Posting days: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Saturday

Isis only came upstairs once while she was wearing her Elizabethan collar. It is three days since she split it and I had to remove and replace it with the Buster collar. I wondered whether she would remember about her morning bedroom visits. I hoped she would. Although it is quite nice not to have clouds of white hair rising in drifts from the bedroom floor, I think that Isis needs as much positive contact with me as she will tolerate.  Hopefully, the more we interact, the more she will want my approval and the less aggressive she will be.

This morning I get my answer. I hear scramble, clonk, scramble, clonk and she appears looking pleased with herself. She accepts welcoming pats and strokes.  Then she disappears. I hear scritch, scritch, scritching sounds and assume she is scrabbling at the large cardboard box which I moved from the spare room bed in order to accommodate Adopted Niece.

But I am wrong. I soon hear A.N. open her door and enquire of Isis, “What’s the matter with you?” Isis has smelled her and called round to wake her up.

I also notice that Hairy One comes into the front room and sleeps on the rug each time we are in there. She now always does this when Jo. or Ji. are here. Until about two months ago she stayed in the back room. It’s good that she, who used to shy away from people, now seeks their company.

Adopted Niece stands in the kitchen doorway as I hold out Isis’s bowl of food. I have been telling A. N. how ferociously Isis used to attack her food while snarling, growling and barking continuously at imagined enemies who might steal it from her. I explain how much she’s improved, and Isis, amazingly, backs me up.

She waits without a sound while I prepare the food. At first she glances a little nervously  in A. N.’s direction. A. N. moves up the hall and Isis, for the first time ever, eats from the bowl without even the most muffled of woofs. The final rage-spin provoking process is the realisation that the food has gone. But the transition, via four extra little morsels, from the kitchen to the hall goes without a hitch. No hint of any irritation.

I am very proud of you, little podengo.

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