Hansard

I congratulate Christine Grahame on bringing this motion to the chamber and on her organisation, with the Dogs Trust and OneKind, of the displays in Parliament celebrating the contribution of pets to human wellbeing. The rolling exhibition of photographs of staff’s and MSPs’ companion animals has attracted much interest from the users of the building, and it reminds us of all the things that we have in common, despite the fact that we spend so much time in here fighting with each other.

I have had the pleasure of the company of companion animals—a lot of the time it has been more than one—all my life. The first Murray family dog preceded me into the world and was later joined by a succession of hamsters, fish, tortoises—I still feel guilty about the tortoises—stick insects, guinea pigs and rabbits, as my animal-loving parents presented very little resistance to enlarging the pet population of the house. I am, however, sorry to say that my mother drew the line at rats and snakes.

The few short months that I spent without a pet when I started my post-doctoral degree made it clear to me that there was a hole in my life that only an animal could fill. We were joined by my first feline—a tortoiseshell and white kitten called Top Cat who brought home a whole load of mice. She hid corpses under my bed and put them in my sports kit, but eventually walked out on me because I got a new boyfriend whom she did not like. She never came back—I never found out where she went.

My eldest child was named after a delightful little cat who had, sadly, been killed on the road a couple of weeks before my son was born. I must say that the cat’s name was not Tiddles, but Alex. It might have been embarrassing for my son otherwise.

At 18 months, my son advanced my campaign to add a dog to the household by plaintively repeating, “I want a doggy,” until his father gave in. From then on we, too, had a succession of creatures: dogs, cats, gerbils, hamsters, rabbits, guinea pigs, fish, degus and a horse.

Pets contribute to our mental and physical wellbeing. However, other than a feral tom kitten who, when we first lived in Ayr, rightly decided that it might be a smart move to get himself adopted by us, we chose to bring pets into our lives. As Christine Grahame said, we therefore have responsibilities to ensure that the animals have the appropriate environment, exercise, diet and, in many cases, the companionship of others of their own species, as many animals are unhappy otherwise.

Regardless of my fractured pelvis, my daughter’s broken finger and my friend’s fractured vertebra—all attributable to Twix the horse—I am convinced that pets have made, and continue to make, a positive contribution to my family’s health. My children were resilient to viruses and bacteria and lost little time from school. I attribute that to three factors: genetics, breastfeeding and pets. I am sure that exposure to pets’ hair—and worse—helped to prime their immune systems. After all, a little dirt does no harm.

Pets also helped to introduce our children to difficult issues such as death. Somewhere at home I still have a jotter in which, when he was about seven, my son had to write little illustrated stories about what he had done at the weekend. One entry contains a detailed illustration of the death-bed scene of the little feral kitten who had adopted us a few years earlier.

My mother will celebrate her 90th birthday next month and my father is in his late 80s. They insist on looking after our little dogs—Sylvie and Annie, which we bought to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary, which is why they are so named—while we are out at work or away in locations that are not pet-friendly. People at their time of life sometimes feel that they have ceased to have a positive role in their families’ lives, but my parents know that they continue to make an important contribution to our and our dogs’ lives, long after their grandchildren have grown up.

In addition to that, both my parents had serious health issues in their 60s—indeed, my mother was not expected to live after an operation went seriously wrong—but both pulled through. I am certain that that was in part due to a lifetime of taking regular exercise, including daily dog walking. My mother’s consultant actually commented on that. I am sure that dogs helped to save my mother’s life when she was 65.

Despite the vet fees, the broken bones, the hairs on the carpets and the grief that we feel when they finally leave us, pets contribute so much to the lives of their owners that they are indeed well worth today’s motion of celebration. We must take our responsibility for them seriously.