Oh rest ye, brother mongrels, we will not wander more.

‘LUCY NICHOLAS JOINED our family in 1964,’ wrote a friend when she learnt I was gathering material for a book on mongrels. ‘My mother bought her out of sheer embarrassment when she came up for auction at a local Conservative party sale. As the auctioneer pointed her out as lot four, a piglet-like creature in an old cardboard box with a head too big for her body, the room fell silent. As the silence continued, my mother felt herself blushing at the humiliation the small creature must be feeling. When finally the auctioneer failed to raise a single bid, she gallantly offered £2 10s. and found herself the owner of the obvious runt of the litter.’

Lucy’s new owner displayed that quixotic streak of compassion which I am proud to think of as peculiarly English. It is that same streak which sends thousands and thousands of people off to dogs’ homes every year to rescue mongrels that are about to be put down. It is also that streak of compassion for the underdog among underdogs that often makes them, on reaching the dogs’ home, choose the ugliest, most pathetic dog they can find.

Brutus Collis, a black-and-white Shagpile from Dorking was rescued from the local RSPCA home. According to his master, ‘It was love at first sight. I saw Brutus trying not to look too eager to be picked out.’

‘Simon’s body was a bundle of bones and scabs,’ wrote another owner. ‘He gazed at us from a pile of straw, and when we didn’t take him, he slunk back into the corner dejectedly so we changed our minds.’

‘The dogs were all barking and throwing themselves against the bars,’ said Mrs Chatwin of Orpington, ‘except one misshapen black and tan bitch who was just sitting staring into space with a hopeless, despondent look in her eyes. I knew instinctively this was the dog for us. She’d been thrown from a car and didn’t trust anyone. However, she immediately jumped into our car as though she’d been in it all her life.’

Sometimes a prospective owner needs just a flicker of recognition to take on a particular dog. ‘The local RSPCA shelter was full of beautiful breed dogs,’ wrote Miss Woodrow of Gwent, ‘but in one corner cowered a sandy mongrel bitch who’d obviously been ill treated. She gave my hand a lick and that was it – she cost us ten shillings.’

Mrs Lynne of Upminster, however, preferred the grand gesture. ‘The dogs were penned in twos and threes when I arrived. They were being given their only meal of the day. Ricky left his food to come and talk to me, that was that. He has grown into the most beautiful dog, and is loving to the point of adoration.’

Shelley Barton, a handsome cross between a Boxer and a Great Dane, both highly sensitive breeds which need a huge amount of affection, was obviously miserably displaced in the dogs’ home, and on seeing her future mistress for the first time hurled her not inconsiderable weight into her arms, as if to say, ‘I belong to you, please take me away from this terrible place.’

Certainly visiting a dogs’ home is a gruelling experience – all those desperate creatures clamouring for attention. For the tender-hearted it is hard not to come away with a whole pack. Charles Dickens, for example, was upset by a trip to Battersea in 1862:

As you come within sight of the cage, twenty or thirty dogs of every conceivable and inconceivable breed rush towards the bars, flattening their poor snouts against the wires, and ask in their own peculiar and most forcible language if you are their master or no.

A German, Dr Carl Schneider, visiting the home at the turn of the century, was even more upset, and was haunted for years by the vision of one particular stray:

He looked at me with human eyes, whimpering and whining and unfolding his trouble to me in exquisite dog language, moving his body and tail in every conceivable posture of entreaty and abject submission, and when I moved away he pressed his nose and paws against the railing and emitted a cry such as might burst from the shipwrecked on a barren island, who sees the sail, on which he built his hopes of deliverance, disappear on the horizon.

It is the same today. There are few more heartrending sights than a van full of terrified strays arriving at the dogs’ home. Once they are unloaded, their collars – the last vestige of their individuality – are removed and replaced by a Battersea collar with a number: regulation prison uniform, for prisoners who have not committed any crime.

But all dogs who enter here need not abandon hope. Of the 14, 151 mongrels taken in by Battersea in 1980, 1,665 were reclaimed and a huge total of 6,451 dogs found homes. This admittedly means that around 6,000 mongrels were put down, but the majority of these were severely ill on arrival, either very badly injured in road accidents, or so diseased that they would have risked infecting the other dogs.

Battersea is only one of thousands of dogs’ homes all over the country which are constantly placing dogs with new owners. The Canine Defence League, for example, takes in between 3,000 and 4,000 dogs a year and manages to rehouse 90 per cent of them. Another cheering aspect of dogs’ homes is the dedication with which the kennel staff look after their charges, and the real satisfaction they find in returning a lost dog to its owner, or in placing a stray in a new home. As a rule, after a mongrel has been a certain time at Battersea, and the kennels are becoming overcrowded, he has to be put down to make way for other dogs only just come in. Fortunately the kennel maids get very attached to some of the less outwardly attractive dogs and keep moving them to the back of the queue. A dog called Old Boy, for example, stayed at the home for eleven months. He was an old mongrel nobody wanted: good-tempered, healthy, loved by the staff, but one who didn’t, because no visitor showed any interest in him, go out of his way to sell himself any more. Everyone seemed to want a young dog, or a dog with a sad, appealing face. Happily the press got to hear of Old Boy’s plight and published his picture with a story in the paper. Battersea was inundated with requests to adopt him: the quixotic streak of the English was at work again and he found a marvellous home.

Other mongrels are not so lucky as Old Boy. Miss Tanya Leonard, who works in a dogs’ home near Newport Pagnell, cannot help getting attached to the strays she looks after.

‘There was a little black mongrel we called the Motorway Dog, because he was picked up on the M1, obviously dumped. He had bleeding feet, a burn on his nose, and scars and scabs all over him. Some of the scars indicated that he’d been thrashed with a thin stick. It was really satisfying seeing him gain confidence and fill out. Four weeks after he arrived another dog whom we called Basil, came into the kennels. We don’t name all the dogs, only the ones for which we feel a special affection. Basil was terribly thin (I only once saw a dog so skinny, and that died) and surprisingly at first he refused food, but I took him out with me at lunchtime and gave him bits of my sandwiches. He enjoyed this extra attention, and gradually gained weight. He was such a happy dog, who wagged his tail for even the smallest thing.

‘Both the Motorway Dog and Basil are fine examples of dogs who, if given the chance, will do anything to please, and despite an unhappy cruel past develop a beautiful individual character. But thanks to selfish people who are unprepared to look beyond the outside skin of a dog, and not at its personality, these dogs were put down last week. Both were well on the way to recovery, and looked forward to leading healthy, happy lives. I have put a brave face on it at work, but no one can tell me mongrels are not as good as pedigree any day.’

It must be heartbreaking for the kennel staff to nurse a dog back to health, and then have to destroy him because he does not appeal to any prospective owner. Mrs Hart of Taunton, on the other hand, is just the sort of saviour the dogs’ homes are looking for. She went to Somerset RSPCA and specifically demanded a dog no one else wanted. She was immediately given Sally, a four-year-old Rough-and-Reddish, whom everyone had passed over, despite ‘eyes like clear brown trout pools’, because she looked so commonplace. She had already been chucked out of two families, the first because the wife couldn’t stand dog hairs, the second because she fought with the resident Cairn.

Not all strays come from dogs’ homes, of course. Lucky Draper, a red Tightskin was found in a field in Northamptonshire.

‘My grandfather,’ wrote Lucky’s mistress, Rebecca, ‘was feeding the cows when he saw a car stop, and a man throw some rubbish over the hedge, and then drive off. Feeling furious, my grandfather drove his tractor over to pick up the mess, and found a puppy, very small and weak, all tangled up in her collar and lead, and almost dead with cold because it was snowing. Pop took her home, gave her some warm milk, wrapped her in a blanket and sent for Dad and me. Mum didn’t have any say in the matter. She didn’t want another dog, but she loves Lucky now (sometimes).’

Another little mongrel, called Matey Webb, was also found in the snow, tied shivering to a gate by a bit of string. ‘We knew he wanted to live with us, when he didn’t wee in the car going home. We washed him in the sink with Fairy liquid and wrapped him in an old blanket.’

Sometimes a rescued dog can cause dissension in a family. Mr Baines wanted a Great Dane, his wife wanted a Dachshund. Instead she found Sam, a tan and white Prop Forward, careering, obviously lost, through Bromsgrove, and brought him home. Mr Baines was incensed when he saw Sam in situ, saying he hated cringing dogs, and Sam must go at once. For the next week, Sam was secreted in an old cowshed like some prisoner on the run, but fortunately won his spurs the following week, when some neighbouring cows strayed onto Mr Baines’s land. Sam promptly rushed out, rounded them up and drove them back. He returned to the house in triumph with a beaming master at his side.

‘This is a simply marvellous dog, not like that other one,’ said Mr Baines. ‘Where on earth did you find him?’

Success with one stray tends to make owners take on another. Mr Byatt already had a beautiful Satin Crammer, another Sam, whom he’d bought for £5. Shortly afterwards he discovered a brindle Twentieth-Century Fox Dog in his garden who was limping badly and eating chip paper, because she was so desperately hungry. It took an hour of coaxing and throwing titbits to get her to lick Mr Byatt’s hand and snuggle up in his arms. When he finally got her into the house, she slept for forty-eight hours.

In a nation of supposed animal lovers, it is utterly horrific to find that people can be so desperately cruel to dogs, dumping them in icy fields, or chucking them out when they go on holiday. The ultimate in heartless brutality, however, must be buying a dog for a child as a Christmas present and, when the child gets bored with it, dumping it on the motorway. One can imagine the panic-stricken terror of the wretched animal as it weaves desperately in and out of the oncoming traffic, seeing all it knows and loves fading as the number plate disappears out of sight. One’s heart bleeds for Kim Crook III, a Jack Russell, who was discovered on the edge of a main road, creeping pathetically out of the verge to look hopefully at every passing car, then darting back again. Poppy Smerdon, a glorious Satin Crammer, was dumped by some gipsies on the A40 and taken to the nearest dogs’ home.

‘She clearly found us appealing when we saw her at the home,’ writes her present master, ‘and was determined we should be her new owners. My wife and I had been invited to a lunch party, and we took Poppy away but left her in the car. Obviously she felt left out, because she pushed down the window, and joined the pack of Labradors on the lawn. Since then we have not been parted from her. She is quite simply the best dog we have ever known. My wife and I and our two children, the cat and the tortoise are simply devoted to her.’

At other times the bond between mongrel and new owner is forged more slowly. Mrs Saunders of Liss, Hampshire, used to walk her Alsatian bitch in the woods every day, and was often trailed by a brindle Prop Forward, who was obviously a stray, whom she called Buster. Very nervous at first, he gradually over a year allowed her to talk to and then to stroke him. After that he followed her home, and for two days stayed in the garden.

‘I fed Buster, but wouldn’t let him in. He slept on the back doorstep, and cried to come in. Finally I weakened. No one seemed to have lost a dog, so he stayed. I think he’d been dumped by someone who had driven off. Whenever I started the car in the early days, he would rush and hide. He is rather noisy at times, but very loyal and affectionate.’

Some dogs – the quixotic streak at work yet again – are lucky enough to be rescued from cruel owners. Poor Patch Mellor, a Standard Magpie, was tied to a tiny box in a field for more than two years. Mrs Mellor used to take her own dogs for walks past him, and throw him pellets of bread and meat which often, alas, landed too far away from him to reach.

‘He was a bag of bones, his white fur was yellow as though it had been singed (which the vet said was lack of nourishment). We finally approached the owner, who said in amazement, “Dost want him?” We took him straight away. He is about nine or ten now but plays like a puppy.’

Another philobrutist, Miss Jane Howell of Charlbury, was working in a café for pocket money when she discovered a little dog tied to a chair in the back room, who used to be pelted with bits of gristle and sausage meat at mealtimes.

‘He was called Whiskey. I loved him at once with an enormous sense of outrage. The owners wanted an Alsatian, so poor Whiskey was for the chop. I bought him from them on the never-never, paying with my wages each week, and took him home on a length of washing line. I stopped on the way to let him loose in a meadow full of wild flowers. He’d never seen grass or sky, never been off a chain since he’d left his mother, and he went berserk. His back legs were weak through insufficient food, his back dipped through months of cowering, but he just ran and ran, leaping back through the buttercups to check I was still there, then barking and chasing, rolling and snuffling. I re-named him Jesse James. He was an inspiration to everyone who met him.’

In the same way, little Twiggy Kirby, the original Edith Sitwell dog, belonged to an old lady who never took her out and made her sit behind a chair all day. When her new mistress took her to the vet when she was eight months old, he said her paws were like a new puppy’s and her hind quarters were quite bare where she’d sat on them all the time.

‘I don’t think she’d ever seen a bird before,’ writes Miss Kirby. ‘She is spellbound by them, and tries to climb trees to get a better view. We’ve now had Twiggy over a year, and we feel she is having her youth now.’

Almost worse than dumping a dog on the motorway is turfing out a bitch when she’s heavily in pup. Cara Bagnall, an exquisite black and tan Spanish Policeman’s Hat Ear Dog came from Harrow Rescue Centre. A week after she arrived at 5 a.m. on New Year’s Eve she had twelve puppies. Ten lived, but as Mrs Bagnall had had only a week to build Cara up, she was like a skeleton.

For the next six weeks, the Bagnall family dropped everything, turning the study into a nursery, and taking it in turns to bottle-feed the puppies. As it took nearly two hours to feed them all, as soon as one person finished, someone else had to start. The Animal Rescue League helped Mrs Bagnall find homes for nine of the puppies, but she kept the tenth and called him Boy: ‘Both dogs have completely settled in and we love them dearly.’

It is in fact this nursing back to health and confidence that forges the cast-iron link of devotion between the rescued dog and his owner. Bully Latchford came from Battersea in the 1920s and had a close-cropped white coat, black ears, baleful eyes, and a docked tail so his whole rear end wagged. ‘He had been terribly maltreated,’ writes Mr Latchford. ‘Weals across his back, and a raw mark on his neck from a too-tight chain. Every bone in his body stuck out. My mother was the one who nursed him back to health, I’ve never seen an animal show so much gratitude or intelligence.’

Some dogs are so badly treated that even with kind owners they never fully recover their confidence. Judy Manser, a black and tan Terrier Cross from the RSPCA, was still a mass of sores when she came to her new home. As her previous owners used to stub their cigarettes out on her, she still jumps a yard if people approach her suddenly.

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