Aquila Children's Magazine AQUILA Magazine Best Bits | Page 90
NoT JuSt fOr
cHrIsTmAs:
ThE ViCtOrIaNs aNd aNiMaL ReScUe
It’s true, of course: ‘A dog is for life, not just for Christmas’. Those cuddly balls of fur will need feeding, exercising,
training and grooming for years to come. Sadly, some people still forget that. Or perhaps they realise it, but for
some reason or another, are unable to go on caring for their pets. These days, owners can take their pets to animal
shelters where they have every chance of being rehomed. But that wasn’t always the case.
ROYAL AFFECTION
The most famous animal shelter is
also the oldest. Battersea Dogs & Cats
Home was founded in Victorian times,
when people began to think seriously
about how we treat animals. Queen
Victoria herself treasured her pets.
She had many during her long reign,
from her childhood companion Dash,
a King Charles spaniel, to her favourite
little Pomeranian, Turi, in old age.
DICKENS’ DUTIFUL DOGS
Charles Dickens was already thirty
years old when he got his first dog,
Timber, but after that he always had
dogs, sometimes several together.
Once he got frostbite from walking a
long way in the snow, and instead of
bounding ahead in their usual lively
way, his dogs Turk and Linda walked
slowly and anxiously beside him as he
limped home. He was deeply touched.
It is hardly surprising, then, that he did
something to help the many stray dogs
that roamed London’s streets.
As well as writing novels and Christmas
stories, Dickens ran a popular weekly
magazine called All the Year Round.
One of the articles for the week of
2 August 1862 was entitled ‘Two Dog
Shows’, and it compared a fashionable
dog show held in Islington, north
London, with a not-so-fashionable
dogs’ home, recently founded in
nearby Holloway. At the ‘Monster Dog
Show’ more than a thousand dogs
were displayed (including a whole pack
of foxhounds, according to The Times
of Saturday 2 August), and the writer
saw many ‘beautiful and rare animals’,
looking comically proud when they
won prizes. But at the refuge there
were only ‘the Lost Dogs of the
Metropolis … poor vagrant homeless
curs’, picked up from the roadside
where they were dying of starvation.
Like other contributions, the piece was
anonymous, and, for many years, readers
felt sure that Dickens had written it
himself. It was great publicity for the
dogs’ home.
T’RIFFIC TEALBY
In those days, not everyone thought it
worthwhile to help strays. They thought
the police should take them away and
deal with them (you can imagine how)!
But Mary Tealby, the middle-aged
woman who had started the Holloway
refuge in 1860, felt differently. After
seeing a friend tending to an abandoned
puppy, she found a nearby stable yard
where she could take such dogs, feed
them and bring them back to health.
Sometimes, they were just lost. Seeing
advertisements for the refuge, their
owners arrived and were overjoyed to be
reunited with their pets. More often,
Mary was able to settle her dogs with
new and loving owners.
Thanks to continuing publicity, support
grew. After all, the RSPCA had been
founded as early as 1824, and attitudes
to animals were changing. Other
important people, like Emily Tennyson,
sister of the great poet Alfred Lord
Tennyson, came forward to help. Before
long, there were just too many dogs for
the small stable yard. So in 1871 a larger
space was found on the south
side of London, at Battersea.