IT was the end of ashaming week when my irresistibly entitled whippet had committed outrages all over the country. In Cumbria, he was banned from yet another drawing room for, on entry, cocking his leg up a pair of exquisite silk curtains belonging to the editor of a glossy interiors magazine.
Confined to the kitchen at a house in Hertfordshire, he rapidly worked out how to open the back-stairs door and led my hosts’ two incontinent Italian greyhounds on a rampage through bedrooms with plush, new pale carpets. In Scotland, as everyone sat down to supper, I saw tooth marks in the butter that could only have come from one smug-looking whippet, sprawled on the sofa licking his lips. I smoothed the marks away by sleight of hand, hoping that no one noticed.
At awkward times such as these, I seek solace in the classics—there is always an appalling emperor to put everything in perspective—and among friends with animals more outrageous than my own. For anyone else who despairs of their pets’ bad behaviour, here is a room-by-room investigation of country-house pet crimes, together with some hard-earned advice from both victims and perpetrators.
The dining room
OPINIONS have been sharply divided over the place of pets at mealtimes since classical days. The Greek poet Anacreon had a dove that ate from his hand and drank from his cup and that maddest of Roman emperors Heliogabalus took malicious delight in having his pet lions and leopards climb up on the couches alongside worried guests at dinner. Renaissance etiquette books advise against bringing dogs and cats to table, suggesting that many people did.
Having your pets at the table is one thing, but the writer Thomas Hardy’s spoiled dog, Wessex, was allowed to walk about on the table during meals. Cynthia Asquith recalled him snatching every forkful of food before it had reached her mouth as the indulgent Hardy looked on.
Denne historien er fra January 24, 2024-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
Denne historien er fra January 24, 2024-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.
