A post should appear every Sunday

Sunday July 30th 2023

She’s not long come back from a pleasant walk in the rain, but still leaps around gleefully when, after a brief rest, she smells the allure of the outdoors floating damply into her house. As ecstatic as a wild animal released at last from interminable incarceration, she leaps towards the exit, hurries through the gate, and jumps eagerly into the car.

Rain taps rythmically on the roof, as though demanding to be let in, and splatters in ever changing patterns on the windscreen. It’s a short and uneventful journey, and she remains quiet and still until, with a jerk, the vehicle stops. Activity close by is followed by the ingress of cold, wet air, then a slamming door rocks her seat, and the entire environment vibrates around her.

Now the car dips a little as her door is pulled open, and she is commanded to step down onto the cold tarmac. She lifts her head, breathes in the smell of dripping leaves, and walks confidently on towards the saturated turf. She stoops to urinate before moving onto the paving stones which lead to a huge front entrance.

The door in front of her glides open, and she moves forward before pausing in front of another door. When this opens to admit her, she feels a rush of indoor warmth pass her, carrying into the vestibule a multitude of hardly distinguishable smells.

Close to her now is a tall man. She raises her head and sniffs at his shoes, then at his trousers. It’s O.K., she realises. She knows him. He walks forward, and she follows behind him. Soon he turns right, then almost immediately, left. This route is familiar to her. Then, suddenly, he is gone. She sniffs after him, but he steps away from her, and floats slowly downwards, leaving only a faint juddering behind him.

Now, distracted by a multitude of smells which seep under every door in the corridor, she begins to move more and more slowly, head inclined downwards towards the carpet which stretches ahead of her. Under each door seeps a smell different from its predecessor: here she detects meat, next there’s gravy; further on, she picks up the smell of fish, and now   toasted cheese. She breathes in each flavour – the subtle smell of ice-cream, the tantalising suggestion of syrup pudding, the warm smell of melting chocolate.

By the time that she reaches the top of the first flight of stairs, she is scent drunk. She hesitates at the first step down, made nervous by the feel of empty space around her, and uncomfortable with the drop in front of her, unwilling to reach down with one paw until she feels reassuring fingers on her neck.

Now she descends, slowly, carefully, rythmically, four flights of stairs, turns left onto the first floor, and walks, a little more quickly now, towards the door which the man who disappeared is holding open for her. She pauses only briefly on the threshold, for she knows this place very well, immediately recognising the sharp chemical tang of air-freshener, the fainter smell of a lunch cooked and eaten, and the welcoming fresh-from- the-fridge water which waits for her at the far end of the room.

Lap, lap, lap.

Now sheets are being wafted around and flopped onto the carpet like dead parachutes. She will be better off in the hall, so she steps back over the threshhold and lies down there until all the commotion is finished.

Now she returns to the living room, and, picking up the scent of her very tasty treats, begins searching for them.

But she is made to wait until the tall gentleman brings in two Sunday coffee cups. Hmm. That smell means that treats won’t be long now. Her impatient nose twitches while cakes are brought in from the kitchen, and, at last, the smell of treats grows stronger and stronger. Yes, they’ve definitely been depocketed. Now they are being hidden, and she can begin the hunt.

Today she misses none of them. She quickly tracks down one on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, a second on the tall gentleman’s shoe; a third hidden under his chair on a discarded slipper; a fourth on the strut of a dining chair which is tucked under the table; and she has no trouble discovering the last treat, which is behind the open hall door.

She’s really on form today.

Once persuaded that there really are no more to be found, she lies on the sheet which is closest to her human, sighs deeply, and soon falls fast asleep. Once they have drunk their coffee and eaten their cinnamon buns, the two humans watch her, fascinated, as she stretches out all four legs and rolls onto her side, comfort her when, very deeply asleep, she begins to pant, to twitch and then to growl, and smile indulgently when she takes a dream run and flips her little feet back and forth.

While she is still and slumbering soundly, someone opportunistically snips a frond of shaggy hair from between her pads. She sleeps on. A second snip, however, alerts her to the assault on her foot, so she tucks three feet neatly underneath her, and places the other one safely an inch from her muzzle.

When, a couple of hours or so later, the humans collect and empty her water bowl, and pick up and fold the sheets from the perimeter of the room, she remains snoozing, seemingly unconcerned, on her sheet in the middle of the room.

Should I sneak past her though, however surreptitiously, to replace her bedding and bowl in the tall gentleman’s walk-in cupboard, she’s up like a shot. There’s no way she’ll be left behind.

Isis came from Aeza cat and dog rescue in Aljezur, Portugal. For information about adopting an animal from the centre, contact kerry@azea.org or go to http://www.dogwatch.co.uk.