Old Dogs Are Taught New Tricks Fashionable Pet At A Cocktail Party

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 302, 17 September 1936, Page 5

Old Dogs Are Taught New Tricks Fashionable Pet At A Cocktail Party

TN some forgotten anthdlogy there is a poem, entitled “Only a Dog,” which bells the pathetic story of the canine, Cinderella, who languished at home while his master went carousing. “But he had a right to go, you know. . . . He was a man!”

Dogs will be glad to read that in Wellington at least the bad old days are dead. Gone are the Victorian notions that kept a dog chained to his kennel and bred all sorts of repressions. The

IK>or beasts never bit the postmen or chewed miladi’s slippers simply for the joy of biting and chewing. But merely because they were cooped up in their own backyards, liquorless, funless, while everyone else was out enjoying life. Even cats were over-raucous and gardens so trimly kept that the decent burial of a wishbone caused such consternation you would think a shellhole had mysteriously appeared in the daffodil bed.

But Miss Viola Kettle has said goodbye to all that. Her old friend and fox terrier, Gaylin-Cluny of Invergrey, celebrated the beginning of a new era this month when, none the worse for his “five to seven” party, he laid his hairy paw on his mistress’s hand and cut the symbolic tenth birthday cake which perhaps in future years will be

worn in replica on every collar as the badge of liberation. For the canine Upper Ten will surely not allow even champion GaylinOluny to be unique. It is freely rumoured that several owners have premised their pets he shall certainly not be the only dog that has' lapped a dry Martini. And Masterton has gone one better -by planning a “cat party.” ’ ■ However, most people think cats—-four-legged cats-—too dumb to be lovable. Dogs, on the other hand, have

been friends for centuries—ever since the first dog licked man’s apelike hand and forbore from going off with a piece of it. The Barrymore film shown in Wellington recently did not exaggerate the depth of their friendship.

In America and Europe all sorts of flourishing business firms aim at making a dog’s life a happy one.; Dog hospitals, much more pretentious than the New Zealand pioneer in Christchurch, are conducted with all the efficiency and cleanliness of a hospital for human beings. When a gllly puppy toddles under the wheels of a motorcar and has his legs smashed, his life is not hurriedly •- cut short by a bullet. He is taken in an ambulance to the dog hospital, where “dog doctors” set the broken bones in tiny splints. These men are paid almost as well and perform as delicate derations as “human doctors.” The invalid puppy stwi in hospital for days or weeks' according to his condition, just as any child would do. He has his chart of progress and the little ups and downs of his illness--are watched with anxious care. . . . Until finally he is returned, as good as new, to his overjoyed owner. An. enterprising business inan in New York has made a • fortune by equipping a fleet of “baby” cars as dog restaurants. You,have only to ring his office and give an order, for your dog’s breajrfast to be delivered at a certain time. And “Darling” gets his meals more regularly than,,many husbands. In London dog boarding-houses are little goldmines for their owners. Board for, a lapdog costs As much as £4 a week. There are also dog parking places where busy, shoppers jnay leave

their pets under expert care for-a few hours. In dog playhouses sport the poodles and pekes of the idle rieh. - The beauty salens are extremely exclusive. While the fashionable, owner on the Continent is having her hair curled, her nails painted and her face ironed but, her fashionable Pekinese across the road is going through much the same process. His silky coat is shampooed, his whiskers trimmed, his eyebrows plucked, his claws polished. No one even hints to him of “disagreeable body odonr.” But Miss Kettle has outdone Europe. If Gaylin-Cluny is to lead the Wellington canine fast set, maybe soon no dog that,is a dog will be able to get through his day without an occasional “snifter.” Because even at his first soiree GaylinCluny showed that he knew a thing or two and would be glad to learn more. He gave every sign of “understanding what it was all about, the dear thing,”