Iain Hollingshead - Telling Tails: From Hopeless Hounds to Tyrannical Tortoises: Animal Letters to The Telegraph

From Hopeless Hounds to
Tyrannical Tortoises Animal Letters to

EDITED BY

IAIN HOLLINGSHEAD

CARTOONS BY

SIR If you feed a cat it thinks it is God; if you read the Guardian you think you are intelligent; if youve got any sense you read the Telegraph and keep a dog.

Jonathan Goodall

Bath

SIR Where do you turn if you have no dog? S.J. Perelman had a fix for this concern: Outside of a dog, a book is a mans best friend. To which he puckishly added: Inside of a dog, its too dark to read.

Dick Laurie

London SW15

O f all the popular topics which attract weighty postbags to the letters desk of The Daily Telegraph (the defence of the realm; the storyline in The Archers; the best way to locate a missing spouse in a large supermarket), few are as much fun as the readers witty observations on the animal kingdom. We are fortunate that Telegraph letter-writers dont just share their lives with their pets; they are also more than happy to share the eccentricities of their pets lives with the rest of us whether that be a Newfoundland with a talent for salmon fishing; a cat addicted to Ski Sunday; a sheep who thinks its a dog; or a tortoise with a penchant for head-butting.

The readers are similarly acute observers of nature beyond the kitchen doors. To paraphrase Monty Python, their interest includes the short, the squat and the venomous, from migrating midges to foaming toads, as well as the bright and the beautiful, from love-sick peacocks on village greens to albatrosses in the merchant navy to nightingales accompanying the opera in Holland Park.

It has, therefore, been a huge pleasure to mine the archives, like a chaffinch in search of the juiciest worms, to uncover the best letters of the past decade or so. Here you will find: the final word on pigeons regional accents, as well as donkeys who will only answer to a Lancastrian brogue; a dog who paid his vet in golf balls, as well as a crow who stole everyone elses; a cat and a horse decorated by the military for bravery, as well as an anti-terrorist St Bernard who fell asleep on operations; an MP who rode to Parliament on horseback, as well as a rural pub-goer who lurches home the same way. Along the way you will also encounter guest appearances from Lord Byrons dog, Baroness Thatchers cat and an army major who soothed over a diplomatic incident by giving Idi Amin a coveted pair of white peafowls.

Most of all, however, you will find a love and respect for mans best friends in all their guises, feathered, hooved and/or tailed, all equally bewitching, beguiling and bewildering. I hope you enjoy spending time with Tutankhamun the Tortoise and Percy the Peacock as much as I have.

Iain Hollingshead

London SE22

SIR I was fascinated at the tantrums displayed by Prince Henrik, Denmarks Prince Consort, on learning he had dropped from number two in his family hierarchy. I know the feeling having three children I was always number five until, one evening, I arrived home from an arduous day to find two golden retriever puppies in the kitchen, and my wife greeting me with: Ill just get the dogs supper and then Ill see to you.

From five to seven in seconds, with nowhere to go.

Ronald Best

Eastbourne, East Sussex

SIR I sympathise with Ronald Best. Some years ago I managed to get an earlier flight back from a business trip. As I came through the door my wife looked up from the dinner table and asked: What are you doing here?

My four children continued their meal. The dog was genuinely pleased to see me. The next day I went out and bought a second dog. After that I was always assured of two good welcomes when I came home.

Martin Hughes

Bracknell, Berkshire

SIR I enjoy visiting my local florist, who often says: Hello, handsome when I enter her shop, but I suspect her greeting is directed at my dog rather than at me.

Ian Burton

Boxmoor, Hertfordshire

SIR You report that mothers-in-law languish behind pet dogs in the family popularity stakes. An infallible test to ascertain which of the two loves you more is to lock them both in the boot of your car for a couple of hours, and see which one is more pleased to see you when you let them out.

John Mash

Cobham, Surrey

SIR We have two sons, a dog, a cat and 15 tortoises. Where does that leave me?

Paul Mason

Long Sutton, Lincolnshire

SIR Taking pets on holiday is nothing new. In the 1960s my father would load the following into his Humber Super Snipe: mother, four children, one dog, one tortoise, one budgie, several guinea pigs, two goldfish, some stick insects and, on one occasion, a ferret.

He would deposit us at our holiday home and then, very sensibly, return home to seek the sanctuary of his bank in the City before collecting us at the end of the holiday.

Alexis Granger

Bracknell, Berkshire

SIR Your correspondent is uncertain as to how to behave when driving behind a Baby on board sticker.

I faced the same dilemma recently when following a Ferrets on board sign on a car near Skipton, North Yorkshire.

Dr Ann Chippindale

Oxford

SIR I was watch-keeping officer on the bridge of a ship outward-bound from Greenhithe to Goole in the 1960s, with one helmsman (whose chief purpose was to give me someone to talk to about the fleshpots of Goole), when a Dutch coaster passed us inward-bound.

The only occupant of its bridge was a dog, with its paws on the dodger, smiling as only mongrels can smile. As it could obviously identify port and starboard buoys and knew the rule of the road, I flashed it a message with the Aldis lamp, but it declined to reply.

Ian Dougall

Bournemouth, Hampshire

SIR The Bichon Frise dog flown as baggage on Concorde is not the only supersonic animal. Our domestic tabby cat, Harriet, broke the sound barrier on June 19, 1998. A fault in the heated hold of our scheduled jumbo led BA to offer the cat an upgrade.

Her certificate has pride of place in our loo.