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Be an angel End puppy farming www thebarkangel co uk

35 W Ad break The wealthy owner of the Manchester pet shop was furious Back then no one was yet speaking out about the cruel puppy farm trade As soon the mag published he filed for damages I don t think he realised we were part of the Mail He probably thought he could bully us into a retraction Our publisher was furious with me libel was something he was terrified of Was I mad But when the Mail s very expensive lawyers looked at the case they were delighted we could verify everything The court case would give the cause even more publicity The pet shop owner must have had millions in the bank but he backed down and paid all our costs John our publisher became more and more sure I was crazy I remember the day he walked in while I was making Sally my beloved Beardie a Scooperdog outfit to match boyfriend Brian s Scooperman costume He just shook his head and left We were definitely not like other journalists Always the first to arrive and last to leave apart from the week Sally s relatives came to stay in our tiny Windsor town house Mum and Dad wanted to visit my brother in Canada so I volunteered to dog sit I saw the neighbours net curtains twitch anxiously when a seemingly neverending line of Beardies emerged from Mum and Dad s modest VW Polo They had all been sleeping on top of each other being many generations of the same family meant they didn t mind Sally was initially delighted to see her relatives again but she was more than pleased when they went home But would we be staying Those TV ads kept being delayed P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK e were still being told to prepare for three more months of national advertising Covers would be very important the dogs needed to be great on TV too Top dog acting trainer Ann Head loaned us the famous Boxer who had been the star of the Colman s Mustard adverts Photoshoots were long days but great fun We needed the dog to look straight down the lens My repertoire of silly noises was getting larger I could do a convincing cat impression that sometimes got me into trouble and I could bark in several breeds too Everyone still shot on film in those days We wouldn t know if photographer Tim Rose had got the shot till days later The editorial team started putting down roots We were growing and finding the campaigns that really mattered It was already very much more than just a job for all of us When I d lived up in Liverpool I had seen the problems caused by a huge flashy puppy supermarket that sold nearly every breed Naive soap stars and football players bought these expensive pups All the local vets groaned when they heard the shop s name The store s reputation was terrible I decided to do a feature on pet shop pups and point out where these often sickly puppies came from and how the shops encouraged people to buy dogs like pizzas It was wonderful to have a chance to warn people We launched a petition to take the puppy out of the pet shop and our readers really embraced it It would still take nearly 30 more years to succeed in that objective with Lucy s Law

36 I Burning issue drunken man started attacking my father on the train When help finally arrived the man was pleading for mercy I d jumped on his back and was pulling out his hair In retrospect John was lucky I d just burst through his door I was mainly furious with myself for not seeing this mess coming John apologised and told me that huge losses had led to the board convincing Lord Rothermere that he had been wrong about Britain wanting a dog magazine But Lord R had insisted everyone should get a good redundancy package even though there was no legal requirement It was hard telling the team in the open plan office We decided to adjourn to the pub to talk freely and drown our sorrows I picked the one opposite Windsor Castle which was now on fire The rest of the world seemed very interested in this blaze As I said at the time She s got other castles we ve only got one dog magazine My phone rang and it was Peter Smith the lovely man who had created our TV ad campaign His father in law Sir David English had just told him the news about the magazine I told him we were in the pub and he said he d join us I don t know how it happened but I decided I d try to buy the magazine so we all returned to the office to work on the next edition as if nothing had happened No one was more surprised than John to see us back at our desks and no one sobbing That night the grief hit me What had I been thinking How could I possibly save the magazine I had no money or experience I remember Sally licking away the tears P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK was rarely ill but I had the flu and had phoned in sick that morning I was surprised to get a call from my boss John saying You need to come in He explained If you re too sick I will have to tell your staff that Dogs Today is closing and you re all being made redundant Be better if you did it I was in shock What did he just say I m on my way Why was I only hearing this now He d said we were having another round of TV advertising I stormed straight into John s office I was steaming and it wasn t just because I had a temperature Why hadn t he been open with me He looked startled I guess he d never seen this side of me before Don t get all emotional Now that really really annoyed me I am not being emotional John I am very understandably furious Why didn t you tell me we were in trouble I may have been able to do something If I were a male editor you wouldn t label me as emotional Why wasn t I crying Why wasn t I sobbing in a crumpled heap This magazine meant the world to me and my lovely staff With hindsight I can rewind to the first time I was literally knocked down I was in the first year of primary school and a huge bully from the year above pushed me off the climbing frame and I hurt my head I stormed after him I was the second smallest kid in the school and this boy had been terrorising everyone A teacher came out to see what all the noise was a lot of people were cheering me on as I gave him a taste of his own medicine I didn t get told off which probably fostered a sense of invulnerability in me Then when I was 15 I was shocked when a

37 I Quid s in all still hoped for a happy ending Was reality about to bite Would he tell us all to go home and stop cluttering up his Windsor office I worked on the figures and started to untangle the mess Nothing made sense The magazine cover price was very low and the overheads were mind blowing I just couldn t see how it all cost so much our contributor budget and staff pay was quite modest But how could I afford to buy the magazine The company car would go at the end of the month How would I pay the rent and keep Sally in her diet of raw liver and organic carrots that kept her well Would Lord R be angry that we hadn t made the magazine the success he d wanted it to be When we arrived at the Mail HQ I gave my name to reception and Sally and I were ushered into the private lift that goes up to the chairman s floor where Cathy Lord R s PA greeted us I must have looked terrified Lord R was famous for his pauses he created tremendous fear in people by saying nothing and just waiting for them to make an idiot of themselves by filling the awkward silence There was none of that today he was very smiley Do sit down my dear I hear that you want to buy my dog magazine I was totally mute holding my breath and unable to speak I ve had a word with my financial advisor and he thinks I should sell Dogs Today to you Would 1 be OK And he tells me I should invest in your new company too if I am allowed I was still frozen totally in shock Would you like to see my financial adviser I nodded and he pulled out a photo of his Japanese Akita Ryu ma P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK am not sure why I thought I could buy and run the magazine Everyone thought I was nuts I didn t have any money or experience of being a publisher But I wanted to save it I didn t want to let everyone down John was getting tetchy about us still coming into work each day as if nothing had happened I think his next move was to change the entry code I asked to see all the historic paperwork so I could work out how to make the magazine profitable John handed me a huge box of baffling files You re welcome to this Don t have nightmares it s not a good read Why do you want to buy something that loses this much money John wanted to bring this to a conclusion so he told his boss that I wanted to buy the magazine and no one wanted to be the one who said no so it all got passed up and up Everyone who heard what I had asked thought it hysterically funny The managers already thought I was barking I was just living up to their expectations Rosie and Sarah got stuck into producing a very strong Feb March issue We decided to do a bimonthly issue as it gave us more time for a salvage plan There was going to be a gorgeous Shiba Inu on the cover This dog had a very similar expression to another that would cross my path very shortly John gave me a message that was exciting and terrifying in equal measure Lord Rothermere wanted to talk to me in his office on the top floor of the Daily Mail So far no one had stopped us dreaming We

38 W hen Lord Rothermere sold me Dogs Today for a pound I presumed it was because he saw something in me an inner entrepreneur buried so deep even I had not suspected it was germinating I was sure he had every confidence in me It never crossed my mind that he thought me sweet but deluded for trying to make his idea work where others far more experienced had failed Lord R knew his team were the best in the world the top dogs if they d not been able to make Dogs Today profitable what chance was there for this enthusiastic young pup in front of him With a straight face he explained that his financial advisor his dog Ryu Ma had told him to invest in my new company but that it was very important that I kept the majority share He was giving me 10 000 for the proportion of shares he wanted To me this was a fortune I now realise that for Lord R the seventh richest man in Britain it wasn t even pocket change He looked at me very seriously and said I was to be very very careful not to borrow any money to not get myself into any trouble LEAP OF FAITH look down I was already planning the next issue It was coming up to Christmas and we needed to find ourselves an office as John was running out of patience with us squatting It was a big ask to find something dog friendly and cheap in a horrifically expensive area For some reason the journalists at the Mail had a soft spot for us and my by line kept appearing in the paper often on stories I hadn t written BLAST FROM THE PAST I discovered I had interviewed some of the most famous people in the world about their dogs when the phone rang Hello it is you I recognise your voice My mum saw your piece in today s paper There couldn t be two Beverley Cuddys It was James from my uni days he d tracked me down You re only a couple of hours away I m getting in the car now I m coming to see you What s your address Well that was a surprise James and I had met in the first week of college and he d said something odd like You re the only real person here He d never made a move I d assumed he was either gay or more likely didn t find me attractive We were both young we didn t talk about such things He d taken me home to meet his mum I taught his younger brother Patrick how to do Venn diagrams He was very posh and rather dashing but I assumed that his interest in me was purely platonic I d eventually got a boyfriend and we drifted apart For a while I suppose he was sort of my Mr Darcy terribly polite but rather removed As I put the phone down I wondered whether I should have mentioned I now lived with Brian the Aussie journalist It just hadn t come up P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK I still hadn t yet recovered the power of speech so I nodded and floated back to Windsor dazed but elated The team were thrilled John the publisher was a bit miffed My brother who is older and wiser was more practical Don t do it he urged He can afford to lose 10k This is madness Give this up now and get a proper job What do you know about publishing About running a business When you take a leap of faith sometimes it helps not to Don t look down

39 S Shelf life it was dog friendly and all we could afford It needed wall to wall floor to ceiling shelves to fit in all our box files It was before the internet everything still arrived by post My dad was a master craftsman Brian in contrast was as allergic to DIY as I was to cooking Pretty soon Dad and James formed a team and Brian s efforts were being critiqued by both of them It s just a shelf surely it s good enough Brian moaned James and Dad both said at the same time But just good enough is never good enough It was a moment a metaphor It could not be unsaid In the months that passed I became more engrossed in my work totally loving it and working harder than ever before Brian was becoming less and less engaged as was I All talk of marriage stopped and he wanted to go home to Oz I just couldn t take time off to go with him Things were to come to a head Brian had been working in London and had got a train back to Sunningdale so we could go out and meet friends I wasn t anywhere near ready to leave and he was getting annoyed We were on deadline and Brian started saying he felt ill but no one took much notice When he lay down on the floor I assumed he was attention seeking I had to step over him to get to the printer I had changed I had a mission I had to save Dogs Today I didn t have time to save our relationship too P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK ally and I walked home across the park She didn t mind working late as long as we were together I had a spring in my step too I was looking forward to being my own boss and my old uni friend James was coming around tonight James had always been the one that got away He was terribly posh my Mr Darcy and my mum had really liked him Bizarrely his mum who was even posher had apparently liked me James said she never liked anyone But despite spending a huge amount of time together at college he d never made the slightest romantic move Back then I hadn t learned that girls could I had not long got home and told my other half Brian the Aussie journalist that an old friend was coming to see us I hadn t mentioned that James didn t yet know Brian existed There d been so much else to talk about As I opened the door the no longershy James lunged and kissed me on the lips Well that was awkward when Brian appeared behind me Brian didn t seem fazed maybe he thought that s how all Brits greeted each other It would have been a great recovery if James had kissed him on the lips too Brian was straight in with millions of questions so there was no chance of an awkward silence It transpired James had a girlfriend he hadn t mentioned either James was doing PR for a castle Brian forever the tourist was delighted We were soon arranging to visit James was very excited about me doing a management buy out and wanted to help in any way he could A few weeks later we needed to move into our new Sunningdale office The only time we had was Boxing Day and James Brian and my lovely dad volunteered to put up shelves It was small but

40 M Take your breath away Then I looked at the very pooey old T shirt We were giving Peter a lift back it would have stunk out the car and given the game away I was very embarrassed at my lack of dog training ability especially in front of such an eminent expert in the subject So I threw the shitty shirt over the hedge Brian would just assume it lost I had been outside a long time people would ask me difficult questions I rushed back inside and washed my hands very very thoroughly in the downstairs loo and decided never ever to tell anyone I reasoned it would put everyone off their dinner and make the hosts feel awkward that their no dog policy had led to Sal s lapse After a main of Swedish meatballs which did look a bit familiar Brian announced he was going to check on Sal I couldn t catch his eye but I d already cleared up forensically Brian always said he liked Sally but I could tell he didn t really So I was surprised he d volunteered to check on her Maybe he wanted to phone someone I had my suspicions he might have a spare girlfriend who probably liked his clothes A few minutes later Brian burst into the dining room wearing only his underpants and carrying a pair of very shitty trousers Without looking he d jumped into the driving seat and sat in a fresh pile of Sally s emissions For some reason there weren t any takers for the hosts chocolate roulade Brian is probably still wondering where his T shirt went P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK y once shiny company car was going back after the management buy out but it had long lost that new car aroma My ugly red Peugeot 308 was going to need a very professional makeover or setting on fire The atrocities that the unwise velour interior had suffered would probably have made Phillip Schofield say We buy any car but not that Peter Neville Dogs Today s behaviour expert then and now had invited me Aussie boyfriend Brian and hairy office dog Sally to stay for the weekend Some of Peter s friends were due to host a posh dinner party and we were generously added to their guest list Brian and I felt very grown up having a weekend away in the country As I ve previously explained Sally nearly died as a pup and that was the excuse I used for her less than ideal behaviour Unfortunately Peter s friends had cats that didn t like dogs so Sally couldn t join us for dinner It was a mild evening so I decided she d be OK sitting in the car and I d pop out to be with her between courses After a very ambitious starter of artichoke hearts I made my excuses and nipped out to check on Sally I discovered she had done what she often did to express her dislike she had pooed The aforementioned velour seats made cleaning up a bit of a challenge I used a poo bag to get most of it away but I would have to scrub the velvet to get it clean The only absorbent thing I could find in the car was one of Brian s old embarrassing Aussie T shirts so I dipped it in Sally s water bowl The seat came up almost as good as new

41 I t was my first early morning trip to the new office in my new to me somewhat temperamental red Peugeot 205 It dawned on me I was the actual boss I wasn t exactly suffering from imposter syndrome because I wasn t even able to pretend to be a boss I didn t know where to start Sally preferred our new car with the more basic cloth seats instead of the velour but the pale grey interior would prove very difficult to get stains out of especially blood splatter Long story another time Sal bravely strode up the rickety old metal fire escape that was the only entrance to our new canine publishing empire Designer Rosie had opted to work from home which was just as well as we only had room for two and a half desks and didn t have enough plug sockets The dogs helpfully covered up any visible bits of the ghastly carpet Beneath us were an Indian restaurant a hairdresser and Barclays Bank It wasn t exactly Fleet Street GLOW UP You can t be publisher and editor he said It s madness you ll never do it But I was also selling the adverts which to me was worse than cleaning the toilets which was also my job I loathed asking people for money Every call went on for hours as we just chatted and it was pure pity that made them book ads One chap took control of the rambling call You really are rubbish at selling advertising aren t you Would you like me to do it for you CREDIT CONTROL So that s how Michael Lazarus came to work with us and through him the amazing Fiona whom many of our advertisers believed was Patsy from Ab Fab And that was after they d met her Everything was going remarkably well but you know what that means there was soon to be a disaster of epic proportions One of my advertisers wasn t very nice He d spotted that I was young and green and had decided to take advantage He turned up at the office unannounced it was dark and Sarah was about to go home He was a big bloke and he angrily complained he d not sold many of his ghastly doggie jute bags He wanted me to take his products in lieu of payment for his advert It was all very awkward For a start where would we put them There was nowhere for him to sit so he stood in front of my desk and I was beginning to weaken just to get him to leave And then Sally came to my rescue She turned her back on him looked me in the eye and sprayed his legs and briefcase with liquid poo He paid and left and Sally s name was soon added to the contents page as our credit controller P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK I decided to improve the paper quality to take the magazine up market I wanted to make it perfect bound and glossy with better photos and more features There was literally no one to stop me My management style was just to admit I had no idea what I was doing to throw myself on their mercy People were very very kind Well most were I had to do the work of very many people as well as being the editor A friend in publishing had been very pessimistic Pay up or else

42 O ne of the first campaigning articles I wrote for Dogs Today triggered a massive legal challenge Thankfully it was during the days we were still owned by the mighty Daily Mail so we had their very comprehensive libel cover I remember the first meeting with their very posh lawyers I am what is called a blow in I d not had any formal journalistic training so I d not studied libel laws I felt very nervous and out of my depth in chambers My publisher had been pretty irritated none of the other editors in the magazine group had ever got themselves into this sort of bother He was amazed when the legal team loved the case and commended me on the story I got the feeling this was quite rare They quickly agreed to fight rather than settle This no doubt came as a shock to the millionaire who had decided to sue us He was the owner of a very successful puppy supermarket and was probably used to people always backing down when threatened LEGAL BEAGLES this was aspirational behaviour It was on my doorstep when I was growing up It was a story I had been itching to write As well as vast numbers of pups of every breed behind glass they had a huge really good pet store before warehouse chains like Pets at Home were conceived I constantly heard stories of people who d only popped in to buy a new dog bowl but came home with two pups Even sensible people struggled to avoid buying one PUPPERONI It was all about fanning the impulse and we had recorded their staff upselling dogs to very obviously unsuitable people and offering to have the pups delivered like pizza He hated us saying that We were looking at a week in court at the very least with some of the dogs appearing as witnesses The lawyers and the Mail felt the trial itself would be a great story that would be loved by the media It was a win win as far as they were concerned As we were putting our second edition of the now independent Dogs Today to bed we included an appeal for witnesses to come forward It was just after that edition came out that the owner of the pet store backed down and paid all the legal costs We had won but we had also lost the week in court But as you know the battle to take the puppy out of the pet shop was to continue I wonder what I would have said if someone had suggested to me that 30 years later I d be in 10 Downing Street celebrating that milestone by eating bone shaped shortbread with Michael Gove and Brian May from Queen You couldn t make it up could you P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK Legal things tend to move slowly so even though we d already left the Mail and done the management buy out months before I was still involved in fighting this case Plus it was an issue I d never want to back down on We had dared to point out that the massive puppy supermarket in Manchester was selling puppies like pizza The store opened late took credit cards and had adverts saying bring the kids The puppies sold in the glitzy pet shop often originated from squalid puppy farms It was the early 1990s and this was big news to the general public Famous football stars and soap actors were all over the media buying their pups The public were in danger of thinking Slice of the action

43 E ven though we were officially no longer part of the Mail somehow we were much closer than ever before The phone would ring and I d be on yet another unimaginable pinch myself adventure The call from the TV arm of the Mail was a surprise Up until then I didn t know they had one They wanted to make a video about dogs So for a week or two I swapped Sunningdale for their plush London TV studios and a director who expected me to have a plan I was like a kid in a sweet shop I cast Gwen Bailey author of the best selling book The Perfect Puppy in the lead role and decided to film on location James my Mr Darcy did the PR for the unbelievably beautiful Sudeley Castle It would be the perfect backdrop Of course being the Mail they thought we needed a celebrity too so I picked the lovely actor Peter Davison He d recently been Dr Who and Tristan the young and hapless brother in James Herriot s All Creatures Great and Small I gave Sally my Beardie a starring role too of course BOTTOM LINE to say our cheque had bounced almost gave me a heart attack Our agreement with Lord Rothermere had been that we shouldn t have an overdraft so I was always watching the pennies Preinternet I had to go to the bank to find out why their balance didn t match my one At the beginning of each month our distributors usually paid us a chunk of money for our magazine sales But this month they hadn t SMALL PRINT I think I ve mentioned before that we had a distributor who wasn t exactly my greatest fan When they made a terrible error and had thought a bunch of flowers rather than compensation would solve it I decided it was time to move and I gave notice This should have been the last payment from them before we moved I assumed they d just made an error I called their accounts department but they transferred me to my account handler an older chap who had never warmed to me He said he had been looking forward to my call If you had bothered to read the small print you d see we can hold on to your money for six months now you are leaving I stuttered But we d go bust Surely you can release some of that money even if you want to keep a margin for returns No chance lady You ve always been a jumped up little woman who didn t know what she was doing You deserve to go bankrupt Have a nice day He slammed the phone down and I burst into tears What happened next still makes me smile P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK Back then you couldn t Google how to write a script but it didn t stop me from having a go Somehow filming went very well It was beautifully shot and edited Oddly it was one of very few projects that ever went from made for video to TV and it was serialised as a segment on ITV s This Morning over a period of weeks The phone ringing wasn t always good news The call from the printers Lights camera action

44 I Rothermere s revenge in the next hour I will remove all my other business interests from his company He sounded so disappointed in me Could you possibly phone him I doubt he ll believe me No Phone me back after you ve made the call Lord R had bought his shares in our magazine via an offshore company but if you went on Companies House you couldn t see he was connected to us I was shaking when I made the call Lord Rothermere has told me to say that if you don t courier the cheque to us within the hour the Daily Mail and all his other titles will no longer be distributed by your company It hadn t been the killer blow Lord R had made it sound The man on the end of the phone was laughing maniacally Eventually the anger resurfaced You don t even f ing know Lord Rothermere F off I always said you d go bust but you re even more stupid than I thought you really deserve it I burst into tears I had failed Sobbing I phoned Cathy and she asked exactly what he had said to me I had to apologise for the swearing She put me on hold and Lord R sounded like thunder Phone me when it s resolved He d probably run out of patience I d blown my chance I was back on the phone to my parents All the staff were asking relatives for money too The knock at the door made everyone jump A man in black leather handed me an envelope Inside was a cheque and a note saying sorry from the distributor Lord R had immediately sanctioned removing all his titles He decided to sell quite a few of them too when their publishers kicked off about being used as a pawn in Dogs Today s argument What a legend P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK was never fond of rollercoasters but this was the biggest dip since we were closed I had just discovered a 20 000 hole in our cash flow Our old distributor had been difficult to work with and when he made a bad mistake I decided to move to a new firm What I hadn t predicted was that the man who had never warmed to me would find a way to hold on to our money for six months My first call was to the Bank of Mum and Dad Could I borrow the money The distributor would have to release it after six months they d get it back Could they remortgage the house It was Mum who answered the phone Dad might have said yes She pointed out that Lord Rothermere was the seventh richest man in Britain so perhaps he could loan me the money It was a fair point I hated admitting I was probably the worst businesswoman in the world Lord R s super efficient secretary Cathy answered She could tell I was upset and asked me to tell her the whole story I explained the distributor had always been very frosty towards me and perhaps I should have realised he was going to play dirty after we ended the contract Could I possibly borrow some money She was very interested in hearing exactly what the man had said to me before he hung up I was mortified repeating that I was a jumped up little bitch who deserved to go bust A few minutes later Lord R was on the phone and he sounded furious No I won t lend you the money Phone him back and tell him I am one of your shareholders and if he doesn t pay you

45 B Anti dog brigade publishing The general media weren t yet covering these shocking injustices He decided to invite the Home Secretary around for dinner as you do The minister had no idea what was on the menu Vere told me afterwards that he had been so annoyed at his attitude he had locked the MP in the dining room and refused to let him leave until he had read all the Dangerous Dogs Act coverage in Dogs Today But the Conservatives felt they could always rely on the Daily Mail to be on their side Lord R wasn t impressed that his views were not being taken seriously Dogs Today was a small voice speaking out for fact checking on the damaging claims about dogs causing children to go blind Some journalists had mixed up toxocariasis with toxoplasmosis DOPPELGANGERS Our wonderful columnist Bruce Fogle Ben s dad had contacted every hospital and got the real figures He also pointed out that foxes and cats were more likely suspects for the very few cases there were They were much more likely to be unwormed and burying their poo in people s sandpits and gardens Some days it did seem like the world was turning against dogs We lifted our spirits by coming up with crazy ideas that meant the media would report on dogs in a more positive way Our dogs that look like famous people competition was a huge success and was featured in lots of national newspapers I still think our Norman Lamont was exceptional Channel 4 s Big Breakfast loved it so much they had their doppelgangers present the show Chris Evans was a Griffon Bruxellois and Gaby Roslin was an Afghan Hound This Morning blanked it Richard was flattered by his Flat Coat lookalike but Judy was less happy at being paired with a Pug P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK ritain was quite anti dog in the early 1990s what with the dreadful Dangerous Dogs Act and lots of people convinced that dog poo makes you go blind It was often those you d expect to defend man s best friend who were making things much worse Bizarrely the Kennel Club had egged on the government to bring in breed specific legislation they d actually wanted them to go further if you read the Home Secretary s autobiography As the Pit Bull wasn t KC recognised they were keen to throw them under the bus And who would have thought the RSCPA would become witch hunter general One of their number became a prolific expert witness He would determine if a dog was a Pit Bull with a tape measure a pronouncement that was a death sentence Jan Eachus would wear his RSPCA uniform in court and numerous muchloved seized dogs were killed due to his testimony Grieving dog lovers even burnt effigies of him They couldn t understand why the RSPCA would help to kill dogs for the way they looked rather than the way they behaved I remember answering the phone to a distraught teacher Their life changed forever when riot police came to his family s door in the middle of the night A neighbour had reported the family dog for looking like a Pit Bull Their children were distraught to see their gentle pet dragged away to secret location guilty until proven innocent of being a now banned breed Normal law abiding people were being criminalised Dog haters were able to ruin someone s life with an anonymous phone call Lord Rothermere was deeply affected by the stories we were

46 L ord Rothermere wanted to change the dog world Previously he hadn t taken much interest in politics As a young man he d not been like other members of the ruling classes The boys at Eton tended to be a bit sniffy as his title came from his relatives newspaper empire rather than blue blood When he was called up to fight in the war he declined to go in as an officer choosing instead to be one of the men a private Even though he was now the seventh richest man in Britain he normally preferred the company of journalists to aristocrats In New York he could pass as an ordinary person It was here he bought his gorgeous Akita on rather an impulse He soon became horrified by Britain s antiquated quarantine system and decided it very unfair to lock up his best friend for six months when he could have just had a vaccine and a blood test to prove he was no risk to man or beast It was a huge amount of time to waste in a dog s lifespan At the magazine we heard stories of old dogs dying while in kennels and owners being left heartbroken QUARANTINE RESISTANCE people and I soon began to realise that you could forget the Freemasons the love of dogs was the most potent alliance ever Dogs Today was friendly press so I was to enjoy being the only journalist at the most spectacular parties London had ever seen I remember one lunch at Harry s Bar where I had the most amazing risotto well it was my first ever risotto The bar was full of the elite of Who s Who and Debrett s Peerage I was sat next to John Cleese s American wife and the fundraising auction was not only out of my price range it was out of hers too BLUE PASSPORTS Another campaign gathering was in the largest privately owned garden in London I can still vividly remember the lovely Jilly Cooper cheekily enquiring of the very posh CEO of a famous dog charity Are you having good sex You really jolly well deserve it for all the lovely things you do for dogs Another time it was Lady Annabel Goldsmith s turn to host the party and her adorable dogs were all running around us as were her now very famous children Thankfully they never did get to meet at my house I don t think they d have appreciated Hula Hoops and Jaffa Cakes What happened next was stranger than fiction John Major wasn t interested in helping the campaign I guess the Tories felt that the Passport for Pets committee were so true blue they already had their support It was unthinkable that the super rich and powerful would put their love of dogs above everything Next month I will reveal something that should be in the history books but so far isn t P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK Vere decided not to live in England if his dog wasn t welcome Lots of other super rich people felt the same A new organisation was created called Passport for Pets It was led by Lady Mary Fretwell the wife of the ambassador to France Her black book and her diplomacy were the stuff of legend Katie Boyle our doggie agony aunt was also a member of this elite quarantine resistance group She was also Lady Saunders and born Caterina Irene Elena Maria Imperiali di Francavilla Having just the one name probably made me a standout in these circles Hating quarantine united these powerful True blue blues

47 N Hornet s nest be bland boring questions Every page had content that mattered The readers were already a feisty bunch and someone had written in about cosmetic tail docking an issue that was just starting to get a waggle on Petplan had not asked to be shown their sponsored pages in advance of publication When the magazine hit the shops Patsy probably wanted to hit Mike repeatedly She instantly pulled all their future advertising and wanted some sort of retraction but had no idea how to word it They wanted to be as far away as possible from a dog s bottom As a company they didn t want to have any position on tails or the lack of them They wanted to be appendage neutral Mike thought I was nuts to put any controversial stuff in the magazine that it was my youth and inexperience showing But what was the point in being just a fluffy dog magazine There would be many other days when advertising salespeople would be reduced to tears Lovely vet Richard Allport would often fire a wellaimed shot at an enormous vaccine company and we d all have to put our tin hats on Over vaccination was a story we were very proud of We helped the late great Catherine O Driscoll break the news that annual boosters were not needed for most diseases In the early days of email we received a fabulous one where when you scrolled down they d forgotten to delete a chain of internal messages speculating who had paid for the graphic our illustrious illustrator Kevin had created They suspected someone had commissioned Saatchi and Saatchi to destabilise annual vaccination Talking of big pharma it s time for some medicine and bed Hopefully by next time normal service will have resumed P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK ormally I write these confessions with all the bound issues of the magazines in front of me to remind me what happened But I am still in hospital so you ll have to put up with unreliable and opioid inspired memories When you start building a magazine you must make huge choices Is keeping the advertisers happy more important than the readers Do you have a mission or is your job just to entertain and sell copies Should you poke the difficult subjects with a sharp stick or avoid them Many of these decisions are made by publishers who come from the advertising side of the business At Dogs Today I was both editor and publisher and cleaner I was like a dog with two tails as there was no one to stop me Our new salesman Mike Lazarus had miraculously started to resuscitate our advertising revenue Before him I had been doing it very badly falling for every sob story and pretty much giving everything away Mike was so proud that he d persuaded his good friend Patsy Bloom Petplan co founder to sponsor our new question and answer section I think it was called DTI Mary McKendry then Spiller s boss now Sharrock and a Purina top dog was very confused until she worked out the acronym was Dogs Today Investigates and not the Department of Trade and Industry Which reminds me of the memo sent round at British Telecom when I worked there It asked us to cut down on our TLAs Three letter abbreviations Petplan s livery looked lovely sponsoring all those many pages of topical questions and answers But even when Dogs Today was a pup they were never just going to

48 W Dearly beloved printer s very reasonably priced machine An expensive rookie publisher s mistake And how would Rosie design a front cover dominated by a huge bag of dog food She chose a very small puppy who I now notice was yawning in protest This sweetie was destined to be a guide dog and in our August September 1993 edition we revealed that most guide dogs were crossbreeds The charity had quietly changed over to mostly first crosses between Golden Retrievers and Labs No one had noticed Our readers have always had a great sense of humour but some caption competition entries were much too dark to make it into print The one that stands out is the Beagle with a bowl in its mouth Someone wrote They didn t give us ashtrays in the laboratory Still too risqu even all these years on This issue we had a Greyhound and owner peering through a hedge and the winning caption was very well timed I told them Greyhounds don t make good guide dogs Around now we started receiving Mr and Mrs Threader of Bristol s beautifully handwritten caption entries Every month they would send us 15 or more potential slogans They were always charming and innocent but never remotely funny Yet the Threaders weren t disheartened They continued to enter the competition for the next 20 or more years Maybe they got marginally better or we started to appreciate their extremely gentle humour Every letter was signed from the GSD nutcases and offered all the editorial team tea should we ever be in their area What legends they were very definitely well beloved It s obviously the taking part that matters not the winning Although I think Robin rather enjoyed winning I wonder if he will read this from his own tropical island P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK hen we were part of the Mail there was a whole department that sourced magazine covermounts and someone else dealing with the logistics But we never did get any good ones despite these huge resources We once had a thrilling plastic dog food spoon and a coaster just the one I had to veto the plan to attach a chocolate bar it was a human one I was intrigued when a very posh chap made an appointment to discuss our first ever postMBO covermount Robin Jackson was very smartly dressed in a pin striped suit so I tried and failed to find him a less hairy chair than usual He had been high up at trendy ad agency Saatchi and Saatchi but he d experienced an epiphany and gave it all up Robin was convinced he d spotted a gap in the petfood market and he wanted little Dogs Today to help him launch it It was a revolutionary new dry dog food in a very smart pin striped bag The emphasis was on it being hypoallergenic healthy using the bestquality ingredients and being British made Robin wanted every reader to have a free sample of this expensive food that no one had yet heard of You will know it now though Robin was launching James Wellbeloved And no there never was a Mr Wellbeloved he just liked the name The readers dogs loved it Robin was to later sell the brand to one of the biggest petfood companies in the world for an undisclosed sum I was probably less of a fan But that s because I had to find lots of people at short notice to attach each bag of food on to the magazine with sticky tape The bags turned out to be far too big to be automatically stuck on by the

49 I Searching for miracles considered muzzling me I was furious Why had they let this happen and not phoned me to come back and help I held my dear angelic Sal while they took her blood without any fuss I was annoyed with myself for letting this vet bamboozle me into leaving her I knew my own dog and he obviously didn t It was clear that Sally had a very very serious liver problem No treatment was offered no cure It was probably liver cancer but a biopsy wasn t worth the risk as the prognosis would be the same I d helped save her once when she had parvo I wasn t giving up now I asked every expert I knew for ideas Tins of the very best prescription diet for liver failure were sent for her to try but she loathed them She much preferred stealing raw broccoli out of my shopping I was prepared to try anything It was even time to check out the eccentric vet John Carter in Harrow I d heard that he d performed miracles for other terminal cases but had I believed it You didn t need a sign to know we d arrived There were people and dogs spilling out on to the pavement It was chaos John Carter was a doppelganger for the mad scientist in Back to the Future He rushed us past all the other dogs and owners who were patiently camping out in the waiting room He called Sally he squirted something down her throat and gave me some green capsules in an envelope and a bizarre shopping list As we left he started ranting about only giving her water out of glass bottles not plastic There was stunned silence on the trip back home Brian drove and I sat with Sally on the back seat My tears making her now thin fur damp I felt I was being ridiculous like Jack when he exchanged the cow for magic beans P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK get some pretty strange phone calls but BBC Radio 4 asking me to review a movie was unusual Less surprising was that my train was late into London I had to find a seat in the dark in the glitzy Leicester Square movie theatre I hadn t expected to like Beethoven but it was so full of drool and bad behaviour I was hopeful it would put off the more delusional impulse purchasers of pups But when the lights went up I discovered I d been surrounded by very many St Bernards They had been so impeccably behaved they could have organised a successful class action for defamation against the movie s producers I was obviously not the most observant person but there was no ignoring the very gradual decline in Sally my beloved Beardie Was she just getting old She d got a little sunburned Her gorgeous cream coat was now very thin and she was getting very ribby I booked her in to the homoeopathic Windsor vet for a consult and he wanted her back the next day for tests with his colleague Sally and I both took an instant dislike to him He would not even consider me staying with Sal while he did the tests I explained her extreme separation anxiety but he said she d be fine and told the nurse to take her from me When it was time to pick her up I was shocked to see Sally now wearing a muzzle The tests were to take blood before and after she ate to check her metabolism Apparently she wouldn t let anyone near her to take her blood and she d refused the food The vet should have

50 I started getting PPA phone calls at work This was before people had been sold PPI insurance The calls from the Periodical Publishers Association were almost as persistent They organised a glittering awards dinner every year the magazine Oscars It was free to enter so I d put Dogs Today up for Small Publisher of the Year I was only 5ft 2 after all But I hadn t bargained on the hard sell when it came to buying tickets for the do It was a no the first time they called and it was still a no when they offered me a discount 10 seats for only 1 000 In the same week as the awards I was surprised to get a call from our lovely new distributor Would we like to be their guests They had spare seats This was in stark contrast to how the old distributor had behaved the one who had tried to bankrupt us and had sworn at me I found something not too creased at the back of the wardrobe It was black so rarely worn as Sal s long fawn hairs did rather contrast HAIR OF THE DOG cameramen and finding our table I spotted my nemesis the nasty sweary distributor He d not clocked me thankfully but he was only two tables away Brian said he d thump the chap on the nose by the end of the night but the awards were starting and the Small Publisher of the Year was the first category SMALLER THAN SMALL I was thrilled to hear Dogs Today being named in the shortlist but all the other small publishers were huge The PPA defined small as having fewer than 50 employees We had fewer than five at this point and that included the dogs They were round tables and I had my back to the stage The chap giving out the award started describing the winner and explaining why they d won I was just chuffed we d been shortlisted and was already thinking about getting home to Sal But then he said This girl saved her magazine and got rid of all her bosses turned her magazine around with grit and determination sticking up for good journalism and her best friend the dog We d won It didn t even cross my mind that I still had on my old comfy dog walking shoes on and my hair was a mess There were tears not just mine I think everyone in publishing dreams of getting rid of their bosses Brian was not in his seat when I got back to the table He d rushed over to my old distributor I heard him saying Not bad for a jumped up little woman who didn t know what she was doing eh mate Well at least he didn t punch him P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK I aimed to blend into the background There hadn t been time or the money to get my hair done since we did the MBO A free posh dinner in London was too good to miss and boyfriend Brian even borrowed a DJ Mum offered to dog sit Sal who was still in the early stages of Dr John Carter s radical treatment for liver cancer He had insisted we feed her raw lamb s liver and organic carrot juice which sounds ghastly but she seemed to love it At the Dorchester there were massive TV screens everywhere showing what all the beautiful people were wearing While we were dodging the And the winner is

51 S ally s bottom often cast a shadow over my social life but I still loved her dearly I warn you now that this is even for me a stomach churning story It gave me even more nightmares than sneaking in to see Carrie when I was only 14 That s the movie and not the PM s other half It was a huge relief that Sally s general health was starting to improve John Carter the pioneering cancer vet in Harrow had put her on a diet of raw lamb s liver and organic carrot juice Remember this was long before the raw feeding revolution But for possibly the first time she wasn t having her usual toileting issues That was until the morning I had to nip into London An experienced dog sitter was already on the way I ve previously told you about Sal s dirty protest on meeting my Aussie boyfriend s parents and her services to credit control when she sprayed a slow paying advertiser with liquid poo Then there was the time she almost put me off chocolate mousse after being briefly left in the car at a posh dinner party at a house full of dog phobic cats That car s velour seats never recovered SPLASH OUT I asked boyfriend Brian to drive us to the local vet for a quick check up I didn t ever really want to leave her even on a good day I sat in the back of the car comforting her while Brian drove as quickly as he could As we parked up at the vet s Sal stood up and I recognised with dread her familiar arching body language She moved her tail to one side and I thought I knew what was coming next but this time she surprised me REDDY TO WEAR Within seconds there was blood everywhere even splattered on the white ceiling of the car We hadn t phoned ahead to the vet but when I carried blood soaked Sal through the door I didn t need to say a word and we were ushered straight through I had been wearing white and as Sally was a very pale cream dog the contrast was dramatic It looked as if we d both been in a very serious car accident I am only surprised no one in the vet s waiting room fainted or threw up The vet examined Sal and thankfully said he wasn t too worried It was just a very upset tummy and all the blood was probably just watery stomach lining He sent us home with some electrolytes and said to keep her hydrated The valet centre didn t even raise an eyebrow and asked zero questions The car interior couldn t have looked more bloodspattered if I d brutally murdered someone I took the posh invite from the mantelpiece and chucked it in the bin secretly relieved not to be going It would have been my first party at 10 Downing Street But it was near the end of the John Major era and animal welfare wasn t ever strong under him P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK For the London do I was wearing new clothes as it was a very posh function Buying new clothes was very much easier than ironing something and getting all the dog hair off We d not long moved house and I later wondered if that might be what had spooked Sal or she might have sensed that me wearing new stuff meant I was planning on leaving her with someone I was rather concerned as her protest poo had been streaked with a little blood Blood s t and tears

52 S ally was the centre of my world and her liver cancer diagnosis had shaken me When we first featured cancer vet John Carter in the mag I was intrigued but it was very left of field stuff But now I was in his waiting room hoping for a miracle He was her only chance conventional vets had nothing to offer For the first few trips to his Harrow surgery I still had my doubts At the start I was just praying he d show up John seemed to have no concept of time there was no appointments system One couple travelled every week from Leeds and they certainly weren t complaining about John s timekeeping The older couple had put some money aside to renovate their kitchen and instead had spent it on train fares to give their precious Yorkie the chance of a cure PATIENTLY WAITING Over the weeks I learned everyone s stories and soon accepted John s unique way of working He would be with us at some time there was no point in stressing We were a community of people who put our pets before everything Each patient was given a slightly different version of the diet and I noticed that those who stuck to it seemed to have the most success No one wanted to admit it to John but when a very sick pet turned their nose up at the strange concoction that was meant to be good for them it took a lot of willpower not to cave in and give them food they loved I stuck to the raw liver and carrots as if my life depended on it but Sally adored it anyway So what was John doing before he ran in to the Harrow surgery semi breathless and carrying a fresh batch of his liquid CV247 Sometimes he d tell us Sorry I m late I was buying my mother a hat and she couldn t decide which one Other times he would say mysteriously that he had been at the other surgery Which made me curious The Harrow surgery was far from plush but there was no one coming to John for anything a normal vet would expect All his patients had cancer What was the other surgery for ON THE QUIET As the other patients started to trust us one let it slip John sometimes treated people with a terminal cancer diagnosis but it was all hush hush He often needed them to stay and had a nurse that would cook their special food for them Once you ve seen a pet defy a terminal diagnosis you d understand people trying the same thing for a human loved one in a similar situation Sally was so much better that John felt she no longer needed the weekly CV247 but he thought we should continue the diet as it really was agreeing with her I d enjoyed meeting John He told me that when friends and beloved dogs had died of cancer he d felt helpless and hopeless I hoped he d one day win a Nobel Prize But what happened to him next made me ashamed to call myself a journalist P He would be with us at some time there was no point in stressing Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK Over the weeks I learned everyone s stories and soon accepted John s unique way of working The waiting room

53 R ecalling who I was in my 20s now that I am in my gulp 60s is a struggle Yesterday I was sent a clip from a TV news bulletin from 1991 It was not how I remembered me For a start I was much thinner I was always certain I was fat And now that I am fat I am really annoyed with myself for not enjoying being thin I suspect there wasn t much depth to my thinking back then either Even in 1991 I was curating doggie lookalike competitions staging a contest for singing dogs and having wag counting events It wasn t yet given the fancy term Wagometer or shudders Wagulator We will return to Wagulators in a few years time The story involves the late Queen s dog behaviourist stealing a millionpound idea from a corporate pet food and pretending on This Morning that an empty box could calculate a dog s happiness COSMO GIRL was a bright light above them telling me to look closely not like the old Ready Brek commercial it was a lot more subtle Back then computer games were still quite simple graphically but I can now see I was describing how something glows in a quest so you know to click to find the treasure It happened rarely but it was there with alternative vet John Carter We were connected in other inexplicable ways He was going to be someone that would pop up again several times in my future There would be years without contact and then I would suddenly think of him and a phone would ring And this would be wherever I was even before mobile phones GET CARTER Over the years he would share with me some very unusual and complex ideas I guess someone with the bravery to attempt to cure cancer wasn t going to care what a dog magazine editor thought of him when he mused for example whether bananas might be helpful for people with Crohn s disease or whether there was life after death and if so what it would be like I do remember thinking John must never go on This Morning For a start every other word was an F he was the Quentin Tarantino of the veterinary profession But he had cured my terminally ill dog when no one else was prepared to even try I d inexplicably become friends with a man who could solve so many of the world s problems If I could rewind I would have said to slim me Go ask him about other stuff Hang around with him find out more But thin me had a magazine to put to bed We were asking Do women prefer dogs to men Well apparently yes P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK After the shock that I wasn t fat I noticed what I was wearing A colour block jacket of poor quality I d also worn this jacket during a photoshoot for Cosmopolitan magazine years later I was one of their Young Women of Achievement Sally and I were professionally coiffed but I d chosen to wear my own clothes and not those provided Was I mad Probably I do remember a strange left of field sensitivity that seemed to attract me towards people who would help me in some way No not like the Katie Boyle s parking angels I told you about although I am unashamed to still call on them if needed I was aware of a connection to some people and dogs that I couldn t quite put my finger on I used to say it was like there Light and lighter

54 A Tailwaggers united I heard of an elderly dog lady who was homeless and sleeping in her car Could Tailwaggers find someone to foster her dogs before they all froze to death The young Border Collie was quickly placed but the rather cantankerous old Jack Russell proved more difficult You may have found Jemima s name familiar when I mentioned it earlier Our paths eventually crossed when she made the documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed Jemima saw my appeal on Facebook for help with the old lady s dogs and suggested someone who might help It was Tim the chap mentioned earlier the one who had Parkinson s He d missed having a dog but didn t feel able to commit as his illness was progressing When the old lady finally got settled her two dogs no longer liked each other Tim had bonded with Milo so he became his forever dog The old lady was delighted and very relieved Milo had always had a strange bump on his front leg but when it started growing the vet was worried It turned out to be cancer The only treatment the PDSA vet offered was euthanasia or amputation no chemo So Milo became a tripawd but Tim was very worried that the cancer might spread Jemima had often heard me talk of Mr Carter and CV247 so she suggested that maybe Tailwaggers might fund Milo s drugs I knew Tailwaggers couldn t afford it so instead I quietly paid the bill personally At the time it didn t seem a huge commitment Milo was already an old dog In the end Milo had an amazing 10 years with Tim The photo I saw today on Jemima s timeline sadly revealed Tim and Milo were now reunited Milo s life had been long Tim s sadly all too brief What a shame there s never been a man like John Carter for Parkinson s P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK photo of a man with a three legged dog recently reduced me to tears and brought back a flood of memories Back when Dogs Today began there had been another young hopeful applying to be the launch editor I didn t know but I had been up against Jemima Harrison Jem took rejection very well going on to become a producer on the hugely significant TV series Horizon While there she discovered a young man called Tim who by chance had found that the street drug ecstasy had reduced his ghastly Parkinson s symptoms This led to scientists rethinking the way they might treat this incurable neurological disease Around this time I was campaigning against cosmetic tail docking It needed a catchy name so car stickers for Tailwaggers Against Docking were produced The campaign generated a very official letter I was a magnet for them everyone from the Oscars to Biro would try to sue us It turns out the word Tailwaggers was protected by a trust of the same name we d infringed their trademark At its height Tailwaggers Club had millions of members all over the world including all the Queen s Corgis and even Bette Davis They d started Guide Dogs but interest had slowed and now it just quietly distributed the money it had left to pet owners in crisis Luckily the trustees liked our stance against docking and instead of suing us let us share the name and I joined the board The concept of the club dog owners helping each other was a brilliant one But as Tailwaggers inevitably neared the end of its pot of money social media made it much easier to connect people so they could help themselves

55 W here was I I was about to tell you what happened to the man who may or may not have found a cure for cancer when he encountered a very angry TV journalist If you struggle to remember Roger Cook he was probably the first to pioneer toe inthe door interviews with people who would try to punch him or the camera His Cook Reports were primetime ITV in an era where there wasn t anything else to do In December 1994 he decided to report on cancer quacks No they hadn t found a duck to tell all about the big C they d sniffed out a vet who was treating people Now on the face of it this was a good target for Roger But they d have stumbled on lots of people with terminal cancer who were getting better at the hands of a vet who didn t fit the title Vet John Carter didn t have a TV so had no idea what was happening when he was doorstepped by an animated Mr Cook On an average day John looked surprised by life a proper mad scientist just like the one in Back to the Future But stick a camera in his face and some lights and it was TV gold UNDERCOOKED need to prove that John was not a quack that CV247 worked Imperial Cancer Research started a trial of CV247 on mice with tumours The head of research Hungarian scientist Professor Andor Sebesteny had spent many decades researching cancer cures but these results shocked him He saw the greatest reduction in fast growing tumours he d ever seen and there were no side effects Before we had Ofcom there was the ITC and they viewed all the evidence and decided Cook had been wrong to pick on John and one of those rare announcements was aired apologising for a programme Cook was furious and went on air after the announcement saying he stood by his story And then parliament got involved OVERCOOKED Then there was a second bigger apology that ran just before the News at Ten And we didn t see quite so many reports from Mr Cook Andor had been so moved by what he d seen in the lab that he went to work alongside John in his ramshackle Harrow practice He would try to get John to document all his cases so CV247 could apply for a licence and that others could use it too Years later I would be there again No not with a dog Sally was cured This time with my father but I am getting ahead of myself Back in 1996 my dad was still fighting fit and Dogs Today was waging a war on tail dockers We d got into a spot of bother for calling our contest for the best tail on a traditionally docked dog Rear of the Year The man who owned the brand threatened to sue Channel 4 s Big Breakfast who had just agreed to televise our event Tails you Win was my replacement title It s not just Roger who had a nose for a title P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK John was devastated to be one of the first reality TV stars The show didn t mention he d never advertised for humans to try his methods At first he d only helped those who had already seen their own pets recover Cook didn t mention that John never charged people and that most had already received a terminal diagnosis from conventional doctors Or crucially that lots of people were delighted to be feeling better and getting better By now John had saved some people with influence and means and they got together to fight back This TV show had provoked a Get Carter

56 I think it was Liverpool manager Bill Shankly who said Some people believe football is a matter of life and death I am very disappointed with that attitude I can assure you it is much much more important than that You could swap football for dogs most of us would agree It was certainly true for our founder Lord Rothermere I knew he loved dogs when I first met him It was his dream to have a magazine that gave the dog a voice But I was soon to discover his dog commitment was unlimited For a start there was what happened when he had a terrible car crash in France He was driving an old Porsche and had his two Japanese Akitas in the back Tragically one was killed outright in the accident and Vere was badly injured and taken to hospital The precious Ryu Ma had bolted from the scene MAIL ORDER realised but each month we were making Vere more and more angry No not with us luckily He decided to invite the Home Secretary around for dinner I had no idea Vere had become so radicalised but he refused to let the poor chap leave until he d read all our back copies Sadly it still didn t get the draconian law repealed but thankfully Vere wasn t arrested for kidnap The Passport for Pets movement was getting nowhere with the Tory PM John Major He wouldn t even meet the boss Lady Fretwell for a cup of Earl Grey It was time to be radical again Lord Rothermere looked at the eager young puppy of a Labour leader Tony Blair Would he be more likely to play GOING INTO THE RED He would Behind closed doors a plan was hatched that even to this day makes me want to pinch myself Lord R said the Mail would back Tony for PM against the Tories as long as he promised to get rid of quarantine and bring in pet passports if elected Vere said he d even throw in taking up his seat in the House of Lords to support it if necessary I am reliably told that the air in the editorial offices of the Daily Mail was blue when they were told to immediately throw everything behind Labour to win the next election The civil servants were pretty annoyed too when Tony got the keys to number 10 and told them pet passports were coming in no matter what they thought When I read an autobiography of Lord R I realised Vere was exceptional in other ways He was the only man with a title to opt to be a private and not an officer when he was called up to serve during the war I ve not known many viscounts but dogs could count on Lord Rothermere P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK From his hospital bed Vere sent an order to everyone at the Mail Anyone who could speak French had to leave immediately to search for Ryu Ma Well wouldn t you do the same Who cares about missing deadlines when your dog is lost The clever person who found him was reputedly given the very plush Hollywood job a position that hadn t previously existed But it wasn t just his own dog he went the extra mile for We had been writing about the atrocities caused by the Dangerous Dogs Act I hadn t Lord among dogs

57 B In the dock designed the dogs to look like this and they d look ridiculous with tails I knew this cover was going to get their stumpy backs up but I couldn t have guessed what it would provoke them to do After we d been on sale for a couple of days I got a scary call from the Press Complaints Commission which had some very big teeth back then They were inundated with complaints about our latest issue people were saying our front cover was cruel and that it was an offensive image that would upset children Had I gone too far They were talking about removing the edition from the shelves on the grounds of decency It was potentially even more disastrous to the balance sheet than losing Petplan s advertising I asked if I could see the complaints The complaints all looked very similar and then something else struck me I knew these names They were the same people I d been arguing with on all those docking debates Members of the Council of Docked Breeds had been pretending that the image of a dog having its tail cut off was cruel and shocking I was able to show the PCC that the complaints were vexatious The Sunday Times soon heard about this plot to have our magazine removed from sale They thought it was a very important public information message we were making and they wrote a whole page on the foiled attempt to have our magazine taken off the shelves In hindsight we couldn t have wished for more amplification of our message The Council of Docked Breeds had given us some brilliant PR I was like an undocked dog with two tails There was another time the Sunday Times was less pleased with us it was probably our fault they got a fatwa But that s another story P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK ack in 1995 we were telling hairdressers to give us a Rachel but very few were asking for mutilated pups the public thought dogs were just born without tails Our campaign to ban cosmetic docking had cut short any ad revenue from one major pet insurance advertiser but it had won us the love of very many vets It was a delight to discover that 98 wanted to stop the chop too I decided to put a long tailed Weimaraner pup on the cover with its beautiful tail falling perilously close to the blades of a pair of scissors Well scissors were my second choice I d also brought a meat cleaver but it was thought too shocking Of course I knew docking was performed on much younger pups And some breeders didn t use scissors they preferred a tight elastic band so the blood to the tail would stop and the end would wither and fall off But that imagery didn t really translate to a magazine cover I knew I was making a point I wanted to make the public aware so that when people bought a docked breed they d realise there was a very important bit missing that most dogs were not born this way There was a small but very committed group who were fighting to keep the tradition of docking They formed a strong alliance called the Council of Docked Breeds and they had a huge war chest of money to fight any reforms I d been arguing with them for months on various TV and radio debate shows and knew all their arguments They d say that chopping off tails might save a future tail injury I d ask why we don t chop every dog s tail off They said it stopped hairy dogs getting smelly bottoms very easy to poo poo and my all time favourite that they had

58 T here was a time when I dreamed big I imagined Dogs Today could maybe one day have an American edition So when Dr Ian Dunbar mentioned that the US Association of Pet Dog Trainers was having its first ever convention in Florida I figured we had to attend The logistics of getting a chunk of magazines over there was interesting but we did it Beardie Sally was packed off to stay with my parents and I took off for a very brief transatlantic jaunt Ian knew everyone of course and he was really kind introducing me to everyone Meeting the man who invented the Kong was amazing and hearing his story first hand priceless He said his young Bull Terrier was a chewing machine and had even tried gnawing at the tyres of his owner s precious motorbike It was a lightbulb moment I think it was Ian who suggested you could stuff these distinctive toys to make them even more irresistible The rest is doggie history NOTEWORTHY the organisers had everything they needed and when he sat behind me he just couldn t believe what he saw on my notepad It turned out he owned the hotel complex and the local radio station and pretty much everything else But more importantly he had just ordered a Bearded Collie puppy from the UK And here s where it gets crazy it turns out the pup was sired by a dog I had bred Champion Dearbolt Hooray Henry a beautiful dog who was Sally s uncle What a ridiculously small world NUMBER ONE FAN Charles insisted my brief stay in Florida must be action packed and his Beardie credentials became obvious when he drove up in a car with the number plate Beardie 1 His first decision was that I should be moved out of the hotel which I thought was gorgeous but the house on Daytona Beach was spectacular Every evening until the flight home was filled with Beardie talk One night we even went to a themed dinner called Arabian Nights Was I dreaming I did still hang out with all the behaviour folk during the day and we even ran an exit poll as to which speaker people would most like to go out to dinner with The winner was Dr Roger Abrantes and Ian said the voting must have been rigged In case you think I m the luckiest girl in the world you re not wrong We narrowly dodged a hurricane and it felt like the Daytona Beach house might take off and fly us back to Heathrow We never did get that American edition of Dogs Today off the ground Maybe next year P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK The first day of the conference I had my pen and notepad in hand listening to the speakers and even though it was brilliant jet lag began dragging my eyelids down So to keep myself from dropping off I did what I often do I doodled Bearded Collies in the margins of my notebook It did the trick and I still managed to squeeze in some words At the break I wanted to fill up on coffee but I felt a tap on my shoulder from the row behind Were you drawing Bearded Collies I had been caught The very tall American chap apologised for asking He said it was fate we d been sat so close to each other as the room was packed full of dog behaviour supergeeks from all over the world Charles Namey said he d only popped in for a moment to check Beardie doodle

Being the boss was constantly challenging I couldn t keep doing everything everywhere all at once unless I expanded the team or time itself But if we were to have more people we d need a bigger office I d been lucky A very kind Labrador owning gentleman had offered the magazine a lovely new home We would become West End girls the name of the next village to Chobham just up the road from our Sunningdale shoebox Dick owned Pankhurst Farm which was already populated with a potter an artist a carpenter a blacksmith and even a resident dog groomer Around this time I was made Cosmopolitan Woman of Achievement for saving the magazine from closure Sally and I had a trip to London for the swanky shoot and I stubbornly wore my old red black and blue jacket instead of the designer clothes they d picked out Sally looked gorgeous though Our photo was tucked away near the back in the latest edition of Cosmo but I didn t exactly mix with typical readers so it had largely gone unnoticed Until that is I pulled into the drive of the new offices at Pankhurst Farm I was driving quite slowly luckily so I managed to swerve to avoid the young man in my path He was carrying a copy of Cosmopolitan and gestured for me to wind down my window I ve seen you in the magazine he said excitedly I hear you re moving in MERRY MAN I noticed he was rather attractive He looked a bit like Michael Praed who had been Robin of Sherwood on TV I wasn t the only one who saw the resemblance I later discovered that my new friend s nickname had been Kevin of Windlesham the village he came from 59 West End girl I think I might have blushed Especially when I realised that I hadn t stopped and the poor chap was having to run alongside the car I wasn t used to men running after me He claimed the mag belonged to his mum and he had been excited to hear that a magazine was moving into the farm as he had previously provided some illustrations to Punch Would I like to see his etchings Well long story short yes I did The Guardian had been where I originally saw my role advertised so I turned to them to find more people like me DO NOT PASS GO Claire Horton Bussey stood out She was just perfect and had over achievement written all over her She even passed her driving test on first attempt on the day before she started Plus she had memorised every single back issue My earlier acquisition I ll call her Xena to protect her identity soon complained that Claire made her look bad To be brutally honest this was one of the few things that Xena didn t need any assistance with I feel mean telling you this story but it still makes me giggle During her lunch break Xena had driven to the petrol station and bought a token for the automatic car wash She was fuming when she returned to the office I put the token in and then a green light with Go came on so I reversed and came back How irritating I ve wasted my money I may have thought the same when writing her salary cheque but I was still learning how to be the boss I assumed she was just a slow learner I should have shown her the go sign much sooner but we d have missed out on many more funny stories if I had P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK

The editor of the Mail on Sunday offered me a contract to have my own dog column every week and he d pay me what seemed like a small fortune There was a catch I had to stop writing for anyone else I assumed that didn t include the sister title the Daily Mail but I was wrong The two papers were rivals for Lord Rothermere s affection I had no idea It sounded an easy yes but I would earn every penny Every Tuesday morning I had to pitch my next column idea to a difficult section editor who obviously didn t much like dogs and hated that my column had meant less space for travel and gardening content I d then write my piece and send it to a very posh lady who also didn t like dogs She would make me write and rewrite the column several times until it was time to go to press At this point someone else would take over and re edit it This went on every week for the next eight years It was however well worth all the run around it gave me a way to reach ordinary dog lovers who might never have otherwise heard of our magazine HEARTS AND MINDS The new office at Pankhurst Farm was on the first floor and poor old Sally my Bearded Collie was beginning to struggle It was kinder and quicker to carry her Sal had been well since she went on vet John Carter s alternative cancer treatment but there was no denying her visible decline into old age One of my early MoS columns was on the inevitable sadness of our old dogs starting to struggle I decided to share with the readers my search for a miracle cure A new wonder drug called 60 Weekend supplements Vivitonin had just been launched but the drug makers were loath to advertise it Consequently few pet owners knew to ask for it and vets were shy to mention it as it sounded too good to be true and also very very expensive I knew some vet friends who had given it to their own oldies and they had been blown away with the results I dug a bit deeper this drug was originally developed as a heart drug for people but while testing they spotted a very desirable side effect Someone techy explained to me that it put the bounce back into the walls of the red blood cells so they could travel around the body more freely making everything start working again There was even talk of a trial on people in Japan as a dementia treatment TURNING BACK TIME Another potential miracle product was sent in for scrutiny this had a more modest beginning One of our advertisers had brought a pot in for Sally to try Runaround didn t have a huge development budget but the manufacturer believed in it so much he wanted people with creaky dogs to try it for free as long as they reported their findings It was astonishing how many dogs started to look and feel a whole lot better In only a couple of weeks Sally was galloping up the office stairs every morning But which of the two miracle products had worked I think they both did Runaround was one of the very first supplements to include glucosamine and chondroitin Back then no one had even sniffed a green lipped mussel Lord R even tried it Well I hope his dog did but then again he did have very sparkly eyes and a lot of energy for a man of his years P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK

My Cosmopolitan magazine award attracted us a very influential new reader the National Magazine Company boss Terry Mansfield whom I soon discovered was a massive dog lover He asked me to help him source his next rescue Rottweiler Many years later he called me in to organise a very posh dog show at Kensington Palace I ended up being made a palace ambassador which was unexpected Yes his calls were always interesting Terry didn t phone up very often but I vividly remember his call about the August and September 1995 edition It contained an appeal for a Greyhound who had his ears cut off and needed our readers help Terry told me how one of his wife s friends had picked up Dogs Today for the first time in the supermarket She only meant to flick through but this feature had caught her eye so she started reading the story Terry said she abandoned her shopping trolley and rushed to a phone box to donate money to save this poor dog This was a very long time ago before everyone had mobiles Terry told me I should be very proud I d be chuffed if one of my magazines had ever moved a reader that much I wanted you to know immediately Keep up the good work Of course our readers are amazing all the money was raised for the dog with no ears Another story around the same time also had a very strong reader response Only now do I feel able to talk about it as hopefully I can t get anyone into trouble being so long after the event The magazine was always looking at quarantine as a welfare issue and our agony aunt Katie Boyle compiled 61 Column and row a list of the better kennels as some were really terrible Dogs had died in quarantine in some shockingly bad circumstances One of our newest readers had sadly encountered one of the bad characters in this industry The lady had left South Africa in a hurry with lots of Chihuahuas Quarantine was horribly expensive even for one dog and then she hit a real problem getting all her savings out of Africa The kennel owner was not in any way sympathetic Even though she d paid most of the bill and her tiny dogs had served their six months in isolation he held them all hostage until she could settle the remainder MYSTERY CALLER Worse the bill kept climbing every day as he was charging her for the overstay and he d moved them out of the heated wing The poor little things were now freezing The owner was worried sick about her dogs as the weather was getting colder by the day so she turned to us for help I phoned the kennel owner but there really was no reasoning with him The dogs were out in the cold until she paid him every penny I wrote the story up for my weekly newspaper column in the Mail on Sunday A couple of days after it was published I got a strange call from a withheld number The man on the phone just said It s done and hung up An hour or so later I got a call from the South African lady She was crying and said she couldn t ever thank me enough It transpired that my mystery caller had broken into the quarantine kennels liberated all the Chihuahuas and helped our reader disappear from her rented accommodation The quarantine owner s security must have been as lax as his morals P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK

At Dogs Today we don t go out of our way to cause trouble it s just a gift In our August September 1995 issue we gave away a new bed for one lucky new subscriber Sally had liked it and the photo made it look comfortable but it was not what you might call aesthetically pleasing The lovely ladies who made the beds gave me lots of information but my ears pricked up when they revealed one of their best customers was the Queen Mother We mentioned the royal connection in the third paragraph of the sub offer on page 73 Despite this name check being buried as soon as the issue hit the shelves a lady in waiting to the Queen Mother wrote in educating me on etiquette One was simply not allowed to mention which dog bed the royal family favoured unless they had issued a Royal Warrant How had they spotted this tiny mention so quickly Did we have a royal reader OSCAR LETTER The Queen was at least aware of the magazine as our old publisher had thrust one in her hands at an event organised by our ugly sister titles Shooting Times and the Field And she knew our agony aunt Katie Boyle well enough to grumble about the ineffective training advice given by a very famous dog behaviourist who didn t write for us We once upset the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences too We d decided to launch some awards for amazing dogs and had attracted sponsorship from a homedelivery pet food manufacturer called Oscar s You re ahead of me aren t you It seemed obvious that the awards would be called the Doggie Oscars I am now 62 Naughty step terrified to even write those two words in case I get more grumpy letters Kevin our new illustrator had made a beautiful trophy with more than a nod to the actual gold statues so beloved of the acting industry As soon as the magazine went on sale a very stroppy letter arrived from the lawyers at the real Oscars saying we had to destroy the trophy burn the photos of the trophy and destroy every single copy of the magazine Oops A very bad day in the office COLD CALLS We got some disturbing phone calls too For quite a few weeks we d get a call from a very distressed woman in a telephone box who wanted to tell us about her dead cat in the freezer It was very frustrating as she d never get to the point before her money ran out Eventually we discovered that she wanted to know the best taxidermist We were able to help her but did wonder why we were the first number she thought to call And then there was the occasion when the Sunday Times picture desk phoned asking if we had a photo of a dog eating human food Well of course we did But no call was quite so scary as that next one telling me about the fatwa once they published the pic It was our fault apparently But it was a totally innocent mistake and if Sally wasn t so photogenic they d never have used the photo of her eating curry so large Tim our photographer had found a beautiful plate in his store cupboard at his Slough based studio No one knew it was a significant religious artefact until it was used as a Sunday Times page lead Who d have thought an innocent little dog magazine could get into so much trouble P Illustration KEVIN BROCKBANK

I’m sure I told you about our massive libel case that started in our first year. It made (our then owners) the Daily Mail’s very expensive lawyers incredibly happy. We had been totally correct in what we’d written about an enormous pet superstore that was selling sickly puppies like pizza. The case was settled out of court with the pet-store owner paying a fortune – all the costs.We were disappointed; we’d been looking forward to going to court and all the publicity that might have helped educate many more people about the horrors of puppy farming. Telling people to avoid puppies from pet shops was great, but we knew we had to help the public make better choices.DOG AND BONEIn 1995, we created Dial-A-Dog. It was a radical idea for the time. Remember, this was before people had the internet, before the Kennel Club did Discover Dogs and in an era where millions of people still used publications like Exchange and Mart to find their next dog.Dial-A-Dog provided a framework: a listing for every breed that told you how much prey drive they had, how much grooming they’d need, and which health tests should be conducted. It also gave the phone numbers of breed experts, often from the rescue side, who could give you honest information as to whether you would be a good match for this type of dog.That all sounds terribly obvious and logical, but no one else was doing it. No one had collated which tests each breed needed. We soon discovered that vets were laminating our pages, as it was a huge help for them to know quickly if a breed should be eye tested or what the average hip score was. We also built up an army of amazing experts who were prepared to mentor the public on whether they were ready to add a dog and, if so, which type. A questionnaire was developed and we printed one family’s story in each issue and then followed up the next month with what type of dog they ended up with.ENGAGED CALLSIt made sense to offer free adverts to great breeders who did all the health tests, reared their pups in the home and gave whole-life aftercare. Rescue dogs looking for homes were also included free of charge.It grew and grew and united altruistic people who’d rather help avoid someone getting the wrong dog rather than deal with the consequences later in rescue.Dogs Today’s readers loved this new service, but we knew there was a whole world of people who didn’t know we existed, who were still buying the puppy-farm pups advertised in the various dreadful publications popular in that era. How could we reach them?We took out an advert in each of these publications, offering Dial-A-Dog free of charge. The public just had to phone and leave their address and we’d send them a magazine and a questionnaire.Bless them, Mum and Dad stepped up and manned the hotline, and, thanks to them, thousands of people were helped. It’s always been rather a family affair at Dogs Today. My love of dogs was obviously inherited and encouraged by my amazing parents, Don and Betty. Should we build a Dial-A-Dog for the 2020s? What do you think? PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK63 DT phones homes

In the August/September 1995 edition, which launched Dial-A-Dog, we carried a feature about a Pit Bull Terrier called Dempsey. She was to become iconic: a dog that made everyone aware of how pointless and unfair the Dangerous Dogs Act was.Dianne Fanneran had been given the pup as a present from her son in 1990. Back then, she had no idea what a Pit Bull Terrier was, but when the Dangerous Dog Act became law in 1991, Dianne registered Dempsey and had her microchipped, neutered and insured, and agreed that she would always be muzzled in public, even though her dog had done nothing wrong.One day, Dianne’s friend offered to take Dempsey on a walk to the shops, and, on the way back, Dempsey started trying to be sick. The muzzle prevented her from opening her mouth wide enough and she began choking. The friend, Mark Cichon, did what anyone would do: he removed Dempsey’s muzzle to allow her to clear her throat. Unluckily, two police officers saw him do it.SICK TO DEATHThe police called around to see Dianne and check Dempsey’s paperwork was all up to date, which it was. When she heard nothing more, Dianne assumed that was the end of the matter. What she didn’t know was that Mark had received a summons and, without telling Dianne, had attended court and pleaded guilty to removing Dempsey’s muzzle. He was fined £50. The judge ruled that Dempsey must now be destroyed.When Dianne found out, she immediately appealed this ruling, but Dempsey was seized and taken to a secret kennels. Dianne told our readers, “I was devastated. Dempsey had done nothing wrong, but she was sentenced to death just for being sick in the street.”All the early appeals were thrown out. A final appeal went to the House of Lords in 1994. Shortly after this, Mark Cichon disappeared; without him being present, the appeals process stopped. Dianne decided to take on the law herself. She secured the services of a very young solicitor, Trevor Cooper. He wrote to the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, to try to secure a pardon. Bridget Bardot, Carla Lane, Lynsey de Paul and Doris Day all got involved, too. Dianne told our readers, “I was at my lowest ebb. Dempsey was still locked up three years later.” TAKING THE MICKDianne began considering whether it would be kinder to let Dempsey be put to sleep than spend any more time locked away. Dianne asked for permission to visit her, and this was agreed for a fee. An emotional 45-minute reunion convinced her not to give up.We knew Lord Rothermere read the magazine very closely, but this article would move him to virtually kidnap the Home Secretary. He invited Michael Howard to dinner and then stood over him while he read every word of the article in our magazine.Perhaps Michael Howard underestimated just how upset Lord R was. In case there was any room for doubt, Dempsey’s incarceration made the front page of the Daily Mail on 7 September with the headline: “End the ‘Dangerous Dogs’ fiasco”.It was one of our most memorable photoshoots in our Slough studio. As a closed set, not a public place, beautiful, kind, gentle Dempsey could be photographed for our front cover without her muzzle. After spending nearly half her life locked up, she was still the sweetest, most trusting dog. Meeting Dianne, who had fought so hard, against all the odds, was one of the proudest days of my career.Knee-jerk breed-specific legislation hurts so many more people than it ever protects. We will continue to fight it. PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK64 Dianne & Dempsey

Dogs Today has always been more than just a magazine; we just can’t help straying into creating strange happenings in our spare time. Early on in our history, we’d been inspired by a beautiful Bull Terrier, who claimed to be a top business bitch. She threw famous Christmas parties for all the clients of a top PR firm where she worked. We proudly put Miss Daisy on the cover and launched a competition for other career dogs. Of course, we all took our own dogs to work with us – but how many others did? Could we inspire employers to be a bit more dog friendly?We were astounded by the media excitement to our new awards. It attracted hundreds of entries and almost as many journalists who wanted to attend the final. As usual, we had created a monster! Who could host this epic gathering of doggie professionals? Back then, many places were strictly no dogs and we didn’t have any money to spend on the event, even if they did let us in! A BIG ASKI was never afraid of being cheeky. Probably because I had no idea how audacious I was being – it was before the internet, so I couldn’t look anything up. Lord Rothermere, our founder, loved the awards concept and said I should talk to one of his friends, Mark, as he took his dogs to work with him, too. As this was long before Google and I was just a girl from Liverpool, I wasn’t aware that Mark ran probably the most famous and exclusive nightclub in the world. But I knew that Berkeley Square was a very posh address; it was just around the corner from my old employer, the Kennel Club.Wikipedia now tells me that Diana Ross and Tina Turner had both performed to guests at this intimate venue. Apparently, even the Queen enjoyed their gin martinis (without lemon). I know now that this venue is where the royals and the jet-set partied in secret. The Beatles were once refused entry because of their footwear. Princess Diana and Sarah Ferguson turned up dressed as policemen the night before Fergie married Prince Andrew.CHAMPAGNE & CANAPÉSI blush now at my cheek in asking Mark if he would host our first Dogs at Work Awards. His club was called Annabel’s. So, me asking if Dogs Today could use the nightclub for free and invite the media inside was quite a big ask. Especially as the press had never been allowed inside before.Bless him, Mark didn’t even flinch; he said yes and even threw in free Champagne and canapes for everyone. He wasn’t in the least worried that the dogs might wreck the place, but he was a bit jumpy about the journalists’ behaviour.Katie Boyle and Gyles Brandreth were on the microphones. For some reason, Michael Jackson’s party organiser volunteered to help pack the place with celebrity guests who doubled up as the judges. It felt like every journalist in Britain was inside; the place was packed.The celebs were rather an eclectic bunch. Actor Burt Kwouk admitted to me he didn’t like dogs. David Van Day, one half of Dollar, ate a lot of the canapes. But it was the dogs that were the real superstars. We had no idea our Dogs at Work Awards would go on to be celebrated globally. Dogs Today founded the first Take Your Dog to Work Day. We didn’t copyright it, of course! We just released it to the world and let it grow, and now loads of other people claim they started it. But we know otherwise, don’t we! PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK65 Barkily Square

I never had a reason to write about this strange adventure at the time. It must have been very early in our history; we were still at our West End Pankhurst Farm office. (Not the West End, of course; the tiny village in Surrey.)International calls to the office were rare since the grumpy ones from Iran had stopped. (They’d been complaining about the photo of our lovely Sally used by the Sunday Times – you know, the one that caused an angry rally in Hyde Park and for the newspaper to receive a fatwa.)I kept just missing an American chap who seemed very indiscrete. He told anyone who answered the phone that he was planning on offering me a new job. I suspected this to be a prank call. When I did get him on the line, I was still highly suspicious. I explained, having only just bought the magazine from our founders for £1, I wasn’t for hire. Besides, editing Dogs Today was the best job in the world. MEAL DEALHe didn’t give up. He would fly over immediately to convince me – could I recommend a restaurant? He’d buy me dinner and tell me more. Intrigued, I picked the Castle Hotel at Windsor, opposite the real castle, and assured him I was not looking for a new job.Things soon became even weirder. As I trekked into the restaurant, I was greeted by Captain Kirk. Well, he wasn’t wearing the uniform, but he did look and sound exactly like the famous actor William Shatner. Lots of other people saw a resemblance too; the staff in the restaurant were somewhat starstruck. But he claimed William wasn’t his name and swiftly changed the subject to his job offer.His sales pitch started with our starters, but it was always going to be a complete non-starter. I wasn’t going to boldly go – or even tentatively go.He said he wanted me to be the editor of his new American magazine. He loved and admired Dogs Today, but he thought I could do so much more and I was the only one who could take his publication where it (snigger) had never gone before. SET TO STUNHe would make it worth my while – I could name my price. Wouldn’t I love to live in New York? To be an international editor?What was the name of this magazine? Oh dear. I laughed when he told me, and he looked really hurt. He was the proprietor of Playdog.Yes, you read that correctly. It shared the same distinctive headline typeface as Playboy and apparently Hugh Heffner regularly sued the pants off him, but he said he didn’t care, as it was all good publicity. He proudly told me that Playdog would always have a nude centrefold in every issue – no collars allowed.I thought about it for long enough to plan the front cover and the launch party in my head, but by dessert I was more than ready to desert him and say, “Beam me up, Scotty!”It would have been a sensational cover: a moody backshot of a stunning black Standard Poodle in full show trim with just the bobble on her tail photoshopped to show a perfect white pompom.And the press launch in New York – what would that look like? Obviously, a dog’s breakfast at Tiffany’s.For many years, I carried the American gentleman’s dog-(bunny?)eared business card in my purse to remind me of the world I’d left unexplored. PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK66Nay, nay, Captain!

I had been ignoring some emails. I assumed they were spam. But the man from the boring-sounding agency wasn’t going to be easily put off and started phoning, which made me read his emails.He claimed to be representing someone who was very interested in buying Dogs Today. It was odd – before I bought the magazine for £1, no one else had wanted it. Now, suddenly, everybody did!I took one of the calls and the man suggested we meet for lunch; he wanted me to sign something. It was probably an NDA, but that’s not why I’m not going to be naming our mystery shopper. I can’t remember his name; it may have been Jackson. I can remember his car, though. He sent his driver to collect me for lunch. It had a TV in the front and his chauffeur watched the cricket while driving, which I thought was probably illegal.I explained again that the magazine wasn’t for sale, but ‘Jackson’ still wanted to go ahead. Perhaps everyone always said that? It was probably the most obvious play from The Dummies Guide to Bargaining.Over lunch it was revealed that Jackson was a very wealthy, powerful man and that he didn’t just want to buy my little magazine – he wanted to keep me as the boss and then fund me to buy every other dog, cat and horse publication in the sector. For some reason, he wanted to make me the Rupert Murdoch of the animal world! It was a very surprising offer, but the only magazine I was really interested in editing was Dogs Today. And I quite liked being my own boss.So, it was a ‘no’ from me, but I felt obliged to tell my biggest shareholder, Lord Rothermere, that there had been an approach and was surprised when Vere said we should all meet up. He suggested the boardroom at the Daily Mail.I told the middleman of the plan and he was quite taken aback, too. It wasn’t obvious from Companies House that we had the seventh richest man in Britain as a shareholder. It turns out that Jackson was an ex-Fleet Street guy. What were the chances of that! He had been the only Mirror board member who wasn’t part of the Maxwell family when Robert had mysteriously died a few years before.DERRY GIRLI arrived in Derry Street ahead of the meeting and Vere sat me down next to him on the same side of the table and said, “Well, this is going to be fun. Let me do the talking, my dear. If we don’t fill in the silence, we’ll hear what he really has to say for himself.” Jackson sat opposite us, as if we were interviewing him.Lord R asked him to state his offer again, and, true to his word, said nothing at all.Eventually, Vere spoke.“Now tell me, that does sound like a very good price, but what if someone else comes along that is prepared to pay you twice as much? What then?”Jackson smiled and looked Lord R straight in the eye. There was swagger in his reply, like someone putting down what he felt was the winning hand in a game of poker.“Well, of course, I’d sell.”Lord R let out a little intake of breath and shook his head. I could see Jackson’s confidence start to crumble.“Well, exactly,” said Vere. “That’s why you’re not the calibre of person to own Dogs Today.” PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK67Mirror, Murdoch & Mail

The year 1996 was a fun one for Dogs Today. We already had a doggie horoscope in every issue, but Jack Russell Grant was about to get the boot (he probably already sensed it). Mystic Meg was the most popular psychic and she was busy predicting the winning numbers as Britain got its first ever national lottery.We had to find a Mystic Mutt. Beardie Sally wasn’t keen. The only other office dog at the time was Chester the Welsh Terrier.I still say Mystic Meg copied my hairstyle; we both had unnaturally black bobs. So I set about creating a comfortable wig for Chester to wear. I had seen a promising stall in Brixton market selling human hair, so went shopping. Luckily, I already had a perfect-sized skullcap from one of my mad New York pet shop shopping sprees.It turns out, I was brilliant at making a convincing wig for a dog – it even had discreet holes for Chester’s ears to poke out. He could shake his head and the bob would stay in place and flick like real hair!MYSTERY MACHINEAround this time, our office neighbour, the artist Kevin of Windlesham (who still illustrates this column) had started doing his amazing illustrations for the magazine. He heard about our Mystic Mutt plans and proposed making a machine for the dog to operate that could randomly predict the lottery numbers. He went to buy some wood and wasn’t seen for several days.We didn’t know what a Muttometer would look like, but what we got was a stunning working piece of steam-punk art.When given the command “predict”, wigged-up Chester would jump on the big red button and the arrow would spin, picking the lucky numbers.We excitedly told our readers that we’d buy them a lottery ticket each week and split any winnings among the current subscribers. Word soon got out and we got a call from ITV London. Could they meet Mystic Mutt and capture her next lottery predictions live on the telly?BLACK BOBOne member of staff thought we’d all lost the plot. Remember ‘X’? (The one who thought a green light at the car wash meant she had to go home.) Well, X had started moaning that new girl Claire was so uber keen, she was beginning to turn into me. Claire thought this hilarious. So, as a joke, the night before the film crew arrived, she used what she thought was a temporary hair dye on her beautiful strawberry blonde bob.X’s face was a picture when she saw Claire’s black bob, the ITV presenter loved it too and that became part of the story – that everyone in the office was turning into Mystic Meg clones. The presenter really hammed it up. He brought spooky lighting and a smoke machine. No budget spared!It was amazing TV and the last item on the early evening news before the weekend. Mystic Mutt, the Muttometer and Dogs Today was everywhere and people were excited to subscribe.Chester never did correctly predict the winning numbers, but Kevin’s machine was priceless. (Sadly, it got ruined in one of our many office floods.)Claire, who was also the voice of Mystic Mutt, had to wait a very long time for that black hair to grow out, much longer than X’s employment at the magazine. Of course, this is the same Claire who is with us today. I wonder if Mystic Mutt could have predicted that? PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK68 Future predictions

I remember daydreaming about winning Crufts Best in Show with my beloved Beardie Chi-Chi. As a young adult, I worked at Crufts for the weekly Dog World and then, for many years, I was access all areas for the Kennel Club, usually wearing their vile bright green uniform. Dogs Today had a huge trade stand when we were still part of the carelessly rich Daily Mail, until we really upset the KC chairman and got banned. At the height of hostilities, KC staff were banned from even reading Dogs Today! Lovely charity Hearing Dogs for Deaf People almost got ejected when they tried to give our mag away in exchange for donations.Eventually, the KC mellowed, and we were invited back. I wasn’t exactly pulling at the lead – I knew it would involve a huge amount of work for very little gain. Our resident artist, Kevin of Windlesham, was tasked with making the stand both spectacular and cost effective.He made some brightly coloured wooden dog kennels, and we filled them with free samples from our lovely advertisers. We then charged the public £1 for a back copy of Dogs Today and a carrier bag, and they were invited to take one item out of each kennel. Bargains at Crufts were as rare as Cockapoos and the other traders were soon complaining, as our massive queue was blocking their much bigger, emptier stands. KC officials were summoned to make sure our staff did not set foot outside our tight boundaries.Another vital part of our little stand was the fridge. Inside were very many bottles of cheap sparkling wine behind a few bottles of expensive Champagne. They ensured a constant stream of weary mainstream journalists stopping by to get our opinions on what was usually a very dry event.Having endured a ghastly uniform when I worked at the KC, I made sure our staff had something slightly less offensive – although it was so bright, staff could be seen from the next hall. We all wore our orange pawprint Jack Wolfskin fleeces with pride. The only negative was that everyone at the show would ask us where they could buy one! If only we’d sold fleeces and not magazines, we would have made a fortune! One year (the last time the BBC televised Crufts), I presented on shopping, which the advertisers loved. Then BBC News did a live link to our tiny stand to talk about tail docking; another time, Channel 4’s Big Breakfast did a live link every day. We certainly made the most of a very small space.The year a general election was imminent, Kevin made a beautiful Ballot Box(er), so we could give live updates on how the dogs at Crufts might vote. All the political parties played along, producing their Dogifestos. MPs joined the journalists at the Dogs Today w(h)ine bar - even Screaming Lord Sutch stopped by!All this was observed by stern KC onlookers. Still no ban.I finally chose to stop going to Crufts the year after I gave birth to son Kieran. The hotel bill for all those helping with the childcare had been uneconomic. But baby Kieran cheerfully wore his promotional T-shirt on the stand – we were searching for the best flea in show and giving away £1,000 for the rarest. We had been sponsored by a very generous flea treatment company. One so fiendishly powerful that the prize could only be claimed by an enterprising student who had brought a hedgehog flea with him. PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK69 Taking a stand

My parents wanted to move down south to be closer. I had just bought my first little house with our resident artist, Kevin of Windlesham. Was this the start of the happy-ever-after?A phonecall from my mum changed everything. She was scared. She was following the ambulance. My lovely dad had collapsed and the medics were still trying to revive him. Mum hated driving as much as me, so the idea of her chasing after an ambulance terrified me almost as much as my dear dad being unconscious.It took hours for me to reach the hospital, as I still lived so far away. I was surprised to see that Dad was sitting up in bed, watching the TV, as if nothing was wrong. Everyone on the ward was glued to the new TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. But the question I needed answering was: what was wrong with Dad?The cancer was very advanced. It was everywhere – lungs, brain, liver, bones. The doctors thought it a miracle he was well just hours before he collapsed. There was no treatment; it was just all too late. He was close to death. We brought Dad home and called my brother, Neil, who got on the first flight from Toronto. Sally, my Beardie, stared at everyone; she sensed something was very wrong.It was Mum that first mentioned John Carter, the maverick cancer vet who had saved Sally. Her terminal cancer wasn’t treatable either, but here she was, staring at us, very obviously fighting fit. I made the phonecall. Would vet John help my dad? Of course, he would try.Somehow, the whole family would squeeze into our new little house that was nearer John’s surgery, but I needed to order an extra bed in a hurry. I phoned the first number I found and explained I needed the bed urgently. When I gave the kind lady my name and address, she did a double-take. She said she had just been reading the latest edition of Dogs Today before the phone rang. I ended up telling her everything and sobbing. The new bed was perfect and just about filled the front room. Dad said it was very comfortable.John wanted to see my dad every day for his CV247 medicine. We had to make sure that Dad’s diet was completely chemical free. I sourced the food; my brother took on the daily drive to John in Harrow.Dad’s doctors were hugely sceptical. They said that what my dad needed was morphine. But Dad was surrounded by his family and he was focused on getting better; he wasn’t ready to give up. After three weeks of this regime, Dad seemed remarkably well. We were starting to dare to hope it might work.Dad was already tucked up in bed when the GP knocked on the front door. It was unexpected. As she squeezed past dad’s enormous bed, she said she was just here to check if Dad needed oxygen or pain relief – or if it might be time to go to the hospice?Just at that moment, the phone went. It was John to say he urgently needed to speak to Dad’s human doctor. He said that earlier that day, he’d spotted Dad’s heart was getting very weak and he felt he desperately needed heart medication.The GP made it clear she didn’t want to talk to my dad’s vet. John insisted, so I passed over the phone. She was furious.“No, don’t be so ridiculous! No, he doesn’t need heart meds; he has end-stage cancer…”Just then, there was a sudden intake of breath.My mum shrieked, “He’s not breathing.”My dad had just died very peacefully from a heart attack. The GP dropped the phone and went into shock. PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK70 Heartbreak at home John Carter & SallyDon & Betty Cuddy

Dad’s funeral was well attended. He had been loved by so many people, who were all shocked at his sudden death. It was obvious that Mum wouldn’t feel safe living in the big, remote house all on her own. They had barely spent a night apart in all the years they’d been together. A professional dog sitter was employed to both look after all the many Beardies and to show potential buyers around the house so Mum could sell up and move south.Kevin drove us back to our little house in Sunninghill. There had been long and tearful days and not much time to grieve. Unbelievably, things were about to get much worse. As we opened the front door, the landline was ringing. It was the dog sitter – just after we’d left, he had managed to leave both the double security gates open and all the dogs had escaped. Most of them came back.I didn’t have the time or energy to react. Why hadn’t he phoned my mobile? It had happened hours before. He said he’d hoped Poppy would come back on her own – but she hadn’t. LOST IN GRIEFI was on autopilot – I just drove Mum and Sally straight back. Outside the house was a very busy A-road. Worse, it led to the East Lancs road one way and the M57 the other.Poppy was Sally’s dippy daughter. She was the sweetest dog imaginable, but not the brightest. I remembered finding her almost exhausted after trying to run away from a metal coat hanger that was caught in her hair. On walks, if she saw someone in the distance, she would run towards them as if she knew them. She’d realise she didn’t, as she got near, and then she’d gallop back to the rest of the dogs. Then she’d turn around and see them in the distance again and forget she didn’t know them and repeat until exhausted.This was not the sort of dog with road sense or homing instinct. She was vulnerable and old. Thinking of little Poppy lost, cold and hungry was just devastating.On the long journey, Mum and I made plans. It was before DogLost existed and the internet wasn’twidely used – but Idid at least have a mobile phone! By the time we got to Knowsley Village, all the Dogs Today staff knew and were getting leaflets printed locally.POPPY FIELDSOn arrival, the dog sitter shocked us by throwing a strop. He said he couldn’t deal with the unspoken pressure of our collective disappointment in him, that he was leaving because, after all, she was ‘just a dog’ and everyone can make a mistake and his mental health was more important. We didn’t yell; we just watched him leave, totally speechless.I spent what was left of that night searching the surrounding fields for Poppy in case, in the quieter hours, she might have been brave enough to move. I hadn’t much concern for my own safety, but I probably looked too mad to approach.My emotions were scrambled. Was I starting to mourn my dad, or was I crying about Poppy being lost and afraid? Katie Boyle, our magazine’s agony aunt, phoned my mobile in the early hours. She said she was certain I was going to find her and that I shouldn’t give up. Other people were more pragmatic.It was snowing overnight. There were so many very busy roads she’d have probably crossed.Were we already too late? PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK71 Aftershock?

Dad’s sudden death was hard to process. He had been such a gentle giant of a man; I never appreciated how safe he’d made me feel. All that amazing unconditional love had made me brave – to believe that anything was possible if you tried hard enough.But the fresh, raw grief had to be parked. Elderly Beardie Poppy had been lost by the dog sitter after the funeral. I was desperate to find her. The thought of her being lost and vulnerable, cold and scared was unbearable. We’d been leafletting locally, and the Liverpool Echo heard about what had happened and sent a reporter. Local radio picked it up, too. Poppy going missing after Dad’s funeral gave this lost-dog story a news angle.We desperately needed news of a sighting and to warn people to phone us and not to approach Poppy. Every day, more and more Beardie friends joined in the search. All our previous dog sitters joined the ranks, too – horrified by their ex-colleague’s behaviour. EARLY-MORNING CALLEvery time the phone rang, I jumped, but soon I came to dread it. None of the calls were about Poppy. The publicity reached lots of people, but many of the callers were grief stricken and in shock. Reading the Echo’s story about Poppy was how they discovered my dad had died. I found myself consoling strangers who were sobbing, upset that they’d missed his funeral. I came to realise that my dad had been much loved by many more people than I’d known. It felt like we now had a whole city willing Poppy to be found.It had been five long days and nights with no sightings. Kevin was telling me it was time to give up, to come home, that Poppy was probably long dead. Mum and I weren’t sleeping; we weren’t eating properly. It was just the worst nightmare, but I wasn’t ready to go back home without her.At 4.30am, the phone rang. I was trying to warm up before my next circuit of the fields. It was a security guard from one of the factories a couple of fields away. Someone had spotted a frightened dog and they’d had our leaflet that said to phone at any time.BLOOD BONDI put our youngest Beardie, Cleo, in the car and set off. Mum was worried about me. “What if it’s a hoax?” she shouted as I slammed the door.It’s no surprise she was feeling paranoid. In the last couple of weeks, the worst possible things had kept happening to us. Why would that stop?I arrived at the industrial estate to find that pretty much everyone from the factory’s night shift had come out to help! There were people in cars corralling Poppy towards me, it was amazing.Poppy, like many dogs that are lost for a few days, had become almost feral. She didn’t recognise me – all people were equally terrifying.However, she did recognise Cleo – andshe ran towards her relative.I picked Poppy up with surprising ease. She was very skinny and her fur felt matted. She was covered in cuts and scratches. I felt her sigh and relax in my arms. I will never, ever forget how good it felt. The workers cheered and many of us were crying. They didn’t want a reward, but I still sent them a case of wine to share. I could not have got her back without their help.I loaded all the dogs and Mum in the car and locked up the house a final time. Everyone could fit into our little house in Sunningdale somehow. Surely, Kevin wouldn’t mind? PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK72 Lost & found

“If we gave you Earl’s Court for theweekend, what would you do with it?” So said one of the bosses who produced the Ideal Home Show for the Daily Mail. They no longer needed so long to dismantle all the show homes, so they had some days free to trial a new exhibition in the venue that had once been the home to Crufts.Back in the early 1990s, there weren’t yet such things as Dogfest or Goodwoof. We’d already worked with the NCDL (now Dogs Trust) on giving their annual fun day some glitz by putting on an event called Top Dog. Our singing dog competition had catapulted the winner to almost X Factor levels of fame. Could we do something even bigger? Of course we could!I soon had many pages of content ideas – the exhibitions man was very impressed. We just needed to attract a headline sponsor. The Mail were happy to gift the venue, but we needed to find a pet company to give a very modest amount of sponsorship, too.PITCH PERFECTWe went on the road, pitching our idea to all the big players in the pet market. You know the stories of all the record companies that missed out on signing The Beatles? The same happened to us. Back in the early 1990s, no one thought pet dog owners would pay to attend a show that their dog could take part in! The blueprint was destined to sit on my desk, attracting dust, for a few more years. Then I got a call from Clarissa Baldwin, the boss of the NCDL. “We’ve been given Scruffts and we don’t know what to do with it. Do you have any ideas?”Well, of course I did. I sent her the Earl’s Court ideas and she got very excited. She said it was far too big for them to do alone, but perhaps we could get all the dog charities together – should we try?Everyone wanted to play and there were few places with a boardroom big enough to house the bosses of the RSCPA, Battersea, Blue Cross, Wood Green, the PDSA, the Kennel Club and Guide Dogs.HELP YOURSELFBy now the exhibitions arm of the Mail had moved on and shortened their contract with Earl’s Court, so we didn’t have the free venue offer on the table. But, being cheeky, I thought it would still be useful to have some Daily Mail help. I wrote to the managing director, Guy Zitter. Could they help us put on the biggest pet dog event in the world? I didn’t even get a reply, so I asked Lord Rothermere if I was writing to the right person. He confirmed and probably gave him a prod. I was quickly summoned to the Daily Mail head offices in Derry Street. I could tell that Guy was annoyed. He had my letter in his hand, and he pointed to the bottom of it. “What does it say? Read it out!” he barked.It said Beverley Cuddy, editor Dogs Today. “Exactly! Editor of a dog magazine. What on earth makes you imagine you can organise an enormous public event? It takes years for these things to break even.”My heart sank.“Oh, go on then. I’ll help. You can ask the exhibitions arm how to do everything and I’ll sponsor the show with free adverts in the paper. Now clear off. I must be barking mad.” PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK73 If you don’t ask...

The event I’d dreamed of all those years before was always going to be called the Ideal Bone Show, as the Ideal Home Show had been so much a part of the inspiration. But as the event got closer to being a reality, the bosses at the Mail started to wobble. What if it was terrible? Would it reflect badly on their Ideal Home Show brand? Could we change it?So, overnight, I had to come up with another name that would give people a sense that this wasn’t just an ordinary charity dog show. Many inappropriate names came into my head. The Anti-Crufts had a certain appeal, but as the Kennel Club was part of the board, it wasn’t ever going to have legs. I don’t know where it came from, but the Wag and Bone Show seemed to not be hated and the logo was what brought it all to life. Max was Karen Cornish’s gorgeous rescue dog and we had a great photo of him in profile, doing a sitting beg, and illustrator Kevin was able to balance a bone biscuit on his nose and make his tail appear to wag. It was immediately iconic. People wanted to volunteer to help just to get their hands on the show’s T-shirts!ASCOT GAMBLEBut that first year was always going to be a gamble. We aimed big. Ascot Racecourse seemed a good place to start. It was just down the road for us and some of the charities.Last time, we couldn’t find anyone to sponsor it, but this time was different. Mary Sharrock from Purina loved the idea so much, one of the world’s biggest pet-food companies was all in before we’d got much more than a few notes on the back of an envelope!At those early concept meetings, we had a few issues, mainly due to me being totally over-excited and ambitious for the show. I’d come away from a brainstorming meeting so energised, I’d want to tell everyone about it. I’d often get calls from national journalists looking for a dog story and, of course, I wanted them to be aware that something very exciting was coming.I was talking to a chap on the Evening Standard, who was about to go into a planning meeting with his boss. Could I help him look good? I gave him everything current in the dog world, and he wrote down all the ideas, and then, as we were signing off, I mentioned the event and how thrilling it was going to be.YOUR SONGHe didn’t seem to be listening. I happened to mention that Elton John was thinking of writing a song to the show and that Purina were going to have a Wagometer to measure how happy all the dogs were. They were even talking to Professor Heinz Wolff about how best to do it. I remember his breathless call 30 minutes later. His editor hated all his feature ideas, so he’d told him about the Wag and Bone Show.“The editor wants the Wagometer on the front page!” he shouted down the phone. “He said Britain needs cheering up and this will do it.”I explained I knew very little more than I’d already told him, but I’d phone Mary at Purina.I was expecting she’d be pleased for such enthusiastic early press interest. Her ice-cold tone suggested otherwise.“It’s embargoed,” she said. I wish she’d told me! “It’s not ready. We’ve spent a fortune on development. Kill the story.”How do you do that, I wondered? PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK74 Tail between the legs

Telling a Fleet Street reporter that he must forget what you told him when his editor has just fallen madly in love with the story wasn’t ever going to end well. Professor Heinz Wolff was instructed to go into hiding. Purina had banned him from talking to the press. But this reporter was resourceful; he was desperate to get someone to reveal all about the Wagometer that his editor was now obsessed with – this amazing machine that could scientifically measure a dog’s happiness.What happened next was a plot twist not even Wagatha Christie could have penned.Never underestimate a very desperate journalist on a deadline. He phoned everyone to try to put some meat on the bare bones of this epic non-story. Dr Roger Mugford was in every journalist’s little black book back then. He was famously the Queen’s dog psychologist – but, most of all, he loved self-publicity!TAIL SPINQuick as a flash, Roger saw the opportunity. He claimed it was him, not the professor, who had invented the Wagometer and that he didn’t know anything about the other one. Problem solved for the journalist; he probably wasn’t going to be fired after all.Perhaps Roger didn’t realise it was destined to be front-page news. Who knows, maybe he had invented a machine with exactly the same name. The journo was still short of copy, so he shoe-horned a mention of Elton John writing the Wag and Bone Show a song.Objectively, this was all amazingly positive publicity for a very new show, but I had obviously failed in my mission to ‘kill the Wagometer story’.Elton saw the story and decided to have a diva strop about getting second billing to a Wagometer. But worse still, ITV’s This Morning saw the front-page story and booked Roger to demonstrate his machine live on their show. Of course, he didn’t tell them it didn’t exist and that he’d just said it to get a desperate journalist out of a tight spot. No, instead he made one! (Or perhaps he may have been working on this side hustle for years!) It was a little black box with a car radio aerial stuck on with superglue.AS SEEN ON TVRichard and Judy loved it, and Roger pointed it scientifically at various dogs and claimed the readings showed how happy the dog was. He ad-libbed and made all sort of observations about which breed’s tails were the most expressive of happiness.Every other newspaper picked up the story, too. Roger and his little black box were everywhere.Crufts was on at the same time, and I spent most of it hiding from the board of the Wag and Bone Show and especially from a furious Mary from Purina.Somehow, we all eventually saw the funny side, and everyone forgave Roger, too. And we didn’t really need a song – we were destined to break records if not make them. Kevin, our illustrator, was given the job of creating the free adverts for the Mail to use. They were unconventional and funny. We ended up making very many different versions and the paper used them all large on the well-read TV listing page. They went in very many more times than the MD had originally rather reluctantly promised. The repro guys loved them so much that whenever there was a free space, they’d just put one in, even if it wasn’t planned!Guy Zitter (the Mail MD) confided in me ahead of the show that everyone on the paper was pestering him for free tickets, and that no one had ever begged him for Ideal Home Show passes! PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK75 Bone burial

That first Wag and Bone Show was one of the most exciting days of my life. There’d been so many late nights, planning and preparing, but the total surprise was that people came and everything worked like clockwork.I had to quickly negotiate with landowners to open more and more car-park spaces. Ascot Racecourse had previously only attracted this many cars before on Ladies Day!It wasn’t just the public and their dogs who attended. Hello! magazine sponsored our VIP judges’ area, but even they hadn’t managed to get some of the celebs we attracted on their cover. They were all just so happy to muck in and work. Lovely Richard Hammond came with his wife, their tiny new baby and their dog. This wasn’t an event to be passively seen at – everyone wanted to have a go at everything!Battersea Dogs Home’s Temptation Alley was super popular, as every dog that had a go got a rosette. Those who failed the recall and stopped to eat the tempting sausage got one that said: “I gave in to temptation”. Some people paid to go twice, in order to get the angel and devil rosettes – and, of course, the sausages!The Shrink Think Tank tent was somewhere to have a sit down and listen to a glittering list of world-famous experts. Many years later, I would discover that a 14-year-old Chirag Patel hadbagged a seat on the front rowand never moved from it all day. Dr Ian Dunbar’s talk was destinedto change his life. Ian had very generously hopped on a plane from California to run the massive Games Zone, a sort of canine Olympics.Top Dog was our unique supersized fun dog show that had a revolutionary booking system where multiple rings of the same category could be judged simultaneously so no one had to wait too long. Each heat winner then competed and the category winners ended up in the big display ring for the ultimate Top Dog award. Having lots of celebrity volunteers was fantastic, as everyone appreciated the attention these stars gave to their duties. Some of the names might raise eyebrows these days, but PR expert Max Clifford judged all day, helped by his beloved daughter. Former DJ Dave Lee Travis gave me a huge hug when he arrived and said something only he would: “I was dying to meet you, to see if you really were Cuddly – and yes, you are!”One star was absent sadly. Brian Blessed got as far as the gate, but was absolutely covered in blood. He’d had an accident on the way. He gave a donation before leaving to get cleaned up. The day was over in a flash and I realised I’d not eaten or drunk anything all day – until I sipped an ice-cold glassof Champagne handed to me byMary from Purina and nearlykeeled over!The committee wanted to celebrate the most amazing dog event anyone had ever experienced before. Those who still had enough energy came back to our tiny little house in nearby Sunninghill where my son, the then baby Kieran, was being looked after by both his grannies. He slept through the impromptu party. A few weeks ago, lovely Ian Dunbar got to meet Kieran again. “You’ve changed,” he said, shaking his hand. “Last time, you were non-verbal!”All the charities and the sponsors were delighted; the dogs and their owners had never had so much fun. What would go wrong? Well, pretty much everything, of course. As usual! PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK 76 Show time!

Ascot racecourse was being redeveloped, so we moved the Wag and Bone Show to Windsor racecourse and then asked the Queen for permission to use her back garden – Windsor Great Park. Inventing Pup Idol was kind of inevitable. We gave dog owners permission to do almost anything entertaining for their auditions – so long as their dog had a good time. We’d already seen singing dogs, with our earlier Paw-O-Vision song contest. But one gentleman told us his dogs had formed a band – the Rolling Bones! Theymainly did drumming,but it was still impressive.Some of the acts brought substantial props. One memorably recreated their front room and kitchen to show the neat trick of their dog fetching them a beer from the fridge when they were watching TV.Occasionally, dogs just flatly refused to perform, but with the super witty Terry Doe (who wrote the hilarious Morris columns) on the microphone, the ringside was packed all day.TALENT SPOTTEDWe were treated to a very early performance from the much-missed Tina and Chandi, who would go on to the final of Britain’s Got Talent and many Crufts accolades. Chandi was the first dog to put a sparkle in Simon Cowell’s eyes.Other show staples included Scooperman, who encouraged everyone to clean up after their dogs. There were spot prizes every 30 minutes for the best scoops; the showgrounds were always spotless.Thankfully, we didn’t have record-breaking poos – but we did have the Biggest Sit! It was a logistical nightmare to satisfy Guinness. Every dog had to have a unique number and be registered, and we had a legion of officials to check the dogs sat properly for the designated time and to communicate the start and the finish. We smashed the record every year, as everyone wanted to be part of it! Last time I checked, it hadn’t been equalled since.There were activities taking place simultaneously in so many different rings – it needed hundreds of volunteers, who all needing feeding, thanking and looking after. It was hard work but enormous fun, and we started to attract some serious interest from the media – and also some rather unusual visitors, too!FURRY FRIENDOne chap phoned up to ask if he could possibly attend in his dog costume. He wanted permission to walk around the show and mingle with the dogs. It was a very impressive, expensive costume, and we let him get changed in the VIP loo. Anthony Head was very surprised to bump into a six-foot furry when he nipped in to shelter from his fans. Word had got out that Anthony was attending and quite a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer superfans were following him everywhere!Year on year, the show grew in reputation and in people’s hearts, and we started to have almost as many people camping as at Glastonbury! BBC Holiday made it their best weekend break of the year and the crew loved filming it so much that all the team came back the next year just to enjoy it when they weren’t working!Things were getting totally epic when Channel 4 chose to film a special episode of It’s Me or the Dog at the show and ITV’s This Morning did a live link from the build day.The show was growing so fast. One paper even called us ‘The Anti-Crufts’. What could possibly go wrong? PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK77The show grows

Around the time of the birth of the Wag and Bone Show, my short relationship with Kevin, our magazine’s illustrator and Kieran’s dad, was coming to an end. The lightbulb moment was probably when Kevin bought halogen spotlights so he could work outside 24 hours a day. It was then very clear that everything in our garden was far from rosy!I had always been told it was impossible for me to have a child, so a baby had been both a miracle and a huge surprise – to him, especially. By the time of the Wag and Bone Show, we had tried and failed at Relate but were still sharing a house as friends. We had both started dating other people. I was one of the first women to try internet dating and had created a profile that I can now see talked much more about dogs and magazines than anything else! It was all very new as a genre, as smart phones hadn’t yet been invented and most people could only get broadband at work.HAPPY NEVER AFTERSThe first person I ‘met’ told me he was a Silicon Valley tech millionaire and that my son wasn’t baggage, but if he were, “He’d probably be Louis Vuitton”. His name was cheesy too – something like Dan Dini – which should have made me cautious. He flew over for dinner, but he dropped a bombshell before midnight: he wanted me to have extensive blood tests. If the results were OK, we’d get married in a Disney castle.Of course, I hadn’t seen this coming, but I didn’t run off, leaving only a shoe. I just told him I didn’t want to be part of this weird fairytale. I didn’t say yes to the dress or the extensive health screening. The next chap I connected with adored dogs and owned his own toy company, which sounded promising, but he was pretty much allergic to kids. He wanted to buy an enormous house with two wings, so we’d only ever have to see each other after Kieran had gone to bed.I didn’t want to toy with his affections, so I went back online.Next came a penniless Lord who was an expert in historically accurate thatching. It turned out he’d gone to school with Gwen Bailey, who wrote the Perfect Puppy. I was probably clutching at straws; we might have made hay while the sun shined, but it just wouldn’t last.Kevin had started getting a bit paranoid that I might end up dead, going on these dates with strange people. I became aware of this on my first and last date with a very tall Scandinavian chap called Alert, who said he’d made his fortune supplying McDonald’s with paper boxes. ALERT WARNINGAs we walked to where he’d parked his Volvo, he seemed very jumpy even for a man with such a surprising first name.“Who is following you?” he exclaimed. I turned around and there was Kevin, very obviously writing down Alert’s car registration number into a notebook. Eventually, after many more hilariously bad first dates, I somehow found Graham. And we’ve been married for 18 years. As the new man in my life, Graham soon got talked into helping me organise the Wag and Bone Show. He came from the serious advertising and marketing world, and he could see something I’d missed. Those charity people weren’t being very charitable. They were literally starting to run rings around me! PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK 78 First dates

When I came up with the Wag and Bone Show, I was still naive. I had signed the show over to the care of the charities for £1, the same sum I had paid for Dogs Today all those years before. I would come to deeply regret my altruism!Each year, the show grew in every way. It was such a positive event, celebrating all that was great about dogs. It was my baby and became something rather magical. It was an enormous amount of work, but I lived and breathed it.More and more people and dogs came, and there was more and more for the media to love about the show. Unlike other dog events, it never attracted a single piece of negative coverage. At first, the charities seemed delighted. But with hindsight, the more successful it became, the less grateful they became! I was shocked to discover what the charities had been scheming. They announced they wanted to invite other event organisers to pitch to run what I had always considered to be ‘my’ show. Remember, I wasn’t charging them for my time – I was doing all this for the love of dogs.I was fairly confident that this was just a charity box-ticking exercise – that they needed three quotes to show they’d done their due diligence. They said that I should be charging for my time, and they’d like me to put a figure on what I did for the show.There weren’t that many companies interested in running this hugely complicated event, but there was one very posh company that they were obviously keen on. As several of the charities had a royal warrant, it impressed them that these guys had put on some glitzy horsey events for the Queen. But they were very expensive professional events people, and they made it clear they would want to be paid very much more money than the event had ever taken in ticket sales. I could sense a strange atmosphere at the board meeting where the decision was to be taken. But the vote was just window dressing; it had obviously already been decided, as they’d kindly pre-booked me a taxi home. They assumed I would be shocked and upset – that I’d burst into tears when they revealed their plan to take ‘my’ show away.OUT IN THE COLDIt was such an illogical decision, but I didn’t cry. I just stated the obvious: why would anyone move a very successful show to a much more expensive organiser? But I’d been stupid enough to sell them the show already – my opinion didn’t matter.I didn’t go to ‘their’ version of Wag and Bone Show, but it lost a fortune and the charities had to cover their posh organiser’s fee before they liquidated ‘my’ show.They do say a camel is a horse designed by a committee. I’ll never understand what made them do what they did – but they obviously badly underestimated what I had always done for love. They’d probably imagined that the charities were the magic ingredient and all the sponsors would stay without me. It must have surprised them that the Daily Mail left and said they’d always back any future show I wanted to put on.That’s how the Cold Wet Nose Show was created! And this time, I worked with much smaller assistance-dog charities, who appreciated the value of money and positive PR. But we were unlucky. Our first show was a bit too cold and wet! My love affair with putting on outdoor dog shows had come to an end! PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANK 79 Out in the cold

In the 1990s, the Dogs Today office was a bustling place, with lots of people and their dogs, and the phone always ringing. The concept of working from home was long off and landlines were still very much the thing. Those incoming calls were always a lottery. You could lose hours every day with an unexpected diversion.Like the day I got a call from Stanley Kubrick. Yes, the American widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. (Not a film buff? He did The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, 2001: a Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange... I could go on.)I was very surprised to hear that Stanley only subscribed to two magazines: Variety and Dogs Today, and both were proudly displayed on his coffee table. I was speechless at this news; I was/am a superfan. But there was more. Stanley and his wife Christiane needed our help. Their adorable Golden Retrievers were becoming experts at DIY. They kept remodelling the kitchen door to let themselves out into the garden. Did anyone make a Golden Retriever-sized dog flap? DOOR’S WIDE SHUTI immediately got on the case and found them one. In the post came a gorgeous bound volume of Christiane’s paintings, many of which featured their dogs.But Stanley wasn’t the only famous reader. One of our classified advertisers revealed that she’d been commissioned by Sting to paint one of their dogs for his wife’s birthday. And there was the day Lady Annabel Goldsmith called to check a phone number for the Goldendoodle breed advisor – literally a golden moment! And Davina McCall has appeared in many magazines, but her Dogs Today front cover is the only one framed and on the wall. Jonathan Ross’s love for the magazine was proven when, on his last ever BBC radio show, he went through every page of the latest edition of Dogs Today, even telling the listeners about the adverts.I don’t know why, but it always surprises me when I find a reader. Last week, I was going on Sky News to talk about dog theft, and the lady who was expertly anchoring my microphone’s battery pack to my knicker elastic confided that she was a superfan of the magazine, always had been!But I do blush about all those times a young actor phoned, begging us to put his dog in the magazine. Every couple of the weeks, he’d phone up and we’d chat about the auditions he was going to, and he’d ask again if Max could be in the magazine.MAD ABOUT MAXAround this time, we had a very young, shy work-experience girl with us called Amelia. Her mum was a reader and asked if we’d consider giving her daughter an opportunity – she’d been home-schooled. Maybe Amelia could interview this young actor about why Max meant so much to him? He was relatively local, but Amelia was too young to drive, so her mum had to go too. She took the office camera and lights, and was eager to do her best on this important first assignment.When she got back, I have to say I was very impressed. It was a brilliant article and the photos were great. She got her first byline and the young actor got his first published interview. The actor’s name? Well, Tom Hardy of course!Vanity Fair wrote a massive article about Tom’s now legendary love of dogs and they quoted Amelia’s article. The fact they put an exclamation mark after Dogs Today’s name slightly irritated. And Amelia? Well, the last I heard, she’s a producer at the BBC. Best work experience ever. PIllustration KEVIN BROCKBANKFamous fans 80