In a Word ... Bulldog

English bulldogs must be the ugliest specimens in the canine world. All that muscle and the dour look of perpetual anger inspires inglorious dread.

One crossed my path the other day. I wondered whether it might be called Adolf. Or Winston, considering that the breed has been adopted as a burly symbol by the neighbours next door. “Come here, Winston. Good boy. Now go chew on a damn Paddy. Such a good boy!”

It does not help that the breed is usually accompanied by similarly muscle-bound men, frequently blue from head to toe with tattoos, “fir gorm”. I also have a problem with tattoos that cover every centimetre of visible skin.

So I wasn’t prepared for the encounter between Rosie and the two older ladies. Both were the very incarnation of elderly fragility, and had been sitting outside a coffee shop gossiping.

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As when a middle-aged couple passed and one of the old ladies remarked wistfully: “I remember when the two of them got married. They were given a year.” Is there anything as disappointing as unfulfilled expectation?

Or “Deirdre’s [not her real name] brother died. A fine big man. Kidneys. The son took a photograph of his father in the coffin.”

Then along came English bulldog Rosie, pulling hard on a leash held by its blue master. The dog made a run towards the old ladies, who extended slender arms to the slavering hulk, as I grabbed my phone to call an ambulance.

“He’s a beautiful dog. I love him,” said one of the ladies.The dog now had its paws on the table in front of them, its long tongue out in slavering affection.

“Rosie is very, very strong. Runs to the end of the lead and he’s up in the air,” cooed one old lady. Such progressive women, too, who referred to the dog as “he” yet called it (should that be “them”?) Rosie.

They asked the blue man accompanying Rosie what its weight was.

“Twenty-seven kilos,” he said. “Everybody loves him.” More gender confusion, but who was I to disagree? A transgender English bulldog was something I had never thought of before.

Bulldog, from an Old English bula and docga, for "muscular dog noted for courage and ferocity".

inaword@irishtimes.com