Walking the dog . . . is it really necessary?

“They get you out, don’t they!”

The old guy who’d just pointed at the thing I had on a lead shivered in a closed butcher’s doorway. He wore a paisley cravat and a navy blazer with silver buttons. He leaned on a tiny brolly that would not have looked out of place protruding from an energy drink cocktail with an innuendo based name. I’m sure he winked. There was definitely some facial twitching going on.

“Yes”, I said, “don’t they just”.

It was seven thirty in the morning. The sky was a sopping blanket of solid grey. The streets swilled with burbling drains and overflowing gutters. I did not possess a cagoule or appropriate footwear. And I was walking a dog.

Question was; did I want to be got out?

Further question was; did I also want to be soaked to the skin and obliged to converse with an improbably camp grandad before I’d even had coffee?

My answer had to be no. A big, fat, resounding, full caps EN OH!.

Dog walking is not on my list of fifty things to do before you think up fifty more inane things to do because your life is so empty and devoid of significance that you have to rely on pitiable crutches to prop up your futile little existence.

Why do people do it?

Some say they look into their dog’s eyes on a morning and see a yearning for freedom and companionship and adventure; “come, the day is young,” those eyes seem to say, “there’s a world of wonderment and innocent fun out there in the open fields just waiting for us to explore! I’m man’s best friend, we were meant to stride into the fresh new dawn together . . .” But that’s not what I see. When I look into those needy, pleading, docile eyes all I can surmise is, “hey mate, dying for a crap here, better fetch that lead else I’m gonna dump a big ripe jobby behind the sofa! Get a shift on now, you tosser.”

Let’s face it, “walking the dog” is a euphemism. All the talk of regular exercise and health benefits and well-being enhancement that the dog walking cult trot out to justify the expenditure of so much human time and effort is simply self-deluded nonsense.

It’s not a walk that fido’s wanting. It’s the toilet. All you are really doing when you shout “walkies!” and whistle encouragingly at the slobbering lump of dim devotion curled up near the fire is taking pooch for a poo.

It’s a pretty good deal for canine-kind. They get to fart around for half an hour – longer if the mutt has perfected the art of bowel retention. They can poop where they damn well please, then skip off leaving the owner the gift of a steaming deposit to deal with. Nobody can pretend that scooping up a fresh dollop with nothing separating your fingers from that squidgey, stinking, warm mess but the thinnest film of non-compostible polymer is life enhancing. The dog’s laughing though. Like a hyena.

The walk itself is hardly fun either. Most dogs seem to stop every fifteen paces to sniff a suspicious stain, a noxious smear, or a takeaway carton that got discarded days ago and contains something resembling a sixth form chemistry experiment. They do this simply to irritate, I’m convinced. It’s not even a proper walk, more a case of drag-tug-jerk along a narrow pavement beside rush hour traffic. Why do we let dogs get away with it?

I think the simple answer is that people who own dogs are generally a bit wanting in some significant psychometric department. Quite a few are plain crackers. A woman I met the other morning cooed, “Aww look, wickle Tyson has made a new fwendy wendy!” as she yanked helplessly at the collar of a swivel-eyed seventy-pound mastiff who was busy ragging a poodle around the park by the left ear. She’d clearly babied the blood-crazed canine into believing it could get away with anything it felt like. But then the poodle owner was walking a poodle! Which in itself is some kind of mental health issue.

Then there are the walkers who use their dog as a proxy personality, who can only talk to another human being if their dog has its nose jammed in another dogs arse. And the ones who treat their mutt as if it were royalty, and have a ten metre exclusion zone which they police with maniacal zeal. They are generally armed with a stick. The stick is for beating the owners of more proletarian pooches.

There are so many stories, where do you begin?

Right now, I can’t . . . got a bloody dog to walk. Last time though, the dog gets handed back this afternoon.

Just hoping my sister doesn’t read this. It’s her dog.