One thing. Are you sure the mandatory spaying and neutering wasn't invented by the hoime security industry. Only my mum remarked the other day when my daughter was talking about her alarm system that "We didn't need alarms in my day! People were more honest then!"

Only they weren't, of course. What stopped burlgars when I was a kid was the fact that, in any given working- or middle- class street,pretty much every second household had a dog! Dogs who would kick off very loudly if strangers were around, even next door!

But then all of a sudden vets started to spay and neuter every pet they could get near, apart from the pedigree ones. So now, instead of paying a few quid, or even nothing, for a healthy, robust mongrel, if you want a dog you have to pay anything from £200 to £2000 or more for an overbred pedigree with genetic health problems thrown in free! Or a rescue dog with both health and emotional problems.

Bring back the mongrel! Only have the honesty to call it a mongrel - not a 'cockerpoo' or a 'labradoodle'!