STARVED FOR HER DOG

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22566, 9 May 1935, Page 10

STARVED FOR HER DOG

INVALID'S INTELLIGENT PET A woman invalid's struggle to aave money to buy a license for her dog, which does all her shopping, was revealed at Blackpool last month, when Miss Kathleen Alma Hutchinson was summoned for keeping a dog without a license. Mr Jacob Parkinson, a local solicitor, defended her in an honorary capacity, and the Mongrel Club, which helps dog lovers unable to pay for licenses, offered to pay if she were fined, but the magistrate dismissed the case on payment of costs, which the chief constable, Mr H. E. Derham, indicated he would pay. Mr Parkinson said Miss Hutchinson was unable to go out to work and her ir.come was only 19s 6d per week, out of which she paid 8s 6d rent. "This clog does the shopping," continued Mr Parkinson. " Miss Hutchinson puts a note of her requirements in a bag and sends the dog along to the shop for the goods." The chief constable said there was no fire in the house, and Miss Hutchinson kept herself warm by wrapping up in a blanket. She was practically a skeleton. She had since bought a license out of her rent money. Miss Hutchinson, who has been an 'invalid since she was injured in a street accident nearly three years ago, is only a young woman, but her hair has turned white. She said to an interviewer: "He is a wonderful dog, a cross between a spaniel and a collie, and I do not know what I would do without him. I am alone here, and lie is always doing something for me. I have gone short of food for as long as six weeks so that he shall have the best that he deserves. He does all the shopping, visiting the butcher's and the grocer's, taking the money and my orders with him."