Wyn Drabble: How many lives do dogs have?

A cat might have nine lives but how many does a dog have? Photo / File

We all know that, in myth at least, a cat has nine lives. We don't have a cat so I'm more interested in how many lives a dog has. I hope it's not too low a number because our girl has already used up two.

The first was extremely silly. I had her on the long lead but she suddenly did something she had never been interested in before. She jumped out on to the road and chased a car. Unfortunately, her tiny brain didn't tell her that the car she chose was towing a trailer.

So, she was collected by the trailer and knocked into a squealing ball. Of course, I gathered up the furry orb at once and took her for a vet check. Would you believe that there was no damage to speak of apart from the small patch of missing fur on her shoulder, the part that took the impact.

What a robust creature a dog must be!

The second escape was rather more dramatic and involved her squeezing out of her restraint to chase after a creature. She then vanished.

Only hours later were we able to work out that she had gone over a bank and tumbled 10 to 20 metres on to the safety net of a protruding tree which prevented her tumbling the remaining height which would have been terminal.

For some hours she stayed, sprawled on her back in the branches as if on a sun-lounger. In that tiny brain of hers she must have had enough grey matter to know that struggling free would only end in disaster.

She waited and waited and waited and eventually she was located after which help came in the form of a fireman abseiling down the cliff. He worked her body into a harness and then abseiled her to the base of the bank and the poised pen of a waiting news reporter.

Praise be to the fire service!

That's two crossed off. No more, please.

Back to the cat. I wonder where the myth of nine lives for a cat came from. It was certainly around in Shakespeare's time because, in Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt asks, "What wouldst thou have with me?" to which Mercutio replies, "Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives".

Wyn Drabble

From limited research (my favourite kind), I learned that one possible explanation is that the bodies of cats are particularly agile and dexterous. Mid-fall their "righting reflex" comes into play and they can twist their bodies so that they land on all fours – something to do with having lots of vertebrae.

It seems that, when Madam Dog landed in her life-saving tree, her legs were still all pointing to the heavens.

There is another theory which comes from Egypt where cats were apparently revered. The god, Atum-Ra, took the form of a cat when visiting the underworld and gave birth to eight other major gods (please don't ask me how this would have happened).

Atum-Ra then unified nine lives in one (again, please don't ask for an explanation).

Another possible answer comes from China where the number nine is considered lucky. Where this theory falls down is that nine is not as lucky as six or eight.

Some regions of Spain believe that cats have seven lives while Turkish and Arabic legends claim six. It's all a bit of a lottery, I guess, and something I don't feel inspired to research further.

Whatever the true source of the myth is, it doesn't really matter, I suppose. We have a dog, not a cat, and our arboreal canine is currently alive.

I don't make a habit of thanking plant life but, thank you, tree.

Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.