends and wander, blissed-out, through nature.
Whatever the weather, Stan wakes up ready for his dawn yomp on London’s Hampstead Heath and, whatever my mood, Stan is sure to lift it.
Because dogs are the most positive creatures on God’s earth.
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No animal on the planet comes in so many different shapes and sizes and temperaments, but every dog knows how to get the maximum joy out of any given moment.
Dogs have a genius for living life to the full.
In these dark days, their relentlessly positive outlook is nothing less than inspirational.
And you can’t help noticing that dogs rather like lockdown.
With her A-levels coming up, the closure of the schools was a devastating blow for my 17-year-old daughter.
But Stan is absolutely delighted to have her hanging around the house.
Even after all these weeks, he trots after her with his tail wagging happily and a pleasantly surprised expression that says: “What are you doing here in the middle of the day?”
Many of our ten million pooches must get desperately lonely home alone during the long working days of normal life.
They are not lonely now, and are delighted to be our constant companions.
The reason that the 10,000-year-old partnership between humans and dogs has worked so well is because dogs have been happy to perform whatever function we have asked of them.
Guard dogs, guide dogs, sniffer dogs, herding dogs, lapdogs, therapy dogs — you name it and some dog out there will do it brilliantly.
And now there is research to see if they can be trained to spot coronavirus.
Medical detection dogs already help screen for cancer, malaria and Parkinson’s disease.
Now the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is running tests to see if dogs can be trained to sniff out Covid-19.
“We do not know if Covid-19 has a specific odour yet,” says Professor James Logan, head of LSHTM’s department for disease control.
“But we know that other respiratory diseases change our body odour so there is a chance that it does.
“And if it does, dogs will be able to detect it.”
We ask a lot of our dogs.
In the lockdown, we look to our four-legged friends to be the cure for loneliness.
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The Dogs Trust, the UK’s largest canine charity, reports that is has been “overwhelmed” with applications for dogs to keep the nation company during lockdown, not least for all those millions of children who are shut out of school and no longer able to see their friends.
“On Sunday March 22 we recorded our busiest day at the contact centre since it opened in 2014, with a 46 per cent increase in calls,” says a Dogs Trust spokesman. “However, like many other animal welfare charities, we have now closed all our rehoming centres.”
This dog-crazy nation got even crazier about dogs during lockdown.
But it is probably just as well that organisations such as the Dogs Trust and Battersea Dogs Home are currently closed.
Because getting a dog should never be an impulse buy.
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I came downstairs this morning and discovered Stan had sprayed liquid diarrhoea all over his cage.
He was mortified, not least because he knew that I was going to have to clean it up. Stan can’t do it.
Nobody will ever love you like a dog.
Nobody will ever be as happy to see you as a dog.
Nobody will ever make you laugh as much as a dog.
In their heartbreakingly brief lives they make you realise how lucky you are to be alive.
I would recommend getting a dog to anyone.
Watching your child grow up with a dog is a privilege and a joy.
But our dogs rely on us as much as we rely on them.
And a dog is for ever, not just for lockdown.
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