The Hound of Beelzebub

Am I an unfair judger of dogs?

Picture this. A tiny cafe on an ancient, narrow shopping street and it has a slightly scrappy, handwritten sign in its window: WELL BEHAVED DOGS WELCOME. I only notice the sign because it strikes me as so out of place on this quaint, picture-perfect shopfront. Cotswold stone, Farrow & Ball woodwork, tiny little window panes glazed with the original crown glass; a small brass bell behind the doorframe that dings pleasingly every time a customer enters or leaves…

…and then this sign. WELL BEHAVED DOGS WELCOME.

It’s so off-brand for this uneventful, quiet little part of the world. Because it makes me think only one thing, this sign, and that is that they’ve obviously had trouble in the past. With dogs who haven’t been well behaved. Undesirable dogs. Dogs who came to make trouble. A pack of Labradors who ordered three flat whites and a tarte au citron between them and then did a runner before the bill came. The Dachsund who rolled up a joint and belligerently sparked it up on table three.

(He was a right sort. The police were almost called.)

It simply doesn’t match the ambience. Tea cakes and pots of jam with gingham lids and little bunches of wildflowers poked into glass bottles: it’s a veritable slice of paradise. But then there’s this sign that suggests that there could be trouble lurking just around the corner: dogs in tracksuits. Maybe even dogs with tattoos. (These were both common markers for “trouble” in the eighties and nineties. Especially for the sorts of people who frequented tea rooms. Now, of course, everyone wears tracksuits and everyone has tattoos - it’s nigh on impossible to tell whether someone’s about to chase you down the alleyway for your Dorothy Perkins handbag!)

I go into the cafe and order a can of Coke (alas they have no Kombucha) and, for actual sustenance, a small section of oil-drenched focaccia that has been split in two, spread with pesto, heaped with fresh tomato slices and parma ham and buffalo mozzarella and then squished back together again.

It is the lunch break of dreams. Food I’d do illegal things for and only my iPhone for company. All my very own time and space. My big desktop diary laid open on the table so that I can jot down ideas (because all of my best ideas come to me when I’m eating, bathing or driving) and a cafe that is blissfully quiet, with only one other customer.

Not that you could actually fit many more customers in. The room is like the one from the old woman’s house in A Squash and a Squeeze. It is stupidly small, really. There’s a glass counter to one side, with sandwiches and cakes and a row of delicious-looking homemade sausage rolls sitting temptingly inside it and then there are just three small tables for people to sit at, each with two lovely old bentwood chairs tucked in beneath them.

The only other customer is a lady on the table furthest from the door who is eating a large wedge of Victoria sponge. The slice is apparently too large to eat practically when positioned upright and so the lady has toppled it onto its side and is using a small fork to scoop out the cream and jam from the middle section.

We are both - the cake woman and I - in a very obvious state of food-induced elation. We do not know each other, have only exchanged polite nods and will surely never cross paths again after this strange day but I feel as though we are united by the sheer joyfulness of our current existence. We have culinary delights, we are in a cosy little cafe that looks as though it’s been lifted from a Harry Potter set and the man behind the counter, who keeps up a quiet, steady and tuneless whistle, as though he’s a kettle who will never quite reach the boil, is happily stacking teacups and straightening the cupcakes in his cake display.

Could there be a more content little group of entirely unrelated people? At that moment in time, with the smell of warm pastry hanging in the air and the sound of the cake-woman’s cake fork striking her plate, it feels as though nothing, absolutely nothing could burst our collective self-satisfied bubble.

DING.

The bell behind the door chimes and in comes a man with the biggest dog I have ever seen in my life. Waist-high, doorframe-wide and with the sure-footed gait of an apex predator, it squeezes in behind its human servant looking like some sort of demonic creature from the dark depths of the underworld. Beelzebub’s Hound of Destruction. I am not up on my dog breeds and so the only giant I have to compare it to is a St Bernard, but this dog - unlike a St Bernard - is not movie-star adorable. It is dark-furred, sleekish, and every muscle can be seen rippling beneath its skin as it shoulders its way to the centre of the room.

The china cups on the shelves rattle in fear.

Now look, I’m going to square with you here. I’m not a natural dog lover. I have my own dog and I am unconditionally fond of my own dog, but there are few other dogs I feel that way about. Mostly I am wary of dogs and sometimes I am petrified. In fact, until my husband got our own dog, Dexter, I was petrified of nearly every single one I encountered: I would cross the road in a blind panic if an unknown dog came my way.

This fear of dogs seems ridiculous to people who have no issue - people who grew up with dogs, or who just see them all as innocent until proven guilty - but if you’re skittish around them then it’s a very difficult thing to overcome. Even now, in my forties, I am still a little nervous if an unknown dog approaches me in public. Unless the dog approaching me is smallish, on a lead and seems to be under control.

But this dog, the one in the cafe, is not small. It is impossibly huge - zoo animal level of huge - and it is not on a lead. Should it wish to maul me, it pretty much has carte blanche. All I can hope is that it is under control.

‘Sit,’ says the dog-owner to the dog and the mammoth, jowly black killing machine crashes down to the floor.

I know what some of you are thinking. See! Under control! You can’t judge a dog like that! You don’t even know him - more than likely he’s a gentle giant! You’re judging a book by its cover! But here’s the thing - and this is probably the difference between us, if you’re one of those “comfortable with all unfamiliar dogs no matter what the size” people: surely the only way you can judge a dog, initially at least, is by its cover?

And by cover, I mean: its size, its general musculature and the number of blood-stained gnashers it has on show. What else, when you make that split-second decision on whether to run for the hills or not, are you going to judge a dog by? The calibre of the paperback it’s currently reading?

It’s not as though a Dobermann can dispel unwanted bias by suddenly launching into a monologue about its recent archeological field trip to Pompeii. A dog can’t dress in a floral smock-top and Birkenstocks to indicate that it has a 100% perfect behavioural track record, that it would rather make purses out of hemp than savage a human. Neither can a dog really signal that it’s a bit of a loose cannon - it can’t very well go revving around on a motorbike with a bandana tied around its head and a serrated six inch knife sticking out of its back pocket.

Sure, now and then you see dogs that are clearly psychopathic - the ones that are straining at the leash, salivating, red eyes pulled wide, remnants of someone’s 501s hanging shredded from their jaws - but really. You never know what you might get with a dog, in my opinion, and so my natural instinct is to play things safe and judge them purely based on their appearance.

I know you might think that this is bad news for huge dogs with kind hearts: I know that you’re quietly seething that my quick-to-judge policy is unfair on the dogs who are over-salivators, or who have very red eyes and who can’t help looking as though they have a particularly horrendous form of rabies. But is it really bad news for them? Where’s the harm here? All I’m doing is secretly profiling them and working out whether I’m better off standing still to let them pass or scaling the nearest lamppost. It’s not as though the dog knows it’s being unjustly evaluated.

‘Red velvet cake and an oat milk latte, please,’ says the dog owner and there is suddenly a very awkward sense of unease in the tiny cafe. In the space of around eight seconds we’ve swung from a perfect, cake-scented existence right the way over to a weird, uncomfortable silence.

The man behind the counter has stopped whistling. He is polishing the same side plate over and over again with the cloth that’s looped through his trouser belt and staring at a point just above the dog-owner’s head.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he says, with a strange, vacant expression, ‘we have a dog policy I’m afraid. I can’t have this big chap in here.’ He rubs at the plate frantically with his cloth as though desperately trying to summon a genie.

The dog owner bristles.

‘What’s the policy then?’ he says. I look down at the floor because I am British and therefore shrivel up inside when there is any form of blatant confrontation.

‘What’s the dog policy then, if you don’t mind me asking?’ repeats the dog owner. He has an eye tattooed just beneath his right ear. An Evil Eye. I wonder if he had it done to protect himself from being eaten in his sleep by his own pet. Always one eye open.

‘We reserve the right to refuse dogs?’ says the cafe man. Even he doesn’t sound fully convinced by his answer.

‘It says well behaved dogs welcome on the sign,’ says the dog owner, pointing to the back of it.

At this point I am wondering how I can escape the cafe with my focaccia and Coke without having to step over the canine equivalent of Charles Bronson and risk possibly losing a foot. Or even an entire leg. The dog is lying with the bulk of its body filling the space in between tables and its gargantuan cranium blocking the doorway.

‘Well yes,’ says the cafe man, ‘it does say well behaved dogs welcome.’

‘He’s well behaved,’ says the dog owner. ‘Aren’t you, Satan?’ At the mention of his name, the dog rolls onto his side. Two gelatinous strings of drool stretch like pizza cheese across his jowls.

‘OK,’ says the cafe man, ‘but he’s just very big. He’s a bit too big to be in here, really. I’m sorry, I know it’s unfair, but we really don’t have the room.’

Oh God, I think. Has this cafe man thought this through? What does he think is going to happen here? Is he so naive to think that the dog owner is new to this lark? I wonder whether Satan has some kind of trigger that sends him into lunatic mode. A small gesture from his keeper, perhaps, or an uttered sentiment. Destroy. Or, Obliterate!

Are we all about to die?

‘That’s discrimination,’ says the dog owner, ‘you’re discriminating against my dog because of his size. Is that even legal?’

It’s a good question. If I could dare to move then I would grab my iPhone and immediately Google it, but I daren’t move. I have not moved a muscle, in fact, since the man walked in and the dog - Satan - flopped down on the cafe’s oak floor. I am like a rabbit, rendered completely immobile with fear. Possibly seconds away from experiencing a cardiac event. I can see why some animals just keel over and die from fright: why endure the “thrill of the chase” when you can bypass the horrors and expire on your own terms?

I am positive that one twitch of a finger from me - one involuntary spasm of the calf muscle - will send the dog berserk with bloodlust and my life will be over. But at the same time, I hate to be idle and so I allow myself to consider the dog-owner’s question. Can you discriminate against a dog? It is an interesting conundrum - one that ignites my interest, despite my certain impending death-by-mauling.

On one hand, we have the dog: it’s not the dog’s fault he’s so big. Why should he be denied a place in the lovely tearoom with its smell of baking and its warm, cosy atmosphere? The dog welcoming criteria is that the dog should be well behaved and - so far - he is. The fact that he could probably crush an electric bike with his jaws, smother a small child in his flapping cheek folds and swallow a badger whole is by-the-by: we have to assume, as we would with any new dog arrival into the cafe, that the dog is indeed well behaved. Or do we?

Because on the other side of the coin we have this dog owner who has brought his colossal companion into a shop the size of a broom cupboard with no thought to practicality or the comfort of others. Does he have no self awareness? Bringing his prehistoric-looking animal with him into a teeny tea room is the equivalent of someone taking a suitcase of snacks with them to the cinema. Granted, you’re allowed to take bags into a cinema and you’re also allowed snacks, but if the two people adjacent to you have to rest their feet on top of your luggage and view the movie from between their knees then is it really a wise choice?

I’m sorry: is my suitcase making you feel uncomfortable?

Ooph. I’m torn.

‘The dog will disturb my other customers,’ says the cafe man.

It’s a desperate, cheap shot and a cowardly move. How to pass the buck. There I am, minding my own business and making an effort not to be judgemental (much) and suddenly I’m being thrown into the ring!

‘Alright,’ says the the dog-owner. He looks directly at me. ‘Is Satan disturbing you?’

Am I going to argue with a man who has an extra eye and a dog that could fit my entire skull into its mouth at once? No I am not.

‘Nope, he’s absolutely fine by me,’ I say.

The dog-owner takes a full twenty-three minutes to work his way through his red velvet cupcake and oat milk latte. The dog snores peacefully and I slowly nibble away at my focaccia which has been, in all honestly, entirely ruined for me. £7.25 completely down the pan. It’s not that I’m worried that the dog will eat me, not any more: familiarity and close proximity have made me almost fond. It’s the generally awkward atmosphere. The faint sense of menace.

I feel as though I’m in one of those bank robbery hostage scenes in the movies, where the master criminals say they’re not going to hurt anyone but then pace up and down in rubber masks holding machine guns. It’s difficult to enjoy scooping up fallen mozzarella and dipping bread into pools of fragrant olive oil when the vibe is off.

When they eventually leave, and the door opens, the cool air that fills the cafe is like a cleansing, restorative gift from above. It’s virtually biblical. Cake-woman has been staring at an empty plate for the past twenty minutes, too scared to leave, counter-man has been sifting through the same stack of hand-printed greetings cards over and over again and I have been drafting this entire post in the “notes” section of my desk diary, waiting for the turbulence to pass. We all glance at one another and let out pathetic, relieved chuckles.

We live to see another day.

As I walk back to the car park I hear a commotion in the gift shop at the top of the shopping street. A picture-perfect shop selling yarns and tapestry sets and Liberty-print pin cushions and small, framed watercolours and artisan ceramics. And there is Beelzebub’s Hound, careering about in the narrow aisle, knocking into pots with his haunches.

‘It says small dogs only!’ says the frantic shop owner, who has hair like a sheep.

‘Define small,’ says the dog-owner, and I hurry along on my way.