PET PROJECT
SHORTLY before lockdown, a pet boutique called Dog & Groom opened for business in my neighbourhood. Locals sniggered at a blackboard on the pavement advertising “teeth-whitening laser treatment £25 (R500)”. For dogs.
We gave it three months. But by summer it was the only shop trading on the main road that didn’t do food – all the others had gone bust.
These days business is still booming. You can sit outside the pub next door and watch a stream of cute Pomeranians, ChiChons, chiweenies and bordoodles stroll past and then emerge, if anything, even cuter after their blow-dry.
Personally I don’t go for their little pink/blue paper bow ties, but my dog, Dublin, does. She launches occasional, vicious, surprise volleys of abuse – not very scary – just to school the upstart pups.
I look down at Dublin – a basic brown cockapoo who nevertheless won “cutest puppy” in our local dog show in 2017 – and say sorrowfully, “You wouldn’t stand a chance now. It would be like ‘Hometown beauty queen goes to Hollywood’.”
Dublin regards me quizzically, or reproachfully.
But when my editor, inspired by a new book, How to Make Your Dog #Famous, assigns me the task of turning Dublin into
