Credit:AAP Image/Dean LewinsĪt Marley and Friends, an upmarket dog grooming salon in Sydney’s Double Bay, owners can add a mud bath or “crystal balancing treatment” to their dog’s Japanese-style wash and trim. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Toto. Former PM Scott Morrison had a schnoodle (its barking upset the neighbours at Kirribilli House). Welcome to the family, Willow.” Donald Trump distinguished himself by being the US first president in 100 years not to own a dog during his time in the White House. In May, Roger Federer posted a smiling picture of himself with his new dog: “We gave in … But we couldn’t be happier. It’s more acceptable to confess to not liking small children.Ī fan of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s dog Toto set up a Twitter account for his canine soon after he was sworn in (“Morning walkies with Dad!”). It’s a brave person these days who will admit they don’t particularly like dogs. It’s now turbo-charged, running a fine line between love, worship and fetishising. My own theory is that the relationship changed and went public when humans agreed to pick up their dog’s poo. It’s hard to pinpoint when The Canine Ascendancy began. Even “sensible” owners admit to buying doggy Christmas presents. If the dog of old was the trusty family pet, fondly left to its own devices and blithely wolfing down Pal in the backyard, the 21st-century dog is more likely to be a pampered “fur baby” who sleeps under the doona, dines on organic pasture-raised lamb with ancient grains, enjoys, or endures, spa baths, and is possibly on Prozac. A few years into Carlo’s reign, one of Rogers’ daughters remembers her mother saying, only half in jest: “If I’d known how wonderful dogs are, I’d never have had you two girls.”įorty per cent of Australian households now have a dog, and, arguably, never have so many canines commanded such a depth of devotion. People love them with an uncomplicated intensity. One of Rogers’ daughters remembers her mother saying, only half in jest: “If I’d known how wonderful dogs are, I’d never have had you two girls.” We only have to stroke their fur or meet their eyes to release in us a burst of oxytocin, the pleasure hormone, and science suggests they get a burst, too. ” ‘He will try and stay alive for you, be there for you, whatever it takes and that’s what companion animals are like, but you have to be the good human and you have to look after your dog now and let me put him to sleep.’ So we came to the decision very quickly, but it was still hard, of course.”Ĭarlo’s ashes, which arrived from the pet crematorium in a tasteful cardboard box with pressed flowers and his name inscribed on top, now sit on the mantelpiece in the house they all once shared.Ĭarlo was special to the family, but in terms of dogs and dedication and the lengths to which people are willing to go to save a companion, it’s not an unusual story. “The vet said, ‘Carlo will give you his very last breath,’ ” Rogers recalls. At that point, they agreed to have him euthanised. He lived for another 18 months before developing a second tumour in his lung. So when Carlo, at 13, was diagnosed with a tumour in his throat obstructing his windpipe, his owners didn’t hesitate to choose the option of $10,000 worth of chemotherapy, and possibly up to $25,000 worth, in order to buy him another year or so. Jane Rogers with the late Carlo: “Sometimes he was like our brother.” Rogers took him to work with her every day – she was the boss – and swears he was a calming presence and a hit with everyone, except one woman who was afraid of dogs. If you weren’t fond of dogs, Carlo might strike you as a bit of a pest. In that narrow house, he was a presence that could not be ignored. Thwarted, he would spend much of his time violently thrashing his squeaky toy from side to side, as if trying to kill an uncooperative rat. Once you got in, it was a matter of beating Carlo to the sofa. He would waddle to the door and bark furiously when you arrived at Rogers’ house, no matter how many times he’d met you. He looked like the misbegotten love child of a wild night between a corgi and a fox terrier, or maybe a three-way. To the casual observer, however, Carlo was simply an oddly proportioned little dog, trotting about importantly on short, bandy legs that supported a rotund black-and-white body, a pointy head and a long tail. “At times he was like our child,” she says, “sometimes he was like our brother.” He was, Jane Rogers says, “so important to us”, her voice catching as she recalls what he meant to her and her late husband, and her adult children. To the humans who lived with him, Carlo was an adorable, handsome fellow, a prince among dogs, and possibly a genius. “When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.” Nora Ephron This story is part of the July 9 edition of Good Weekend.
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