“Oh, what beautiful knees!” one columnist exclaimed, “for someone who is 64!” Newly-elected French President, Emmanuel Macron, may be in the news for his pro-business policies and his unusual marriage, but, as it turns out, the 39-year-old also scores high in the dog department. There’s a wonderful portrait of him frolicking with Figaro, his dandy Argentinian Mastiff.
Figaro is not just legally blonde, with a muscular body and short white pelt, but he’s been bred to hunt wild boars. As the story goes, when Antonio Nores Martinez, a medical doctor living in Argentina in 1928, wanted a hunter, he took the Cordoba Fighting dog as a sire and mated it with a Great Dane, adding a dash of White Boxer, the bark of Bull Terrier and, voila, a new breed called Dogo Argentino was born. It comes under the Dangerous Dogs Act in the UK.
“What wonderful knees,” you might well exclaim, as Figaro climbs all over him, staring deep into the Macron blue eyes. For a young President with a populist touch, Macron’s choice of favourite pooch is curious. As one observer put it: Small Man-Big Dog.
Royal treatment
It brings to mind all the different breeds of dogs that have climbed into presidential palaces and the boudoirs of queens and film stars, leaving their distinctive marks on the marble and parquet floors of history. Queen Elizabeth II’s fondness for a quintet of Corgis, the small, low-slung Welsh dogs is well known. It was her mother, another Elizabeth, who introduced them to Buckingham Palace. She had special wicker baskets with raised feet designed for them — in case they caught colds with the draught blowing through all those corridors. There is a Corgi room. Each dog has its own dish with its name engraved on it. Originally, a footman had to signal the moment the dogs could chow down and eat their dinner.
Of course, it’s nothing compared to the way that the Chinese Emperor’s dogs were treated during the Tang Dynasty in the seventh and eight centuries. The Chinese bred their dogs to suit imperial aspirations. These were the snub nosed, flat-faced dogs that we now know by various names, such as Pekingese, Shih Tzu, Chow Chow and Lhasa Apso. They are totally adorable looking dogs. No actress could be seen without a poodle or long-eared Silky Sydney under her arm. When you see the tall lacquered beauties walking down ramps or the red carpet at Cannes, their hair blowing in the wind, you wonder whether they, too, have been bred like Shih Tzus, to satisfy today’s marketing dynasties that go by the name of L’Oreal or Chambor.
Small yet lethal
Pet dogs were not toys during the Tang era, but tiny weapons of destruction. The Emperor kept them hidden in the long hanging sleeves of his silken robes. At the flick of a fan, he could unleash a small Pekingese from under a sleeve. It was trained to go for the jugular of an intruder. The Emperor’s sleeve dogs were miniature representatives of the Emperor himself. When they went out, the rest of the world had to bow and kowtow to them. Today, as a sign of the newly-emerging rich in China, dogs are making a comeback. Their owners not only choose their own toy dogs, but the more macho breeds, the Rottweilers, Bullmastiffs and Dobermans.
Paws in the White House
In India, the golden age was in the Nehru-Indira Gandhi era. Both of them genuinely loved dogs. Their golden retrievers were not trophy dogs, but members of the family. Oddly enough, Mohammed Ali Jinnah also kept dogs, maybe at the bidding of his wife, Ruttie. He had a white West Highland terrier. Today we collect dogs depending on the décor, popular endorsement by a film star or ad campaign. The fluffy white Pomeranian of yesterday was barked out of its kennel by the Aircel pug. Since then the pug has given way to the Indian Huskie as the dog-du-jour.
But the mystery of the missing pooch must lie on the steps of the Trump White House. Every other US President for the last 130 years has had a First Dog, or at least a First Cat. Remember ‘Socks’, the Clintons pet? Or the Beagle that Lyndon Johnson held up by its ears during the height of the Vietnam War? It caused an outrage amongst the followers of the nation’s first Beagle, Snoopy, the cartoon dog that launched a publishing industry devoted to Beagleworld.
If Churchill had his bulldog, Franklin D Roosevelt had a Scottish Terrier, Fala. Fala has been immortalised in bronze staring at the President at his memorial garden. Not to be outdone, there is now even a Presidential Pet Museum that celebrates the ‘First Pet’. Sadly, the Obama’s Portuguese Water Dog, Sunny, exceeded its brief by biting an 18-year-old visitor almost on the last day.
Is this why the Big Donald is fighting shy of choosing a dog that will mirror the hopes of a nation of dog lovers? Had the Russians promised him a Saluki, which would now cause another storm in the White House kennel? Maybe, a Mexican Chihuahua should do the trick: Big Man-Small Dog.
