Posting days: Sunday and Wednesday and, sometimes, maybe, extra bits in between.

Sunday May 5th 2019

Lately, when she’s not walking in the woods with Rufus and Nancy, Isis has spent most of her Highbury time playing in her safe area, just the other side of the woodland strip from the car park.

Today, it’s dull, and she feels confident out in the open. She makes her way towards the fallen tree not far from the park entrance.

This is where, in the summer, she gets covered in burrs from the sticky plant, and where she dances among the daffodils in early spring.

Now the daffodils are in retreat, bluebells, cow parsley and ladies’ smock have taken over.

Isis can feel a lot more foliage than when she last came here. She’s very excited.

There’s a lot for a dog to do.

But before she begins, she catches a very stimulating scent she must explore.

So stimulating, in fact, that she leaps into the air, twirls, then jumps into a gleeful circuit of the surrounding meadow. She knows from past experience that there are no obstacles,that the space is clear for running. She runs and runs, galloping off and circling back, over and over again.

When she returns to her tree, she decides that today she’ll not bother with digging holes under the old logs. There are interesting things sprouting under the fallen tree again. There are the beginnings of leafy tunnels to explore.

There are springy branches to jump on and all kinds of textures to feel.

Oh bliss!

What more could a dog want?

She embraces the changes with such energy that, after an hour and a half, she makes a little nest under an overhang of leaves and lies down.

She doesn’t sleep, of course. She remains alert, pink spotty nose and amazing hairy ears twitching, while I chat with another dog walker.

Her friendly Jack Russell, Scamp, is joined by sweet German shepherd puppy Wren. They play fight and chase each other nearby. They have met Isis before and they don’t interfere with her.

Secure in her nest, she’s not at all anxious. There she remains until I collect her.

I am greeted with a contented wag.

*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