Good combinations

Certain pairings just seem to work, don’t they? Fish and chips, for instance. Or spinach and egg. And, of course, gin and tonic.

The same is true, or ought to be, about kids and dogs. It isn’t always. Our dogs, Luci and Toffee, are toy poodles, which means they’re smaller than our cat. He’s a big cat, admittedly, but hey, he’s a cat. The domestic kind. Not a leopard or anything.

Providing my readers with a sense of scale:
Toffee with our cat, Misty

And yet I saw a child – and not the tiniest but a seven or eight-year-old – burst into tears the other day and rush into his dad’s arms when he was approached by Toffee, the smaller of the two. She thinks that kids were only placed on earth for her entertainment. She balances that apparently egotistical view by the belief that her only purpose in life is to entertain kids. So if she sees one she runs joyfully over and tries to leap all over them.

Leading in some case, most strikingly in the one I mentioned, to deplorable results.

So when three kids came rushing up to us in the park today and asked to play with Luci and Toffee, I explained carefully that Luci was timid and wouldn’t want to play, but that Toffee would be only too pleased.

“If you run away from her,” I told them, “she’ll run after you but she’ll never catch you. Basically, she’ll run with you. She won’t bite you but, if you let her, she might lick you to death.”

The joy of being chased by Toffee
Potentially never-ending as she never catches up

To my delight, and even more to theirs (and I’m including Toffee here), these kids were bolder than some, and quicker on the uptake than most. They took off and let Toffee chase them. They screamed a bit, much like the screaming you get on a school playground at break time – with nerves certainly, but with a lot more pleasure mixed in – which only added to the fun.

One of them even worked out a way to persuade Luci to play a little – by chasing her, rather than expecting Luci to do the chasing.

Go about it right and even Luci can be got to play

And, as I warned them, the only real danger with Toffee was being licked to death. A danger heightened when your big brother (I assume that’s what he was) is egging Toffee on.

Toffee being over-affectionate
And is that a failure of sibling protection?

W C Fields may once have said (or it seems it may have been said about him) that, “a man who hates dogs and children can’t be all bad”. Oh, well. At least children and dogs can get on just fine if they learn to overcome their fear.

And have a lot more fun with each other than Fields ever gave either.