Now I know there are plenty of showdogs that have more than a passing acquaintance with the great outdoors, but the 2012 Crufts winning Lhasa Apso Elizabeth isn't one of them, according to a piece in today's Daily Mail, something that writer Julia Lawrence queries:
.... when you look her, you can’t help pondering, with a tinge of sadness, that this is a dog that has never chased a squirrel, scratched a flea or sniffed a lamp post in her life.
Would it, I ask her devoted owner, be totally out of the question for Elizabeth to rough it a little, now and then?
‘She’s far too precious to take out for walks,’ explains Margaret, a 59-year-old retired social worker. ‘That’s not to say she is kept indoors all the time — she has to be kept fit and healthy. She can run around in the back garden for exercise.’But even the garden has been specially crafted to suit Elizabeth’s status. The vegetable patch and flowers have long gone, replaced instead by paving stones which can be kept scrubbed, bleached and hygienic at all times.
‘She can be walked on grass in the summer, when it is dry and short, but we couldn’t risk twigs and mud getting into her coat. In the house, she sleeps in a special dog crate in the kitchen, where she’s put if ever we are out or busy.
‘We couldn’t have her roaming about freely, in case she had an accident and hurt herself. If she broke a leg falling off a table, or accidentally swallowed something, she’d never show again.