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On the road: Creature comforts

By / 9 years ago / Comment / No Comments

 

For most of my childhood, my grandmother lived in a quayside cottage overlooking a muddy creek on the Fal estuary. Every day at 6.00pm, her seafaring husband would tug the lanyard on a compact but coruscatingly loud canon of the proper Pugwash variety.

Stopping clocks and sending stunned wildlife tumbling from the trees, this archaic, tympanic membrane-threatening routine proved consistently effective in extracting a large gin and Kwells from the pantry whilst driving everyone else within a half mile radius quietly bonkers.

Naturally, because of the racket, the rest of the family lived as far away as possible. So inordinate hours of my youth were spent alternately tallying salutes from sidecar combo-mounted AA men and throwing up copiously in the back of a maroon and white Morris Oxford estate as it smeared majestically westward at a heady 49mph.

Aside from the sporty yellow fibreglass aerial, the best thing about that car was that it boasted both front and rear, tonsil-hockey-friendly bench seats in a mercifully easy-wipe vinyl finish. And the only sure-fire antidote to travel-sickness was to perch up front, unrestrained, on the fold down centre armrest.

The fact that, in the event of an accident of any velocity whatsoever, I would pass first through the windscreen and then, albeit briefly, involuntary bonnet mascot status before being quickly re-classified as road kill perturbed no one, least of all my GP father, only occasionally discernible at the helm through choking clouds of Three Nuns pipe tobacco smoke.

Relief from said fug was best afforded by sticking my head out of the window, at which point I would invariably and immediately be assaulted by a lump of errant aggregate or head-butted by a bee. A child’s life on board, then, was infinitely more dangerous, but far more fun.

Today, human content oven-ready trussed and further cosseted by the threat of a scalding hot pillow in the face at the point of impact, the only occupants still afforded such entertaining freedoms are our pets.

In the 60s, my parents drove to Cornwall with me on the front armrest, a terrier on the parcel shelf and a queasy cat cowering behind the clutch pedal. This summer, they drove to Cornwall with a terrier on the parcel shelf and a queasy cat cowering behind the clutch pedal. Odd, isn't it, that over the course of half a century this nation of animal lovers has made absolutely zero progress in furthering the preservation of pets on board.

There are, it strikes me, two reasons for this. Firstly, it's precisely because we love our animals so much that we allow them the freedom of the cabin. Even the most hopeless dog has a sense of smell 100,000 times more acute than ours, so the olfactory overload associated with simply sticking ones head out of the window must constitute the canine equivalent of you or me attending a Roman orgy at Fortnum and Mason.

Secondly, how on earth do you secure a pet on the move anyway? Snakes, tortoises, gerbils and budgies may be simply bunged in the glove box. Cats – notwithstanding the resultant calamitous drain on Elastoplast and Germoline supplies – may always be stowed in elasticated seatback pouches. But dogs…?

My inbox is regularly glutted by hilarious images of the latest, Everest assault-complex harness, designed to secure them in positions so unnatural as to be contemplated only by something as stupid as a Red Setter. Thing is, proof of efficacy aside, said contraption is not only always far too large for anything as small and viciously recalcitrant as a terrier, but also takes up an entire seat already designated for human occupation.

It can, surely, only be a matter of time before some form of pet harnessing legislation surfaces in earnest. However, the wearing of seat belts became law only after someone had actually invented a satisfactory seatbelt, and I've yet to encounter anything that does the job for dogs. Whoever finally cracks it should become very, very rich indeed…

Incidentally, proof, if proof were needed, that a dog really is a man's best friend is actually something of a doddle to come by. Simply shut both your wife and your dog in the boot of your car for an hour and, then, on point of release, see which of them is most pleased to see you.

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vicente

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