Doggies
There was a good letter in The Groiniad the other day, commenting on the recent 'spate' (two) 'dangerous dogs' attacks that made it to the national news. It quoted an Irish vet who had once opined that 'the problem is when the intelligence is on the wrong end of the leash'. How true.
I'm sure that people are being savaged to various degrees by dogs every day, but it's only when something truly awful happens, as it did the other week, and it involves 'dangerous dogs' that it makes the national press.
What exactly is a 'dangerous dog' anyway? In my experience it's one you try and withhold bonio from. Any dog can be dangerous, the problem is the fang to muscle to size ratio. Seeing a 'rat-on-a-stick' variety turn into a toothed missile of vengance can be amusing, unless it's your ankle that's savaged. Seeing a rotweiller go nuts is a lot less amusing, unless it's the owner it turns on, then generally it's funny as hell.
A dangerous dog then is generally considered to be a rotweiller or pit-bull, and not an ugly girl you went out with once, made the mistake of shagging and who now won't leave you alone.
When the dogs were making the news it was the wrong kind of dog days. Dog days are generally accepted to be the sort of weather we are currently enjoying at the moment, clear skies and more sunshine than we know what to do with. The term comes from Egypt, where the late summers coincided with the appearance of the constellation Sirus low in the sky and the flooding of the Nile. This was good news for the Egyptians, who depended on the flooding to irrigate their lands but even more important meaning an end to their hosepipe ban.
Dog days are quite different to going to the dogs. This expression usually means that something is on its way out or not as good as it used to be. Successive generations have thought that this country has been going to the dogs for so long we should rename it 'Walthemstow'. Currently, going to the dogs is encouraged, at least by bookmakers, as the gurning idiot features of Gazza knacker grabber Vinnie 'hard man' Jones stare out from a poster, waving a fan of cash and inviting you to lose it all on dog racing. I assume that they are using Vinnie because he is associated with dog racing, that is, he's not posh enough to go horse racing.
The day they have little dog jockeys, that's the day I'll watch dog racing.
Neither dog days nor going to the dogs should be confused with dogging - though maybe going to the dogs could describe the act of leaving the house to go dogging. Dogging is not, as I thought, an updating of the simple Victorian pleasure of ratting, where a gent would pit his Jack Russel against hoards of savage Thameside rats to see who came off best (use of traps by the dog was considered unsporting).
Dogging is, apparently, when you drive to a car park and have sex with strangers. Presumably they have also arranged to go there, possibly through the internet, or dogging would be sitting in a deserted car-park thinking what a waste of an evening you've had - or furiously masturbating until point of arrest.
I assume it's called dogging because it's named after the most comfortable position for sexual intercourse in a Vauxhall. Surely it's not called this after the other things dogs get up to in cars, which appear to be shredding the back seat when bored and their owner has spent too long in Sainsbury's, or sticking their head out of the window when the car is in motion, letting their ears flap wildly and going, as much as a dog, can 'wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!'
The problem is not so much the dangerous dog as the dangerous owner. Certainly, from what I've seen, pit bulls and rotweillers tend to be owned by strutting pricks who think that a big dog will make them a big man, much in the same way that some infantile boy-racer thinks that a stick-on spoiler and a few stickers will turn his three door hatch-back from a school-run and shopping runabout into a performance car.
The other owners are of course drug dealers.
The thing that has struck me about the shaved-haired, vest wearing, underweight tossers who own these dogs is that they rarely have them on a leash, this is probably because they are too thick or poor to own one, but possibly because when 'Satan' does go ballistic, they don't want to be attached to it.
You can always tell responsible dog owners, they are the ones happily swinging a plastic bag full of dog-shit, looking for the nearest appropriate bin. Dangerous owners don't clear up after their dogs - why should they need to, as Satan has already shit in their wardrobe back home and, when discovered, eyed their owner is if he were basted in gravy and assumed a 'and what are you going to do about it?' expression.
I'm sure that people are being savaged to various degrees by dogs every day, but it's only when something truly awful happens, as it did the other week, and it involves 'dangerous dogs' that it makes the national press.
What exactly is a 'dangerous dog' anyway? In my experience it's one you try and withhold bonio from. Any dog can be dangerous, the problem is the fang to muscle to size ratio. Seeing a 'rat-on-a-stick' variety turn into a toothed missile of vengance can be amusing, unless it's your ankle that's savaged. Seeing a rotweiller go nuts is a lot less amusing, unless it's the owner it turns on, then generally it's funny as hell.
A dangerous dog then is generally considered to be a rotweiller or pit-bull, and not an ugly girl you went out with once, made the mistake of shagging and who now won't leave you alone.
When the dogs were making the news it was the wrong kind of dog days. Dog days are generally accepted to be the sort of weather we are currently enjoying at the moment, clear skies and more sunshine than we know what to do with. The term comes from Egypt, where the late summers coincided with the appearance of the constellation Sirus low in the sky and the flooding of the Nile. This was good news for the Egyptians, who depended on the flooding to irrigate their lands but even more important meaning an end to their hosepipe ban.
Dog days are quite different to going to the dogs. This expression usually means that something is on its way out or not as good as it used to be. Successive generations have thought that this country has been going to the dogs for so long we should rename it 'Walthemstow'. Currently, going to the dogs is encouraged, at least by bookmakers, as the gurning idiot features of Gazza knacker grabber Vinnie 'hard man' Jones stare out from a poster, waving a fan of cash and inviting you to lose it all on dog racing. I assume that they are using Vinnie because he is associated with dog racing, that is, he's not posh enough to go horse racing.
The day they have little dog jockeys, that's the day I'll watch dog racing.
Neither dog days nor going to the dogs should be confused with dogging - though maybe going to the dogs could describe the act of leaving the house to go dogging. Dogging is not, as I thought, an updating of the simple Victorian pleasure of ratting, where a gent would pit his Jack Russel against hoards of savage Thameside rats to see who came off best (use of traps by the dog was considered unsporting).
Dogging is, apparently, when you drive to a car park and have sex with strangers. Presumably they have also arranged to go there, possibly through the internet, or dogging would be sitting in a deserted car-park thinking what a waste of an evening you've had - or furiously masturbating until point of arrest.
I assume it's called dogging because it's named after the most comfortable position for sexual intercourse in a Vauxhall. Surely it's not called this after the other things dogs get up to in cars, which appear to be shredding the back seat when bored and their owner has spent too long in Sainsbury's, or sticking their head out of the window when the car is in motion, letting their ears flap wildly and going, as much as a dog, can 'wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!'
The problem is not so much the dangerous dog as the dangerous owner. Certainly, from what I've seen, pit bulls and rotweillers tend to be owned by strutting pricks who think that a big dog will make them a big man, much in the same way that some infantile boy-racer thinks that a stick-on spoiler and a few stickers will turn his three door hatch-back from a school-run and shopping runabout into a performance car.
The other owners are of course drug dealers.
The thing that has struck me about the shaved-haired, vest wearing, underweight tossers who own these dogs is that they rarely have them on a leash, this is probably because they are too thick or poor to own one, but possibly because when 'Satan' does go ballistic, they don't want to be attached to it.
You can always tell responsible dog owners, they are the ones happily swinging a plastic bag full of dog-shit, looking for the nearest appropriate bin. Dangerous owners don't clear up after their dogs - why should they need to, as Satan has already shit in their wardrobe back home and, when discovered, eyed their owner is if he were basted in gravy and assumed a 'and what are you going to do about it?' expression.
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