Posting days: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Saturday

I am putting up wire netting fences in an effort to reclaim ‘my’ portions of garden from the philistine who shares my home. But I am not quick enough.

What’s this sad looking stick? It’s my ex-pear tree. New this year. Two days ago it soared upwards and boasted clusters of healthy leaf buds. But someone beheaded it and nipped off all the sprouting leaves. And left behind strands of white hair.

Yes, Isis has been gardening again. Sigh.

I’ve just come across my notes from the week beginning April 12th when I was recording what provoked her rage spins. She must have improved for  there are ten incidents recorded on the twelfth itself! Here are some of the awful things I did to her which made her angry. I:

‘picked her up and removed her from the strawberry patch’

‘corrected her when she was attempting to twirl on the end of her lead’

and ‘stopped her from eating something unidentifiable in the park’.

Another rage was incurred by her finishing her Dentistix.

She has improved over the last few weeks, I realise. She has only twice bitten off bits of her hair. She hasn’t – and here I tempt fate – bitten her legs or tail and made them bleed for two weeks, and she has not been wearing a protective collar.

Tonight I push her very hard. Her back end is looking very tatty so I get out my new, tough gardening gloves, hold her head with one hand and brush her briskly with the other. She dives towards her back legs but I pre-empt a bite.

She is furious. But as soon as I finish and let her out she is leaping joyfully around the garden. Now she is stomping heartily on the strawberry bed. Revenge is sweet.

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