From Henry Green, 'Nothing' (1950)

She watched a couple up at the bar with a miniature poodle on a stool in between. Its politeness and general agitation seemed to be half human. But when a man came in with a vast brindled bull terrier on a lead as thick as an ox’s tail the smaller dog turned her back to the drinks, ignored her owners at once, and gazed at the killer with thrilled lack lustre eyes. For his part the bull terrier lay down as soon as the the man on the other end of his lead let him, and, with an air of acute embarrassment gazed hard at the poodle, then away again, then, as though he could not help it, back once more. He started to whine. Miss Pomfret smiled. The other occupants began paying attention to these interested animals.
  “Rather sweet, isn’t he?” she said.
  “Who? Your father?”
  “Oh no, Daddy always is. The bull terrier I mean.”
  “So long as he doesn’t take it into his head to murder that other wretched brute in front of our very eyes.”
  “But he won’t Philip. She’s a lady.”