MAGGOT came into our lives by accident, a chance sighting of an advertisement from Animal Rescue seeking a home for a Kerry Blue terrier. She had been found in the Iveagh Gardens, a ball of matted hair and filth, frightened, starving and covered in sores.
A vet's examination showed that she was in fact a Kerry Blue and that although barely out of puppyhood, she had littered. She had probably been briefly used by a breeder as a factory bitch.
For many - though by no means all - dog breeders produce dogs in the way that Victorian mill owners produced linen, regardless of the conditions of production. A bitch's health is important only so that her womb and teats function profitably.
Puppy Factories
A pedigree bitch will be mated the moment she comes into season after whelping. Her life is an endless cycle of puppy manufacture. She will not be walked or allowed fresh air, but instead is confined and control is by violence, not discipline.
Certainly someone had been violent to poor little Maggot. Which was, no doubt, the reason that she bit me the first time she met me. It wasn't a big bite, more a terrified snap, but I knew then to mind my ways "with her. She had clearly been much abused, but in that thin and damaged body - a rear leg had been broken, had not been set, and had healed itself out of joint - there was a golden heart.
Dog loving has a bad name. It is seen by many people to be evidence of ineffectualness and of a preference for the company of dogs over that of humans. But why should humans not turn to dogs? Both are intensely social animals yet in our demand for companionship, many of us are too exacting or too inadequate, or too unattractive, to find a satisfactory human relationship. But a dog doesn't demand very much and humans have bred dogs for thousands of years to emphasise docile, loyal, protective and engaging qualities.
Dogs are in one sense a manufactured article, like any other domestic item. The raw material of the chair is wood. The raw material of the dog is the wolf. A single craftsman is needed to turn that piece of wood into a chair; but it has taken generations of craftsmen and women to convert that wolf into the modern dog.
There is, of course, a difference. Dog haters - and I was once one: I once even founded PAL, Pooch Assassination League - scoff at the notion that dogs have real personalities and characters. But they have, and though I would be reluctant to declare they have souls, they do have a being, a core, a true individuality, complete with genuine likes and dislikes. No mere residue of the forces of pack hierarchy accounts for the way dogs like - or dislike - certain individuals. These are feelings as genuine as our own.
Puppy Love
And Maggot loved Rachel - the wife - the moment she saw her. Trotted over to her and curled up on her lap, licked her hand and sighed, This is it: I'm staying put. And she did too, making the acquaintance, in a guarded and careful way, of the existing doggy resident, Traffic. They became friends, and their friend ship was made easier by their cousinhood - Traffic is a wheaten terrier, and Kerry Blues are almost certainly descended from wheatens.
And though they might not know they are Irish, their Irishness does make a difference. For dogs tend to reflect the national characters of the country which devised them - who else but the Germans would have bred the German shepherd? Who but the English the bulldog?
And the terriers of Ireland - the Kerry Blue, the wheaten, the Irish and the Glen of Imaal - reflect qualities we like to think are ours. cheerfulness, gregariousness, humour, bravery and loyalty.
Golden Moments
Traffic and Maggot had those qualities, though Maggot's abominable childhood gave her introductory manners which masked her infinity of good nature. She even came to tolerate me, coming up to me and nibbling my hand like a lamb. But her closest companion, after Rachel, was Traffic. Their brains worked to the same rhythms bred to duty in the glens of Munster over hundreds of years.
They curled up together and slept, or patrolled the house together or, commanded by some impenetrable doggy imperative, retired to different corners of the house and there their vigils kept. The opening of the front gate would send her into ecstasies of disapproval. Our postman John, an endlessly cheerful fellow and a credit to An Post, must have wondered if one day she was going to break through the door and consume him.
But squirrels, not postmen, were Maggot's greatest joy. She joyfully chased them through Phoenix Park, fortunately with, as much chance of catching one as a cow has of catching a bat. She would stand, her forelegs' perched half way up a tree, barking abuse at the creatures scampering through the branches above. She would flush a wood in moments in the hunt for squirrelly quarry, ignoring all calls, finally returning, all a pant with giddy joy, with every arboreal beast in the park a hundred feet above ground.
Thank You, Maggot
Three weeks ago, our Maggot had an epileptic fit - not in itself the end of the world: but in her case it was. For the epilepsy was a sign of tumours. Two weeks later she died in Rachel's lap. She had brought so much joy and happiness to our home, and with her death something was gone from our lives forever.
Many would ridicule such sentiments, but dog lovers would understand, for generally speaking, dog lovers - excluding Hitler and Baron von Richthofen - are good people (though many of them are monstrously inconsiderate about their dogs fouling the pavement).
Our need to have a dog merely shows how human we are. We have bred dogs to resemble humans cruelty to dogs is therefore a deeply sinister thing. And that is why Animal Rescue is such an excellent organisation. If you know of a dog which is being maltreated or needs a home, contact AR at 01.2895284. They brought us Maggot. Thank you Animal Rescue; and most of all, thank you Maggot.