"The dog is a gentleman: I hope to go to his heaven, not man's" (Twain)

Some years back, an vehemently vigorous boxer came from the RSPCA to live with my parents, ostensibly as Housedog but more realistically as Houseguest, and a highly pampered one at that.

The reason for her arrival was justified, somewhat weakly, (my parents had always had dogs, after all, and were merely trying to be sensible by not getting another one) by the fact that some revolting little toe-scum had just burgled their house. With this in mind, the main job description of the dog was then, in actual fact, defence.  The dog herself  however was not troubled by such contractual detail and within hours of arrival had changed her duties to Lying Around and being Excessively Petted. 

She ingrained herself into the very heart of the family without real effort, sealing our affections with a tongue that wouldn't quite fit into her mouth.  We were all pretty much devoted.  Indeed one of my Japanese friends once noted, with unchecked horror, "You and R both walked in, fell on the floor with the dog and rolled around hugging her before you'd even greeted your parents!".  True, and I don't think any of us had found this unusual.

Anyway, after a while, my mother, who had pretty much turned a blind eye to this dog's mickey-taking on House Rules (which, frankly, would have had the souls of our other, more toeing-the-line pets spinning affrontedly in their graves) decided that the least this loafing canine could do to earn her keep would be to bark when the doorbell rang.  The dog disagreed with my mother on this, in the same way as she had successfully disagreed that Dogs Should Not be Allowed On the Sofa in the Dining Room. She would certainly shoulder-charge her 7 stone frame to the door and invariably get there first.  But then she would merely stand, wagging her entirety with irrepressible boxer-delight at thoughts of visitors, thick streams of excited saliva swinging from each grinning jowl.  But bark she would not.

However, my mother stayed very firm.  Thieving Scum Burglar types who rang the doorbell were to be left in no doubt - inside prowled a huge, gruff and not-to-be-irked dog.  So she decided to implement her own Door Training with the dog.  This meant, for some months, whenever you knocked, you had to wait. What you could hear, from the outside, was the skidding scuffle of joy as the dog headbutted the door to greet you, followed by the more sedate footsteps of my mother. There would be a brief silence, then an "oooh" of exertion, as my mother would bend to be at dog eye level. There then followed a whole array of my mother's woof-woofs- from insistent descant yelps, to low threatening growls, all interspersed with cajouling -  "come on",  and "like that", -  which became increasingly more irritated until finally  "oh I give up" would signal the end of the recital. Then sounds of my mother pulling herself up again, and at this point the door would  open, and  polite words of welcome would be completely drowned out by the throaty WAAAAHHHH of the dog's grateful greeting as she leapt delightedly with paws splayed towards your head, the slimy, splattering tentacles of spit gripping firmly to your face.  My friend L once said it could, quite possibly, put one off calling at all.  Fortunately, it was around that time that they invented Skype.

I'm not sure the point ever did get through, and whether this was down to pure obstinance on the part of the dog or simply the fact that she (the dog again) was not hindered by trainable wit, I don't know.  In the end, we all kind of just let her off because she was the daftest, most amusingly faithful company you could ask for.

As to why this particular memory has accompanied me on my journey around the dishwasher-washingmachine-and-tumble-drier track today, it's simply because I came across (or more truthfully, R showed me) this.  I think this Australian gentleman actually puts my mother's efforts to shame.  And I have even just showed my current dog, the very comfortable viszla, for her reaction.  But she has just looked at me and gone back to sleep (on the expensive beanbag we actually bought for the kids).