By Julian Shore

 

Many of us are sometimes guilty of allowing our hounds a little more latitude in their general behaviour than perhaps what is recommended in the training manuals.

This usually starts with a sad-looking pooch shivering outside the back door on a cold winter’s night with an unappetizing bowl of dry pellets as his only comfort. The rot starts of course as soon as the hound is allowed inside even if it is ‘just this once.’

From there, before you can wipe the drool off the floor, you rapidly lose control of the household and you are soon living in a glorified kennel.

Apart from subtly taking over things on the domestic front, it seems that hounds have also been influential in the bigger picture of human history.

If we dust off the history books and go back as far as Alexander the Great we find that even this famous general, who forged the world’s first superpower, had a faithful hound at his side. His name was Peritas and he was a Molossus, an early Mastiff-type breed. Given the nature of his master, no surprises that Peritas was quite happy to get involved when the rough stuff started.

During a battle against the Persians Alexander was briefly cut off from his men and was faced by a charging elephant. Peritas attacked the huge beast allowing Alexander to get to safety. Unfortunately Peritas did not survive the encounter, but Alexander gave him a state funeral and named a city after him.

Historians tell us that had Alexander died during the battle, Western civilization as we know it today would have been very different.

Sometime later Henry V111 decided that he had had enough of his queen, Catherine of Aragon. In those days divorce was a touch more tricky than today, and Henry sent Cardinal Wolsey to try and persuade the Pope at the time (Clement V11) to grant him an annulment of the marriage.

It was apparently customary when meeting the Pope to kiss his big toe. It seems that Urian, Cardinal Wolsey’s dog, took exception to this custom and nipped the Pope. This naturally got the meeting off to a bad start and the Pope refused to grant the divorce.

The result was that Henry decided if the Catholic Church would not sanction his break-up then he would start a church that would, hence the founding of the Church of England.

Now enter Napoleon Bonaparte. After having caused all sorts of mischief he was exiled to the Island of Elba.

But he was a busy little man and managed to organize an escape. It was not all plain sailing though, and at some point he fell overboard. A Newfoundland belonging to a fisherman jumped into the heavy seas and kept him afloat until he was rescued.

 Napoleon then went on to cause even more mischief until it all came to an end at Waterloo.

So were it not for  the actions of the unnamed Newfoundland, we would not have heard of Lord Nelson, the history of Europe would have been altered ,the French would not have been so embarrassed and we might never have heard of ABBA.

The World’s Top Dogs

On the subject of mischief, after the Second World War the Russians and Americans were left standing as the world’s two top dogs. There of course always has to be has to be a pack leader and the two countries started baring teeth at each other.

To demonstrate how technologically advanced they were, the Russians were determined to be the first to send a living creature into space. An innocent mutt named Laika had the dubious honour of being blasted into orbit on Sputnik 2.

However no thought had been put into her safe return and she died early into the journey, with very little useful knowledge being gleaned from the exercise.

Despite this, it was a huge propaganda coup for the Russians, and they made the most of it. The Americans were still licking their wounds when the Russians not only sent two more hounds, Strelka and Belka, into orbit, but this time managed to bring them back alive.

This was too much for the Americans, and they decided that the only way to get one up over the Russians was to put a man on the moon and get him back. So three harmless pooches were involved in one of the biggest endeavours in human history which culminated in the moon landings in 1969.

In the meantime however the Russians decided it would also be a good idea to place some nuclear missiles in Cuba. The Americans were understandably not thrilled at having all these nukes on their doorstep and insisted that they be removed. The Russians refused.

The big dogs were circling and snapping at each other and it seemed like the Cold War was about to get very hot. Everybody needed to calm down. President Kennedy, his hand hovering over the red button, asked that his son’s Welsh Terrier, Charlie, be brought to him in the war room. He sat with the dog and patted him, and reportedly seemed to relax. He persuaded the Russians to remove the missiles and the crisis was over.

The effect that the dog had on Kennedy would have come as no surprise to the father of psychology Sigmund Freud. During his sessions he often had a Chow named Jofi present. He believed the dog relaxed and comforted his patients. His records of how his patients responded to Jofi have formed the basis of pet assisted therapy.

Another US president, the infamous Richard Nixon also had cause to be thankful to a dog. In 1952 when candidate for Vice-President he was accused of accepting illegal campaign contributions. As a result his career was hanging in the balance.

He admitted to also accepting an American Cocker Spaniel called Checkers as a gift. In what became known as the Checkers Speech he made it clear that his children loved the dog and he would keep it regardless of the consequences. This seemed to strike a chord with the public, he survived the scandal and went on to eventually become President. The rest is history.

Another hound also struck a chord, although more in the literal sense than the metaphorical. His name was Peps and he belonged to the great composer Richard Wagner. Peps sat on his special chair while his master was composing. Based on his pooch’s reaction to the music, Wagner would either keep or toss out his compositions. It seems pieces such as Ride of the Valkyries and other masterpieces got the nod from Peps.

The above only highlights a few examples of how our hounds have not only crept into our hearts but also our history books.

Long may it continue!