Chirac's dog retires to the country

Not everyone loves a shaggy dog story as they tend to go on for far too long and when the climax is eventually reached the listeners are often left scratching their heads wondering what exactly the point of the whole thing was.

Well to keep things as short as possible, here's a tale with a happy end - of sorts - involving what is supposed to be man's best friend.

It centres on the problems the former French president, Jacques Chirac, had been having with his beloved maltese bichon, Sumo, named in honour of his passion for the Japanese sport.

Sumo obviously didn't take to leaving "his" presidential digs at the Elysée palace back in May 2007 when Chirac and his wife, Bernadette, moved out and Nicolas Sarkozy moved in.

Perhaps the dog was missing the political limelight, but as Bernadette explained in an interview earlier this year shortly after Sumo had bitten her husband, he had "got into the habit of nipping a little. Not everyone and not all the time."

The former first lady's explanation for the dog's erratic behaviour was that the little fellow "missed the garden the other animals and the freedom he had in the gardens of the Elysée palace."

Sumo was miserable she admitted and being treated with antidepressants.

Since then however, things seem to have gone from bad to worse.

The dog bit his master on two subsequent occasions, and the most recent attack made the Chiracs realise that his behaviour had simply become too aggressive.

"I was reading in a room while Sumo was lying on the floor," the former first lady said this week of the third and final incident.

"When my husband arrived he (Sumo) jumped and bit him in the stomach," she continued.

"I was very frightened because my husband was bleeding....and Sumo wanted to jump up and bite him again."

Rather than run the risk of Sumo injuring her husband again, the couple decided that it was time for him (Sumo) to move on.

He has since been found a new home in the country, living with friends of the family on a farm in the département of Seine et Marne, where he is apparently "very happy"...and no longer bites.