We’re at a puppy party, a gathering designed for new dog owners to (cue Californian drawl) “socialise” their mutts, lest they become baby maulers in later life. They’re all the rage, apparently. My vet tells me that depriving a pup of social interaction is tantamount to injecting him with rabies, then letting him loose in an Early Learning Centre.
Ostensibly, the talk should be all about dietary requirements and distended testicles, but it’s clear that the event isn’t just a lesson in responsible pet ownership. While the pups run around on the floor learning the finer arts of fighting and pissing, we, their fashionable owners, sit in a circle on plastic chairs, projecting our neuroses onto animals that can’t even respond to their own names.
Rupert kicks off tonight’s session. He’s cradling his three-month-old weimaraner like a baby on his knees. “I’ve never loved anyone like I love Nelson,” he coos, blowing softly on the dog’s face. He throws the sentiment out to the group: “Do you know what I mean?” Everybody admits that they do. Rupert reaches into his man bag and pulls out a baby’s bottle. Nobody flinches.
My companions and I are obviously the sort of lonely urbanites who use puppies as sandbags to fill the emotional holes in their lives, and five minutes in, the party starts to feel more like group therapy. “My boyfriend hasn’t responded well to Thistle,” pipes up Sara, 30, timidly, referring to the nine-week-old airedale terrier sitting on her lap. “He keeps strutting around the house telling me that he’s still top dog.”
“Of course he does, sweetheart,” says Carmen from across the circle. Carmen has problems of her own. She has been phoning in sick to her City job so she can spend more time with Fanny, her bavarian mountain dog, who is currently trying to drag a Birkin bag from under her chair. “I get up at 5am to have an extra hour with her. I even sit her on the toilet when I have a bath so we can still see one another.” “You have to be tough with yourself,” advises Alice, a fashion PR, who confesses that she took a month’s “sabbatical” to spend time at home with Rocky, the new maltese.
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There are obvious likenesses between some members of the group and their pets (50-year-old Susanna, for instance, appears to share a hairdresser with Slinky, her fleecy tibetan spaniel), but the similarities go beyond the physical. We feel about our dogs the way pill-poppers feel about Percodan. Our addiction defines us, and puppy party is our chance to come clean.
Take Guy, some sort of sex addict I’ll warrant, who arrives late from the office, sensuously dishevelled and with an equally louche irish setter in tow. When Alice asks him why he chose his breed, he crinkles his eyebrows artfully and says: “I don’t know,” adding that dogs are “a terrific way to meet women”. Then he winks at Alice, who goes crimson, but continues to stroke his puppy.
Across from him sits Miranda, a buttoned-up banker’s wife. She is embarrassed by everything and accordingly cursed in her ownership of Theo, a tricky little shih-tzu. When Theo does a deposit in full view of the window, she turns from the cackling group of lads in the street outside and asks: “Is there any way to, you know, make them do their business less?” “I’m pretty sure there’s not,” says Helen, the veterinary nurse-cum-host. Miranda’s face falls, and I worry for what I imagine to be her immaculate home. She looks just the type to have carpeted one of her reception rooms in white.
Next, it’s the turn of Felicity, a tiny, late-thirtysomething in a cashmere cardigan. Between her feet, her minuscule jack russell (called Jack, even though it’s a girl) has crawled into her handbag, seeking sanctuary from the rowdier dogs prowling the room. Jack was the runt of her litter. That’s why Felicity chose her.
“Difficult,” is how she describes their first week together. “When I got her, things were so wonderful. But on Tuesday, I lost her somewhere in the house. I was sobbing and sobbing, then I finally found her behind the washing machine. She’s been so distant with me since. I got her because I want a child,” she adds suddenly. “But now I don’t know if I can ever be a mother. I mean, I lost her for seven hours.”
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There is a painful silence, broken by the sounds of Guy’s irish setter mounting a little westie in the centre of the room. Everybody looks grateful for the distraction. “Quite good this week,” says Helen at the end. “Sometimes people go on much longer.”
Quite good it may be, but I realise that I don’t want Abe, my miniature dachshund, fraternising with these bipolar poshos. The next week, I take him to a different puppy party at a ghetto vets on the edge of a small industrial development in the East End. Gone are the pugs and pomeranians, to be replaced by a series of violent crosses. Here, the circle of chairs isn’t for group confessional, but the chalked outlines of a real dogfight. The rougher crowd pretend to listen to the advice that is valiantly dished out by the vet, but they are really just waiting for the games to begin.
Sure enough, a fight breaks out between Abe and a thuggish staffordshire bull terrier called Rambo. The brute is about to snap my sausage in two and Jennifer, Rambo’s owner, seems rather too pleased at how well her boy is faring in the fray. “Come on, Rambo. Come on, boy,” she goads under her breath. I stand up and pull Abe from Rambo’s snatching jaws. Fourteen pairs of eyes stare at us, all seeming to whisper “loser”. I don’t know whether they mean me or the dog.
The conversation is better than at the party across town — “Does it matter if the dog sees us shagging?” No, Maureen, apparently not — but I know it isn’t the right environment for my thoroughbred Abe. The following week, I return to Rupert, Miranda et al, realising that, for better or worse, they are my people. That night’s instalment includes the revelation that Felicity won’t be looking for a boyfriend, as she’s not sure Jack could take it. Guy asks for the under-appreciated Sara’s phone number. And nobody brings a milk bottle, so I suppose it isn’t all bad.