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

Wednesday November 1st 2017

One way and another, it’s not been the best of days.

Only Daisy Cat is calm, relaxed and nice to know.

Windows 10 – curse its very inception – switches off my Live Mail account with which I was perfectly happy, and replaces it with a horrible, cluttered mess, part of the Windows 10 suite. Needless to say, all the intuitive functions which I can use in my sleep have vanished.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

After hours of incandescent rage, I am not soothed when I discover that Isis, in her playtime enthusiasm, has bitten through the cable of my new phone charger.

I can’t be angry with her. I shouldn’t have left it on top of an unstable pile on the coffee table. Anything on the floor, of course, belongs to a dog.

The new pack of organic beef liver sticks falls into the same category. They are a present for Gilbert and George. I leave them by the front door to remind me to give them to R., and forget to pick them up when I go up for a shower.

As I return downstairs, frustrated screeches rend the air. These are the familiar screeches of a podengo who has dropped her treat.

Yes, there is Isis, lying by her den. She has nibbled a small hole in the front of the treat packet and is drawing out the sticks and eating them one by one. She has devoured more than half of the packet but the sticks are not easy to get through the small hole and her patience has worn thin.

Naturally, she is furious when her prize is snatched away.

Naughty Isis has frequent cause for fury as we continue retraining her out of her crazy meal time routines.

Over the weekend, she is her naughty, regressed self. But now this evokes an automatic thirty minute food withdrawal penalty.

Monday morning comes. I put on a gardening glove, give Isis the ‘eat’ touch signal and retreat.

But there’s a wonderful silence. An angelic dog eats her meal so quietly I wonder if she’s using a spoon.

The same happens at dog’s tea time. Pleasant, relaxed, measured munchings. No expletives after we’ve finished, we just quietly leave our dining area.

What a good girl.

At last.

Unfortunately, I oversleep on Tuesday  morning. R. the Pet Angel is on her way to collect Hairy One, and I ignore a small breakfast bark from the kitchen.

I know, I know, ‘give an inch and she’ll take an ell’. Consistency is all. I know. I know.

Inevitably, tea-time does not pass peacefully. In fact, Hairy One’s first mouthful is celebrated with a noisy barrage of barks.

“This is so B-O-R-I-N-G, Isis,” I admonish her loudly as I snatch away her food dish and shut it in the front room.

Thirty minutes later her manners have improved considerably.

This morning she begins well but then loses her composure. The thirty minute rule is applied only after the shrieks of protest stop.

This evening she has less than a handful of food left when she lets out a small, sharp woof. She is not pleased when the thirty minute rule is applied but eventually finishes off her meal soundlessly.

Never again, I vow, will I let unacceptable behaviour pass.

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