Lurchers

I don't keep dogs. I don't live in surroundings that are fitted to dogs and think it cruel to keep them out of a suitable environment but were I 'pleasantly situated' I would be delighted to share my home with a pair of lurchers. Lurchers, real lurchers, are, for me, without doubt the most appealing of all canines: Intelligent, fiercely loyal, stable and 'take-it-for-granted' dependable, they embody the characteristics of a good wife or, for a woman, a good husband (the two are the same if viewed from different sides of the same coin), or the comrades one relies upon to watch one's back when one's back is against the wall.

Lurchers, real lurchers, are English dogs: scruffy mongrels bred out of necessity in the face of adversity with the sole purpose of surviving one's foes through disciplined teamwork. They are possessed of a beauty and purpose that is theirs alone. That lurchers are now fashionable means nothing other than that those obsessed with fashion have run out of fashionable types to show and, in their relentless quest for novelty, have latched on to that which they have always recognised but never understood: The 'unspoiled'. Much in the way that Lady Chatterley recognised, yet failed to understand, the 'bit of rough' in a bit of Parkin (Lawrence's little joke?). Anyone who has ever smoked a rough shag will readily understand (that little 'hit' at the back of the throat).

Lurchers are hunters' dogs; real hunters, not those chinless idiots who would have you believe that their right to ride roughshod over your rights is essesntial to your freedoms.