They call it puppy love

The gift of a dog can bring joy into a home, but this present comes with responsibilities as well as privileges, writes Eileen Battersby

Every dog pound and animal welfare shelter in the State will have shocking annual figures on the number of unwanted dogs destroyed, and the national average is about 26,000. Many of these are healthy, born because owners fail to castrate and spay their pets. Dogs are also put down because of ill health, injury in traffic accidents and old age.

A far more serious indictment of our increasingly violent society is the number of cruelty cases. In Dublin alone in 2005, the DSPCA dealt with 1,583 such cases. Dogs are often treated by their owners as little more than an alarm system that breathes, and they suffer disgraceful neglect: irregular feeding, no water, no exercise, no companionship, foul living conditions and no respect. They are also frequently, and increasingly, subjected to horrific torture by gangs of youths or children who beat animals, mutilate and blind them, throw injured and dying victims onto fires or pour petrol on them and set them alight.

Recently one of my dogs was kidnapped and poisoned by youths "for a joke". She survived - most don't. Psychologists have linked such sadistic behaviour with later attacks on humans. An individual who enjoys torturing and killing small domestic animals often moves on to vulnerable humans.

Before buying, giving or accepting as a gift, a puppy or dog, ask yourself honestly, "Am I, my child, my children, capable of caring for an emotionally demanding, loyal and trusting animal that gives so much and asks for so little?"

There is hope in his eyes. Trust. He believes in life, although he has already experienced absolute hunger, cold, dampness, fear and pain. All he wants is some food, warmth, companionship and the security of belonging. For the moment he is enjoying his reprieve in the dogs' home; the past three days have been paradise, a sanctuary away from the streets.

But by the time you read this he will probably be dead. Still, he doesn't know that, he seems happy, although, perhaps there is an element of frenzy in that happiness, the ancient desire to please. He is very young and alone but he won't give up on life, his life, until the last minute - because dogs are God's optimists.

It may sound trite, pushing the well-worn message that dogs confer love, given we live in an age of violence, a world that gets sicker by the day. Each morning's news reports brings further horrors, of killings not in Africa, or eastern Europe, or somewhere in Louisiana, but in Irish suburban housing estates and remote country farmhouses. Life seems to have little value and no preacher appears capable of ending the killing. Crime has now supplanted religion as our main reason for murder.

Maybe it does seem a bit simple-minded, self indulgent and foolishly sentimental to be lamenting the fate of doomed puppies and dogs. But think again. Dogs are a civilising presence. And more than ever we need that civilising presence.

A child's first sense of responsibility may be feeding the dog, the family pet that is part of the family. For the college student returning for the holidays, the dog comes to represent home. It is usually the dog who listens to the woes of growing up; the dog sits watching the tears and he understands silence. And for many people, their first great friendship was with the dog who was there throughout their childhood.

It was the dog that made climbing that hill memorable. It was the dog that made the boating trip or the day at the beach special. He may have eaten the sandwiches or sat on the cake, his ears blowing inside out and his face wearing an "I didn't mean to do that" expression, and he added to the fun. The family photographs plot his history from puppyhood to maturity to dignified old gent, to mourned absence. He slept beside your bed, or more likely on it, and be honest - in it. Like all great love affairs, it is one which ends only in death - and like all great loves, they are never forgotten.

Years pass and the sudden glimpse of a dog that looks a bit like an adored, long-dead pet will cause you to stop and feel the old joy as well as the grief.

My family had a cabin in the mountains in California. It stood in a clearing, high up in a pine forest that was home to some raccoons and a skunk family. About 300m away was another old timber house, it looked like a hide out. We never saw the inhabitants, but their dog, an old yellow dog, sauntered bow-leggedly about the mountain-top like a Southern gent on parade. I decided his name was Gettysburg. One summer he wasn't there any more and I cried until I was physically sick. I still remember how his dusty coat felt, how he smelt and how he'd sigh long slow sighs as he prepared to sit in the sun.

I also recall interviewing the great British writer, JG Ballard, who had been left with three young children when his wife died suddenly. As a boy, he had experienced the horrors of war and later the surreal nightmare of a prisoner-of-war camp. The closest he came to tears was when describing the death of his beloved dog, and the recurring dreams in which his dog ignored his calls and walked away from him.

"I'd wake up crying, until one night, in the dream, he looked back at me when I called, it was as if he was saying goodbye." Ballard referred to a feeling of peace, "and I never had the dream again."

In the beginning dogs were workers, they hunted and herded, they shared man's shelter and they protected. They still protect. Many dogs have died protecting their family's home.

On Christmas morning, puppies will be presented as presents by people who have no idea about looking after one, given to recipients who have even less of a notion about the care and the responsibility. A child who has pleaded for a puppy may have finally got one, then might become bored in a few weeks, leaving the care to the mother who never wanted one in the first place. Such is life, such are humans. In a world of distractions, everyone becomes too busy, too bored and the dog is forgotten - but the dog waits.

On a wet December day when I was young, I went to the DSPCA dogs' and cats' home. Founded in 1840, it is the oldest animal charity in Ireland. It was then in Grand Canal Street. There was a large assortment of puppies all yelping and barking and climbing over each other. Food arrived and a riot began. One puppy, a pretty little thing with four white socks and a black muzzle, left the food, waddled over to me, peered into my face and pushed with both paws against the kennel.

I had been selected. The decision had been made. Once inside my duffle coat, the puppy burrowed into the sleeve. I left with my arm stuck out straight in front of me. I had my Bilbo dog for 20 years and a day. We grew old together.

When he was about nine months old, we met up with a stray dog who was then three or four. It took two weeks for Bilbo to allow his new pal share his house. Frodo survived Bilbo by 27 days. They were The Guys, and I even learnt to drive so they could come everywhere with me.

The dog as status symbol is something I don't understand. But whether a pedigree or a cross-bred mongrel, a dog has practical needs: care, exercise, proper living conditions, company and respect. Remember the country dog now has as little freedom as his urban counterpart. All dogs, from the large breeds to the toy, must look to their human for supervised exercise and should not be subjected to weather extremes - dogs do get sunstroke.

Don't make your dog into a pampered doll, don't overfeed, don't give human sweets or chocolates. Above all, ask yourself questions such as, "Am I really capable of looking after a dog?" and "Would I be better with an adult dog rather than a puppy?"

Dogs are adaptable and can tailor themselves to suit the oddest humans, but they require attention, such as vaccinations. Also, pet male dogs should be castrated, while bitches should be spayed, which is a routine surgical procedure. Bringing a dog into your home and your life is a responsibility as well as a privilege. The dog pounds are already overcrowded and every stray is given only five days to be homed.

We have a house full of dogs as well as four cats who are honorary dogs, high praise indeed. A word of advice from a happy dog owner - if possible, don't get one dog, get two.