A LITTLE quiet sympathy and understanding is required this morning, dear reader. Today's victim is disabled which means he walks with some difficulty and is unable to speak.

He is, however, by no means "dumb" in the American sense of that word.

He is, in fact, as bright as a button, friendly and naturally curious. He gets on well with most people except for one set of good folk who do get right up his sensitive nose: the do-gooders who are always trying to help him when no help is required.

In fact, he can get so incensed about this that he has gone public with an appeal to be left alone...

If you feel that, in this, I am being a little hard on well-meaning people, I should explain that Zen, aged nine, is a dog. A disabled dog who, in the exuberence of youth, chased a rabbit out of a field and was run over by the car. The rabbit, as is the way of these things, escaped unharmed but Zen suffered critical injuries to his shoulder and left front leg so that the vet wanted to amputate. Yet despite this, he has become one of the best known, and best liked, characters in central Skipton.

It is a longish story...

His owners, Sheila and Terry Watson, have been running The Coffee Mill tea and coffee rooms in Otley Street, Skipton, for the past six years after a long career in big-time catering.

Some nine years ago, their family dog died aged at the ripe old age of 16 and Terry said they should not get another because Sheila was so upset, a scenario shared by millions of British pet owners.

She lasted almost four months before she said: "It's no good - I just can't live without a dog." So Terry relented and they began to scour dog rescue centres in their native North East offering a good home to an abandoned pup.

Zen was the result, a young dog said to be a "Border collie cross" which, some time later, turned out to be a somewhat spurious claim.

To me, he looks more smooth-haired terrier/whippet.

By pure coincidence, this happens to be my 57th Dales Folk feature ... and Zen, like Heinz food products, can perhaps boast as many varieties.

However, he had his accident and his doting owners coughed up hefty vets' bills to save his front leg - "they ran into hundreds, rather than thousands, because the vet was sympathetic to a patient from a rescue centre," says Sheila somewhat guardedly.

When their son, Paul, married a lass from Burley-in-Wharfedale, the Watsons looked for a business in the area so that they could be close to their family. And that's when Zen took up his now-regular beat behind the Coffee Mill on the edge of Rackham's car park.

Then the troubles began. Good-hearted folk, whom he would greet with bright eyes and a wagging tale, assumed he was lost and recently injured. These misguided people regularly took him off to the police station, thinking he was lost and hurt.

Others rang the local vets. As Sheila explains somewhat wearily, "There were even people with mobile phones who would sit at a table outside the cafe, read the tag on Zen's collar, and ring us saying they had found our 'lost' dog.

"I'd say I would be there in a minute - and walk out of the back door. Sometimes they laughed, sometimes they were very embarrassed. So we decided it was time to go public..."

Which is why, displayed outside the cafe, is a large notice which reads:

"The name is Zen the Dog. I am not lost and have been disabled for the past 6 years so please don't get that damn vet out to me again or take me to the police station.

"I live quite happily at the Coffee Mill Caf with my Mum and Dad and I have been known to pretend to be worse than I am so you will feel sorry for me.

"Signed (with a paw print) Zen."

Now, at this point, we must make something very clear. Because his front paw is turned over, Zen cannot go for long walks on pavements: it brings up sores and ulcers.

He must walk on grass so Terry and Sheila take him on a long outing every morning and evening over the fields near their home in Cross Hills before bringing him to Skipton.

So Zen is not one of the culprits causing the dog-muck problem which so afflicts the town centre.

Nevertheless, after talks with the dog warden, Zen has now been "grounded."

He must be tied up outside the caf, which has not pleased him one little bit. It does, however, have one advantage: he is now in constant contact with the customers, which means he gets lots of cakes and tea-cake scraps.

"He's a great actor," says Sheila. "He can almost hypnotise a tasty morsel off a plate." As they say, it's a dog's life...