Canophile

“I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” offered Pat in his pleasantest voice. “Even if I’d broken that paw off he’d still have three left, which is one better than you or me.” / “She looked at him then, a glare of hate under brows like a black-stone cliff. “You’ll know me again, won’t you?” Pat offered. / And so, in due course, she did. / “These canophiles!” sighed Pat, rejoining Jan on the bride. “It’s a disease really, particularly rampant in the British Isles, though not unknown in the States.” / “Cano—?” Her voice was still abstracted, as though her thought was far away. / “Canophiles—dog worshipers. Mind you, I’ve nothing against dogs so long as they’re not kept by people who will spell the word the wrong way around. Then they become a nuisance to the community.”

Overlooking, for the moment, people who have been bitten only once or twice (even a canophile can make a mistake), let us examine some revealing statistics about people who have been bitten three or more times.

Dogs in modern life did not fit neatly into the old categories. All dogs, it was argued by the canophiles, were guard dogs, whether living in an apartment or chained in a yard.