PICI thinks she’s human—I think all Jack Russells do, actually,’ says the London-based little dog’s owner, Elizabeth Johnson.
She goes on to explain that Pici (who is named for the local pasta where she was born in Italy, pronounced ‘peachy’) is confident, kind, gentle, a sun-worshipper, slightly territorial with strangers or other dogs, but unbelievably tolerant of children —‘a child in a shop the other day grabbed her tail and just pulled and pulled and pulled. We had to prise its fingers off as she would never snap or growl, she just rammed her tail firmly between her legs for the next half an hour’. Pici, however, is also something of a master criminal.
When COUNTRY LIFE announced a new search for Britain’s naughtiest dog, four years after Rabbit was crowned (March 25, 2015), the postbags were soon overflowing with tales of disobedience and destruction, but it quickly became clear that there was r going to be one winner.
Pici—a much-loved birthday gift, 12 years ago, to Mrs Johnson’s daughter Lottie, who turned 21 yesterday—cut her teeth, so to speak, with the usual litany of canine crimes. ‘No one seems to have told her that chocolate is poisonous to dogs,’ reflects Mrs Johnson, recalling the time the little terrier snaffled the family’s Easter eggs. ‘We found a ball of foil placed neatly in her basket and she showed not the slightest ill effect.’
Another time, Pici managed to retrieve and demolish a packet of biscuits from the bottom of a guest’s overnight bag, without leaving the slightest trace of disturbance— ‘she’s very light-fingered’—and, one Christmas, she discovered and opened her own present, leaving the rest untouched.
Denne historien er fra October 23, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra October 23, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
