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

Sunday July 24th 2016

One day last week, M. has to be away from the house for about six hours and asks if I  could collect her border collie May and take her to my house from where she could be picked up in the evening.

May has already been to the park and Isis is most definitely a two handed job so Isis and I have our walk and then stop off for May on the way home.

When I let myself in May is already waiting in the hall and is very pleased to see me. Several pats later she is even more pleased when I put her harness over her head and clip the clips.

We set off down the path enthusiastically. So far so good.

But May doesn’t like getting in the car and wishes to be bribed with treats.

“Come on May. Good girl”, I bleat ineffectually. She wriggles out of her harness and sits down firmly on the tarmac.

“IN, May”, I command authoritatively. She peers past the open door into the front passenger well, then withdraws and lies down.

“I’ll pick you up”, I threaten her nastily. I know that she hates being picked up.

She gives me the  most pathetic look from her extensive border collie repertoire and rolls onto her back. She lets her front paws droop and rolls her eyes.

“I mean it, May”, I tell her sternly, sliding my right hand under her ribs in a business like  manner. She leaps into the car and settles hastily into the well of the front passenger seat.

Yes, I know that’s not the ideal place for a dog to travel, but there’s only a very short distance, a few streets, to go, and Hairy One is ensconced in the back seat and will not, I’m sure, welcome an up close travelling companion.

We set off very carefully along the little road from M’s house. It’s good, the ‘carefully’ as May chooses this minute to clambour onto the passenger seat.

“R-rr-ra”, intones Isis menacingly. But May is undeterred, and shoving against my left elbow as I navigate the roundabout, she begins to wriggle through the gap between the front seats.

Turning towards the intruder, Isis lets out a horrified nyaff before retreating as far as possible along the seat. She squashes herself against the door and remains there until we stop. May, meanwhile, having tried out the well behind the driver’s seat and finding it occupied by an air pump, pops up onto the back seat next to Isis. Poor Isis turns pale –  metaphorically speaking – and, with one last, desperate little growl, pushes herself even more firmly against the door.

Despite my somewhat erratic driving, we arrive home safely. I catch poor Isis who falls out of the car as I open her door, and  I place her on the pavement where she stands looking dazed. May immediately recognises where she is and leaps out and over Isis, wagging her tail.

Once in the house, Isis scrabbles at the stair gate, desperate to escape upstairs; meanwhile, May, in typical border collie style, strolls into the kitchen to see what is in her hostess’s food dish.

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