After we’d driven back home I fished out The Giant Book of the Dog and searched for lurcher in the index. The lurcher was not an animal that had been on my short list before the Vizsla-hunt began, and it had not been on my long list either. In truth, I had no idea what a lurcher was.
I found the details in a classification at the end of the formal breed-by-breed headings; this section was for Rare Breeds. The lurcher was listed in the Rare Breed subsection: Unclassified. A vaguely (but only vaguely) Ernie-like animal was pictured next to the description. The picture was captioned:
The lurcher may have originated in Ireland. It is
an excellent poacher’s dog, able to run down prey
swiftly and silently.
Useful, I thought. Those copses and meadows I had visited with Mingus must be full of rabbits. I imagined us coming home with our quarry tied up in a bag slung over my shoulder, ready to be cooked with wine and onions and garlic.
The lurcher was third-last in the Unclassifieds, ahead of the New Guinea Singing Dog, but behind the Dingo. I felt this was unfair. The general description given was shorter than for the full pedigrees, too, a bit throwaway, further diminishing the standing of this distinguished animal. I shook my head, though I could see there was a certain appropriateness in all of this. From the few words that were written, I discovered that the lurcher was thought to have come into being because at one time in England only those of noble blood were permitted to own a greyhound. To get round this rule a greyhound-cross was developed as ‘an efficient poaching dog for a commoner to keep.’
If we had found the animal for us – and we had – I had certainly found the animal for me. I had already solved the mystery of Ernie’s early life by combining the words, ‘Thetford Forest,’ ‘poacher,’ and ‘rickets,’ to come up with the hypothesis that he had been slung out as the runt of a traveller’s litter. (Still, at least they didn’t park him on the fast lane of the M11.) And now here was The Giant Book of the Dog – available for a fiver in the bargain bin at B&Q, and evidently not to be trusted (the lurcher, needless to say, makes a faithful and affectionate family pet) – relegating the status of my Ernie to commoner, indeed.
I thrive on having something to resent. The grim circumstances of Ernie’s beginnings combined with the marginal status accorded to his kind (and their keepers) provided adequate fuel to keep me nicely chippy. It could only be a matter of time before I was looking at a Vizsla owner through the eyes of the inverted snob.