Holiday journal

Monday December 29th part 2

A satisfied dog returns from the beach and sleeps. That’s better.

The trouble begins when we return from our evening walk.

There is something very spooky going on in the kitchen. That large white thing which has been quiet since we arrived  is twitching and whirring. There is something alive in, or, possibly, underneath it.

“What’s the matter with Isis?” calls Polymath from the kitchen.

The Hairy One is beside herself, frantically attacking the drier, snapping, twirling, scrabbling at the base, smacking the front and sides with her paws.

Suddenly, silence. She has pressed the door switch and turned the machine off. Clever dog.

Polymath postpones drying her clothes.

I carry Isis out of the kitchen. I close the door. Her heart is racing, her sides heaving and she is panting at an alarmingly rapid rate. Even with three closed doors separating her from the kitchen she remains on high alert, restless, distressed, crashing and scraping at the sitting room door, whining and yapping.

Finally, friend picks her up and sits with the little pest on her lap. Isis is obviously very surprised. What a cheek. She growls. But friend is undeterred. For the next thirty minutes Isis goes through all her thwarted dog routines. She attempts to attack her feet, her tail and her sides. She growls and wriggles and squirms.

The chair is a riser/recliner and I watch with interest as the two of them unexpectedly rise, recline and rise again. Isis has two paws on the remote!  She bucks and ducks and yoffs and grumbles. But all to no avail. Polymath does not let her go.

Finally, she stops panting. She is released.

She settles at last.

………………………………………….

Later, Isis and I retire to bed in the middle room. But she has still not wound down enough to sleep. Now there is only one door between us and the kitchen monster. She lies by the door whining.

I know that she is exhausted but each time I plonk her on the bed she gets off, returns to the door and continues her lament.

At 12.50 I make a decision. I will follow friend’s tactic and not allow Hairy One to move from the bed. I place her on the wall side and stretch my toes to the footboard. For forty minutes she attempts to clambour over my legs, squeeze between them, crawl under them.

This merry game goes on until 1.20 a.m. when she heaves a huge sigh and falls asleep.

I quickly follow.

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