A much calmer day today. One might almost call it normal – almost.

Isis elected to sleep downstairs last night. Perhaps she needed her own space to recover from last night’s frenzy.

I go downstairs in my lovely new fluffy dressing gown (20% off at Dorothy Perkins). Isis is thrilled with it. Much wagging and snuggling. Perhaps it feels like a rabbit.

I open the back door, reaching for her lead.

But she shoots out on her own and, for the first time in weeks, explores the garden.

She spends about thirty minutes alternating between brief, excited sniffs and high kick twirling.

I fetch her in and she scoffs her breakfast in her usual manner, i.e. as though there is a gaping hole in the bottom of her dish and her food might disappear through it now.

The day is very dull. No sign of sun and we have the first of two very enjoyable walks with our friends.

Back home I begin clearing my  ‘art room’. Isis follows me upstairs and snoozes peacefully next door on the bed.

After our second walk I prepare to groom her. She puts her foot in the brush box and utters a faint but defiant growl. I tell her sternly that we do not growl while Boss is grooming us. We stand still and enjoy it.

I begin with her back and she wags her tail. We do very well today. I even get to comb her ears, eyebrows and whiskers. I am pushing my luck but never a growl. And I do not reward her until I have finished.

Mmmmm. What a sweet dog.

But she gets her own back. In the evening after she has eaten I sit on the futon with my (vegetarian) meal. Isis begins a fierce growling attack on her foot. I put my plate on the little trolley next to the futon and restrain her. She stops growling.

I’ve hardly uttered, “Good girl”, before she shoots forward and snatches a large mouthful of cauliflower from my plate.

Jumping down nimbly from the futon she empties her mouth onto the floor in order to investigate what she has bagged. Yes. Cauliflower is O.K.

Isis came from the Aeza cat and dog rescue and adoption centre in Aljezur, Portugal. For information about adopting an animal from the centre, contact kerry@aeza.org or  www.dogwatchuk.com