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

Sunday September 29th 2019

At the beginning of August, Isis spends a week at Holly Trees Kennels while I enjoy a week in Uppingham with friends. She is there for another week this month while I stay with Polymath.

She is a very good little dog. She leaves the car and walks with me, unprotesting, through the main gate and into the yard. I hand her over to a new kennel person. But Isis doesn’t want to leave me behind, and stops on route to the kennel block. I suggest that under the chin taps will help. They do and, accepting her fate, Hairy One walks off obediently with the young lady.

During both of her stays, I ring to check that all is well. Ray’s daughter Wendy answers the phone and tells me that Isis is fine and jumping around playing with her toys as usual.

When I collect her, she has an excellent report: she’s as good as gold, a lovely dog, pleasure to have her.

Nowadays, I note, she knows exactly where our reunion will take place, and tugs gently towards me, tail at first waving in anticipation, then bursting into pleased wags as she reaches me.

Ray is standing talking to Adopted Niece and I, and, to my surprise, Isis nudges his legs and lifts up her head. “Ah, yes, treats,” says Ray. Apparently, every night Ray does a dogs’ bedtime treats round. He calls the other dogs out for their treats. When he gets to Hairy One’s kennel, he kicks the door!

During her August kennel stay, Isis undergoes a transformation: when she returns home to her dining room, she doesn’t regress to her wild, barky, snarly, growly food defending routines as she has every time she’s been in the kennels up until now.

Must be a fluke. Perhaps all the other dogs were very passive.

But no, it’s the same when she returns from her September stay. Back home, she eats like an ordinary, regular dog.

I ask Wendy whether Isis has ‘carried on’ at meal times while at the kennels. “She hasn’t”,  Wendy tells me, “she seems much more confident all round now.”

Well, I must say, it’s a huge relief not to have to go through weeks of tedious table manners retraining.

What a good girl!

And her reward for such impressive behaviour?

She couldn’t have a better one.

Torrential rain for days on end!

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