Posting days: Sunday and Wednesday and, sometimes, maybe, extra ‘news flashes’!

Wednesday May 18th  2016

With the steady lengthening of daylight hours – and when I get up late – Hairy One and I meet dog walkers whom we haven’t seen for over a year.

Now and then, we meet people I’ve not seen since I had Ellie, my previous little dog, and I feel very sad as I explain that she died two years ago this month. “She was such a lovely little dog”, they say.

She was.

But Isis, too, is the recipient of many generous compliments.

“Is that the same dog?”, asks a lady who, like many others, recalls the early days when it was impossible to tempt Isis out of the car or, if she had succumbed to persuasion and deigned to emerge, it took literally five, ten, sometimes fifteen minutes to persuade her to move forward one or two steps. Or perhaps she had seen poor Isis crawling close to the ground, tail curled so tightly between her legs that it flattened against her stomach as she leaned into the hedgerow or the parked cars in her attempt to shield herself from a menacing shaft of sunlight or a scary tree shadow.

One of the nicest observations comes from P. who has two rescues herself. The elder, Abby, who had been abused, was too terrified to leave the house to go outside for her first six weeks in her new home; the only way that P. could get her out was to drag the dog bed into the garden with Abby in it! And when the poor dog eventually made it to the park, she was terrified of everyone. Now she is a happy little dog who trots up to us for a fuss.

Pam navigates around the galloping Hairy One’s lead. She has to tell me how well Isis and I have done, she explains. The day before she had watched Isis playing in the distance and had thought how very confident and happy she looked.

While those who know Isis smile happily when they see her playing, those who have not previously had the pleasure of her acquaintance tend to watch her in wonderment as she gallops around like a mad March hare. The effect is most startling, of course, when it’s raining and she dances about on her hind legs, ducking and weaving and clacking her castanet teeth together to trap the rain flies. Often people come over to ask what she’s doing.

“She looks so happy”, they say. So she does, and it’s lovely that they care.

An equally touching but somewhat enigmatic comment was made to me yesterday by a lovely lady whom I’d not seen for over two years. Like most people, she was tickled by Hairy One’s strange movements and spectacular ears.

After a long chat and before we parted she said, “I would have picked you two out for each other, you know.”

“Really?”, I asked, “Why’s that?”

“Well”, she replied thoughtfully, “You’re both  …….. so quirky.”

Hmmm. Well, I’m glad it wasn’t the ears.

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.co.uk