It's not that I don't love my dog. Good grief, where else to find uncritical adoration, constant attention, uninterrupting listening skills, and a commitment to lifelong fidelity? Dogs are the biz. But the one which owns me should not hold its dubiously smelling breath for the news that it is being bought some of a new range of perfume for pooches brought to you by those Parisienne houses whose prices are in an inverse ratio to the size of the bottle. Apparently this novel wheeze is being aimed at a niche but numerous market of dog persons who would love their mutt to smell similar to their good selves.

For the cost of a good meal for two you will be able to put this substance on your hands and rub it through the hairy one's coat, rendering him nicer to know and you considerably poorer. It is a piece of ludicrous nonsense, which fact will in no way inhibit its sales success. There is no shortage of people whose critical faculties are in permanent suspension where their pets are concerned.

Take the American businesswoman from London, introduced by a mutual friend, with whom I spent a very entertaining day in Glasgow as she cased the city for a suitable location for the latest in her very successful chain of stores selling clever storage solutions.

At no point in her sojourn did she strike me as anything other than one of those streetwise yanks who have the energy and vision to turn a smart idea into a lot of fast bucks.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the next time I saw her face it was staring out of a magazine supplement flanked by her two full-size poodles.

So far, so unremarkable. Except that the accompanying prose explained that her dogs had their own bedroom with their own furnishings and toys. Each wore elaborately jewelled collars and dined on the finest of fare from bowls which did not begin life in the basement of a dime store.

Her dogs deserved the best, she explained unblushingly. The magazine went into no other domestic details so we must assume that out back she doesn't have a couple of kids chained to the door of kennels - she just used the dogs as a substitute family.

Her compatriot, Dame Elizabeth Taylor, you may recall, wanted another ticket for her investiture at Buck House earlier this year in order that her Maltese terrier could be part of the proceedings.

Presumably in the reserved section of the gilt chairs, or maybe just balanced on the great one's hip, its usual mode of travel. Not that the Brits are in any position to claim the moral high ground here.

Only once have I entered the hallowed portals of Crufts - quite long enough to conclude it was no place for any self-respecting dog. It's at this competitive end of the breeding market that you encounter the most compelling evidence that the pedigree owners must have pretty dodgy genes.

Difficult to say whether the most depressing sight at this annual jamboree is the very small breeds sitting mournfully in portable kennels decorated with chintzy curtains, or the baleful countenance of the big boys as they hang out in too small booths waiting for their three minutes of fame in the ring.

It's Crufts which gives the lie to the myth that dogs and their owners grow to look alike, given the number of tweedy, brogue-encased women with platform bosoms who lope round the circuit

on the other end of the leash from a Yorkie in a satin ribbon. Hardly a meeting of sartorial minds here.

It's Crufts, too, which did the groundwork for those entrepreneurial French parfumiers who would now have us spray Canine No 5 up furry oxters. The range of wares being marketed here suggests that nobody should ever estimate the gullibility of the dog-owning classes. There is the unashamed pitch for the sentimental jugular - your dog's face on every conceivable piece of china or ceramic, your dog's portrait painted, your dog immortalised as a bust. (Your dog hopefully upchucking at any such intrusion into his personal dignity.

There is a complete wardrobe for the fashion-conscious, including coloured doggy wellies toning tastefully with the doggy raincoats. And, of course, all the lotions and potions an obsessive owner could possibly desire, including - because we must keep up with the medical mores of the moment - vegetarian foodstuffs and alternative herbal remedies for whatsoever might ail Fido now and in the future. The technical term for imbuing hounds with human characteristics and needs is anthromorphism. The non-technical term in the industry which panders to it is mugs.

There is no shortage of mugs. It's

at least as bad with moggies. The range

of products capitalising on follies for felines contributes to a multimillion-pound industry.

Whole catalogues (sorry) are devoted to ever more expensive ways for cat

owners to be parted with their money, including, wait for it, an indoor gymnasium structure so that your kitty can work out in a number of muscle and mentally

stimulating ways.

Stand by for the personal cat trainer, wherein Felix will learn (for 25 quid an hour) that claws are made for scratching. A fool and her money are soon parted but not nearly so swiftly as a cat owner and her common sense.

So the folks hoping to persuade many thousands of us that animals should smell like boudoirs rather than bogland are already mentally counting the mega

profits, only too well aware that the least rational of beings are those who share their homes and their lives with a tame quadruped.

As I was saying to my dog only the other night (we were watching Pet Rescue together on the sofa at the time), isn't it absurd how sections of the human race can maintain no sense of proportion at all about the natural pecking order of the animal and humanoid kingdoms.

He nodded appreciatively before going to the door with his lead indicating noisily that it was well past the time he took me for my walk.