Jane, Kushi, and Kim

Jane

'I’ve had lots of dogs in my life – I love dogs. I’m going to tell you about the two last dogs I had. One was Kim, a little black mongrel who really belonged to my daughter Harriet but who stayed with me when she went away. He was a rather religious little dog because he was always following us into church. One day we were staying in Somerset and our host took us to an early morning service in a little country church about half a mile away. We walked into the church and sat down and in the middle of the sermon there was a pitter patter and in walked Kim, who had escaped out of the house and followed our scent. He also came to church on Christmas eve for midnight mass, managing to follow us and creeping in to sit beside us in our pew. He didn’t move or make a sound, but a couple got up and went out and on Christmas morning we got a horrible letter saying we’d spoilt their Christmas by letting a dog into the church. We just ignored it though!'

Kim with Harriet

'The last dog in my life was Kushi. A friend of mine had a little Jack Russell which had a misalliance with another terrier of a different kind, and so she gave me one of the puppies. She was so small that we could fit her into our shirt pockets, and we called her Kushi (Kushi is an Indian name and it means comfortable and happy). Kushi was a circus dog – she was very intelligent, and she taught herself lots of tricks. We had a little football and she used to dribble it up and down the garden. One day in university park she saw some students playing football and she rushed in and got their ball, and she was so good at dribbling that they couldn’t catch her for quite a long time. I hid behind a tree and pretended she had nothing to do with me. If you blew bubbles she would also jump up and pop them all and if you had a balloon she’d bounce it up and down on her nose. I think she might have been a circus performer in a former life.'

Kushi