THERE are questions that one should not ask a lady. There are answers, meanwhile, that no gentleman ought to proffer. Of life’s great unanswerables, however, few divide opinion quite as much as asking how many dogs a countryman needs. Indeed, this would appear to be the case for Sir Richard FitzHerbert, whose family has had the village of Tissington near Ashbourne in Derbyshire since 1465, and whose answer is on point: “As many as you can afford and get sitters for,” he chuckles.
These days the draughty corridors of his Jacobean home – “48 chimneys, 61 rooms, seven staircases and seven bathrooms, of which only three have hot water” – resound to the 20 paws of five canine companions: an elderly yellow labrador named Zoffany, aged 12; two black cocker spaniels (mother and daughter: Isla, five, and Mabel, six months); and a pair of dachshunds: Daisy, five, and Daphne, 10. “I was happy with six dogs but now we’re down to five,” the baronet declares cheerfully. “You never know what might turn up.”
