When watching Brian Sewell on a TV arts programme recently, I spotted a Whippet at his home, after investigating a little I came across the following article which I thought maybe of interest.
Who could ever abandon a wonderful creature like this?
Evening Standard (London), Feb 21, 2005 by BRIAN SEWELL
MY OLD Turkish bitch, Mop, died in November 2001 and lies in my garden under a black pine that grows the better with her body nourishing its roots.
Even now, three years on, I can hardly bear to write of her and endearments that were particularly hers I have never murmured to my other dogs. "Will you replace her?" friends asked.
Replace her? Replace that touch, that sound, that presence, that determined character?
Impossible. No dog ever replaces another - as I know from 60 years of unbroken and multiple succession since May 1945.
To "Will you replace her?" I invariably answered that if God wants me to have another, then he will see to it. I last paid for a dog 40 years ago, Hecate, a blue whippet bitch, dark as night; since then all my dogs have been found, dumped on me by my vet when taken to him to be put down, or got from the Mayhew Animal Home in Kensal Green - Mop was found with a broken leg and dislocated shoulder in the ruins of Mopsuestia in Turkey.
I fancy that for me proof of the existence of God and Heaven will be my waking one morning to find all my old dogs sleeping on my bed, nuzzling my face and fidgeting to be let into the garden - then I shall know that I was wrong to be agnostic.
The call came just before New Year. "It's James from the Mayhew," said the voice, "we've got a whippet. Are you interested?"
James will be amused that his, for a moment, was the voice of God. He then explained that there might, indeed, not be a whippet, that she had been starved for so long that she was little more than alive and might not recover, but that if she did, she would need to go to someone who had the time and knowledge to continue the regime of care.
She was skin and bone, no more, and required tiny quantities of food at frequent intervals; she seemed, moreover, either to have forgotten or never known what it is to be a dog, unresponsive to any stimulus. "What colour is she?" I asked, and I'd swear that James gave me the answer "Blue." That did it; from then on I thought of her as mine
With nursing at the Mayhew, she put on weight; when she was down to four meals a day, they let me take her, still so painfully thin that, standing against the light, I could see through her limbs, the bones as clear as in an X-ray. She trembled - as whippets often do - and, standing still, hung her head as though interested in nothing; she seemed to find some comfort in Nusch, my plump and bustling fluffy mongrel, but was at first in fear of Winck, my heavyweight Alsatian. She ate uneasily, her head so low over her food that it was as upside-down as a flamingo's. To me she showed no response.
Within three days she was a different dog. Still skeletal, still frail, she had discovered stairs as a source of fun and to the garden her at first agoraphopic response had become one of mad dashing hither and yon as though testing her ability to accelerate; watching her response to smells - of heron, magpie, pigeon, fox - was to observe the awakening of instinct.
Within a week she was on Wimbledon Common running in wide circles on its meadows, retrieving sticks and plunging fearless into its woods and undergrowth.
By then she had her name.
At the Mayhew they had called her Angel, but before I saw her I was determined to call her Blue, a good single syllable for shouting on the Common yet soft for the inevitable endearments.
Imagine my dismay on finding that she is not blue at all, not even remotely hinting at it, but the colour of milky coffee so pale that she is like a ghost in the night, seeming to reflect the moon, her eyes as impenetrably black as cabochon gems of polished coal.
No matter, I thought, Blue will still do - but then friends told me that it is the name of a pop band and thus not suitable."Call her Mimi, after the heroine of La Boheme," they said, "after all, her hand was, so to speak, frozen."
SHE was Mimi for two days and I hated it enough to revert to Blue, but then I saw her stand on her hind legs to sniff a piece of cheese. She did it slowly, like a circus trick, unsupported, until she was as erect as any human, tall and thin and straight like a Giacometti sculpture, as otherworldly as an alien, ethereal, unreal - I thought she might say, "Phone home." She didn't, but she got her name. From Giacometti she became, immediately, Jack, and Jack she is and ever will be - and what a good name it is for the short and sharp command, and how softly I can say it when she needs a cuddle.
She sleeps nestled against Winck's warm belly, resting her head on Nusch's thigh, or curled in some rumple of my duvet, and from being a dog that seemed to prefer to be alone she has become one in constant need of company.
Now infinitely curious and confident, she eats bananas, oranges, cheese and chocolate and all the temptations sweet and salt for which dogs sell their souls. She has learned to bark - an oddly human sound like a mezzosoprano at the very bottom of her register - and to break into a frenzy of activity to welcome my return.
With new hair grown on the paws and tail she gnawed in her abandonment she is well-nigh perfect, with a little blaze of white on her chest. With greatly increased weight no one would guess that she had been found discarded, thrown over the wall of an enclosure into which no one ever went, without shelter, food or water, her only comfort a few dead leaves.
How could anyone do that to any animal?
Who could ever abandon a wonderful creature like this?
Evening Standard (London), Feb 21, 2005 by BRIAN SEWELL
MY OLD Turkish bitch, Mop, died in November 2001 and lies in my garden under a black pine that grows the better with her body nourishing its roots.
Even now, three years on, I can hardly bear to write of her and endearments that were particularly hers I have never murmured to my other dogs. "Will you replace her?" friends asked.
Replace her? Replace that touch, that sound, that presence, that determined character?
Impossible. No dog ever replaces another - as I know from 60 years of unbroken and multiple succession since May 1945.
To "Will you replace her?" I invariably answered that if God wants me to have another, then he will see to it. I last paid for a dog 40 years ago, Hecate, a blue whippet bitch, dark as night; since then all my dogs have been found, dumped on me by my vet when taken to him to be put down, or got from the Mayhew Animal Home in Kensal Green - Mop was found with a broken leg and dislocated shoulder in the ruins of Mopsuestia in Turkey.
I fancy that for me proof of the existence of God and Heaven will be my waking one morning to find all my old dogs sleeping on my bed, nuzzling my face and fidgeting to be let into the garden - then I shall know that I was wrong to be agnostic.
The call came just before New Year. "It's James from the Mayhew," said the voice, "we've got a whippet. Are you interested?"
James will be amused that his, for a moment, was the voice of God. He then explained that there might, indeed, not be a whippet, that she had been starved for so long that she was little more than alive and might not recover, but that if she did, she would need to go to someone who had the time and knowledge to continue the regime of care.
She was skin and bone, no more, and required tiny quantities of food at frequent intervals; she seemed, moreover, either to have forgotten or never known what it is to be a dog, unresponsive to any stimulus. "What colour is she?" I asked, and I'd swear that James gave me the answer "Blue." That did it; from then on I thought of her as mine
With nursing at the Mayhew, she put on weight; when she was down to four meals a day, they let me take her, still so painfully thin that, standing against the light, I could see through her limbs, the bones as clear as in an X-ray. She trembled - as whippets often do - and, standing still, hung her head as though interested in nothing; she seemed to find some comfort in Nusch, my plump and bustling fluffy mongrel, but was at first in fear of Winck, my heavyweight Alsatian. She ate uneasily, her head so low over her food that it was as upside-down as a flamingo's. To me she showed no response.
Within three days she was a different dog. Still skeletal, still frail, she had discovered stairs as a source of fun and to the garden her at first agoraphopic response had become one of mad dashing hither and yon as though testing her ability to accelerate; watching her response to smells - of heron, magpie, pigeon, fox - was to observe the awakening of instinct.
Within a week she was on Wimbledon Common running in wide circles on its meadows, retrieving sticks and plunging fearless into its woods and undergrowth.
By then she had her name.
At the Mayhew they had called her Angel, but before I saw her I was determined to call her Blue, a good single syllable for shouting on the Common yet soft for the inevitable endearments.
Imagine my dismay on finding that she is not blue at all, not even remotely hinting at it, but the colour of milky coffee so pale that she is like a ghost in the night, seeming to reflect the moon, her eyes as impenetrably black as cabochon gems of polished coal.
No matter, I thought, Blue will still do - but then friends told me that it is the name of a pop band and thus not suitable."Call her Mimi, after the heroine of La Boheme," they said, "after all, her hand was, so to speak, frozen."
SHE was Mimi for two days and I hated it enough to revert to Blue, but then I saw her stand on her hind legs to sniff a piece of cheese. She did it slowly, like a circus trick, unsupported, until she was as erect as any human, tall and thin and straight like a Giacometti sculpture, as otherworldly as an alien, ethereal, unreal - I thought she might say, "Phone home." She didn't, but she got her name. From Giacometti she became, immediately, Jack, and Jack she is and ever will be - and what a good name it is for the short and sharp command, and how softly I can say it when she needs a cuddle.
She sleeps nestled against Winck's warm belly, resting her head on Nusch's thigh, or curled in some rumple of my duvet, and from being a dog that seemed to prefer to be alone she has become one in constant need of company.
Now infinitely curious and confident, she eats bananas, oranges, cheese and chocolate and all the temptations sweet and salt for which dogs sell their souls. She has learned to bark - an oddly human sound like a mezzosoprano at the very bottom of her register - and to break into a frenzy of activity to welcome my return.
With new hair grown on the paws and tail she gnawed in her abandonment she is well-nigh perfect, with a little blaze of white on her chest. With greatly increased weight no one would guess that she had been found discarded, thrown over the wall of an enclosure into which no one ever went, without shelter, food or water, her only comfort a few dead leaves.
How could anyone do that to any animal?
