LONDON – Despite his occasionally surly exterior and the way he sometimes gets really angry and smashes his tennis racket against his shoe, Andy Murray actually has a big, soft, dog-loving heart.
He's a WWF Ambassador, for one thing, and – perhaps more importantly – he's a dab hand when it comes to playing with small packs of highly energetic puppies.
Murray's dog-handling skills were shown off in a video uploaded to the official Wimbledon Facebook page, in which he meets a member of the Metropolitan police and helps him "train" some new recruits.
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The puppies were clearly quite enthusiastic about the training.
And Murray took to it like a natural.
The dogs attacked Murray's shoelaces, pinched his tennis balls and generally had a marvellous time, which leads us to ask: when are we going to get dog ball boys and girls, Wimbledon?
Murray has been a global ambassador for the WWF since November 2014, supporting the training of dogs to track down poaching activity in Nepal. He also owns two Border Terriers, Rusty and Maggie May. The latter even has her own Twitter account.
#Wimbledogs pic.twitter.com/70FdISwkCQ— Maggie May (@maggiemay_hem) July 9, 2013