And They Call It Puppy Love

There’s no better way for a man to perk up his dating profi le than by posing with a puppy. It gives a whole new meaning to picking-up…

- Janet Menzies

His online profile was quite promising. Mike (not his real name) looked normal. Messages revealed that he enjoyed the countryside and although he didn’t shoot he had heard of The Field. So far so acceptable but what really sealed the deal was the profile pic of him cuddling a gorgeous golden working cocker spaniel, which he clearly loved almost as much as he would eventually learn to love me. Go straight to first date. Do not pass hours making pointless phone calls. Do not collect pages of texting. When Mike walked into the bar he actually looked like his profile picture, though, disappointingly, did not bring his spaniel, Polly (not her real name).

Of course, I wanted to know how Polly was but Mike was strangely unforthcoming – until it turned out that no, she was absolutely fine, but, in fact, as it happened, it was just that, well, Polly didn’t belong to Mike at all. Polly was the property of Mike’s mate and such was her pulling power that she had become a kind of poster pup for dating websites. Mike’s mate hired her out regularly to male friends for cuddlesome selfies. If you look carefully on a certain site, you can actually begin to recognise her trademark curly hair and melting eyes, distracting you from the fact that her various human companions possess neither. Discovering this was a set-back, certainly, but undaunted I enquired after Polly’s owner. It turned out Mike’s mate was married – to the dog walker who helped with Polly.