Roll out the doggie

Evening Standard | 14 Mar 1989

My family has what must be London’s only dachshund on wheels. She’s called Muffit. Crufts and suchlike are fine – working dogs, gun dogs, pedigree chums, prowling prancers and canines with unpronounceable Chinese names. But against her, they pale into insignificance.

Muffit was under the supervision of Keith Butt, the Adonis vet whom women cross London to see (they stop off in Harrods en route to buy a pet to take with them). Following an accident in which her back legs had become paralysed, he suggested she be sent to the kennel in the sky.

My father went to see her in doggy hospital to give her her last grapes. He ended up writing a cheque for some fantastic amount (relative to the size of the dog) which was duly dispatched to the States (where else?) where some doggy wheels were speedily fired, or run up or whatever you do to make canine roller skates.

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