J’adore, Flabradors, and Guards’ma’doors.
The British are a funny race. Did anyone enquire as to the state of health of Frenchman Gerard de Nerval’s pet lobster as he walked it round Paris? Sentient? Fricasseed? Boiled even? We were content to believe that the Lobster was sufficiently adored rather than thermidored – and ignored the expert advice that it was more likely to be dead than alive based on a Lobster’s reluctance to do more than scuttle sideways on dry land, and then only when frightened to death.
Salvador Dali took his pet anteater for a trip round Paris on the metro – did it jump the barriers? Suffer from Claustrophobia? Get it’s tail caught in the escalator? We will never know – no social media to be outraged in those days.
In Japan, a childless funeral director has been inviting little girls to sit on his pet tortoise for nineteen years – ‘if you stroke it, it might pop its little head out’ – without unleashing the forum furries of #CSA.
Her gloriousness, the Queen, appeared remarkably unperturbed by the sight of one of her bushy eared ‘guards’ma’dors’ lying prone in the baking sun – was he dead or alive? Temporarily indisposed, or needing to be permanently disposed? We don’t know. He wasn’t on a lead, so presumably that’s all right then.
In Camden, a woman was walking her pet Flabrador to the vet for a second visit when it collapsed. Horrified onlookers besieged Facebook – ‘How sick’; ‘how could anybody be so cruel’ [as to take their dog back to the vet!!] They surrounded her and hurled abuse. Eventually she abandoned the corpse, and the police were called – ‘Hello, yes, we think the dog is dead, yes it is just around the corner from Dead Dog Basin‘ ‘You’ll have to do something, we are all traumatised’.
The Daily Mail are appealing for anybody who knows the name of the owner so they can blame and shame her. How dare she take something for a walk without checking it could last the distance?
Thank you Daily Mail, but I’d really rather know if the Guardsman is alright.
- therealguyfaux
June 12, 2016 at 12:42 pm -
In some constituencies, that dead dog could stand for Parliament and win, were it of the proper Party– as in, “I’d vote for a dead dog before I’d vote [other Party]!”
- Mudplugger
June 12, 2016 at 4:28 pm -
This post caused me to recall a pal from the early 1970s who was heavily into animals (but not in a Welshman sort of way). As well as having a goshawk, which he had trained to hunt, he also had a couple of ferrets which worked as a team with the hawk. He would send a ferret into a rabbit-hole then, if any were flushed out, the hawk would swoop down and collect them – great teamwork, not so great for bunnykins.
But the real memory-trigger was that he would often take his ferrets for a stroll round the local city centre on dog-leads, much to the amusement of many and the frantic worry of some blokes, who would urgently move their trouser-legs away in case the ferocious ferrets dashed up them and engaged with whatever they could find of interest dangling there.
Remembering how long it took Richard Whiteley to disengage a ferret from his finger on that classic Calendar TV show clip a few years later, it’s perhaps no surprise that they were petrified. - Mike
June 12, 2016 at 4:53 pm -
The guardsman probably got into trouble. He fainted at ease (his legs are apart) rather than at attention.
- Mrs Grimble
June 12, 2016 at 8:52 pm -
That dog was nearly half the woman’s size – so was she expected to just pick it up and take it to the nearest funeral parlour? As for her being ‘verbally abusive’, she was probably very upset and emotional.
I don’t get emotional over animals, but I know a lot of people do and I’m sympathetic to that. Some years ago, I came across a dead cat in the street, obviously an RTA victim. It had a collar with an address on it; the house was just down the street, so I went and knocked on the door. The woman who answered was in floods of tears and immediately said “If it’s about the cat, I know already! I just can’t bear to see him like that, please don’t ask me to touch him!” So I asked if he would like me to pick it up. “Yes please!” she cried “But don’t bring him here, I can’t bear it!” And shut the door on me. (I wasn’t offended – she was in a real state,) So, obviously, I did my civic duty – picked up the deceased pussy, put it into a plastic bag, took it home with me and gave it a decent burial in my bin.This was just a dead dog, possibly killed by overfeeding by the looks of it. Some people – hell, most people – need to get a grip.
- JuliaM
June 13, 2016 at 6:52 am -
It’s a shame the woman didn’t thank you for your kind act. But I note that she also refrained from hurling abuse at you. Maybe that’s the difference here?
- JuliaM
- JuliaM
June 13, 2016 at 5:56 am -
They aren’t blaming her for that, Anna. But for the way she behaved when people came to help.
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