A post should appear every Sunday

Sunday October 1st 2023

Most animals, including humans, need routines. This makes sense, of course, since  routines, tried and trusted as they are, generally equal safety. Isis, I guess because she only has scent and touch with which to check out her environment, is particularly reluctant to  deviate from her established patterns of behaviour.

Years ago she was terrified of walking on the tarmacked path which leads onto the car park in Highbury Park, because when the sun is out, there is such a startling contrast between the dense black shadows cast by the line of trees, and the interstices of the almost white ashphalt. Even when it’s cloudy and there’s no sign of sun, she balks at walking here.

It’s many months since we used the path – so long ago, that I have forgotten about her phobia. It’s a dull, sunless Friday; even so, when we approach the trees, she stops and has to be cajoled to put one paw in front of the other.

I remember her reaction was exactly the same years ago when she refused, point blank, to walk along a particular avenue of trees in Kings Heath Park. My response was to carry her, without making any fuss, and put her back on the path when the ‘danger’ was over. After a while, she walked this path without worrying.

I should have done the same when she first began walking in Highbury. Perhaps she had already put on weight by then and was, as she still is, too heavy for me to lift.

And then there was the very unwelcome habit she had from the early on, of shrieking and fighting off imagined competitors while she choked down her meal. This dragged on for years, although there were interludes when I intervened by removing the food every time she began raving. This was very hard work, as sometimes the food had to be removed three or four times before she would eat calmly. When this happened, I recall, she usually barked and growled as soon as she’d finished eating. Or, latterly, barked and growled and didn’t eat her food.

Yet, when I consult Lee, the animal dietician who owns Baxter’s Corner, even before he weighs her, he tells me that she’s leaving her food because she’s not hungry. Such a reasonable explanation had never occurred to me, of course.

Ever since she begins her special diet, not only does she never leave a speck of food, she eats in contented silence too.

Isis awaits permission to eat.

One day, about three weeks ago, I spill her water; consequently, as she makes her way into the kitchen, she skids on the wet patch.

O.K. No harm done.

Oho! Wrong again, Human.

Although I now refrain from filling her water bowl to the brim, and thus avoid any spillage, every time I open the back door for her to go into the garden, she begins bracing herself at the doorway, jumping over the non-existent water, and making a grand display of skidding along the first yard or so of the floor tiles.

She displays no fear or anxiety, so her performance is very amusing to watch. But then she decides to hover at the threshhold, looking fearful. Eventually, I retrace my footsteps, walk with her across the offending area, then let her carry on through the back door and out into the garden.

I do this for about a week before it dawns on me that she’s got me wrapped round her little finger (as it were) yet again. Clearly, she isn’t in the least fearful, since her tail is in its usual chirpy position, and her ears are pricked: in fact, she doesn’t display even a shred of anxiety.

After a day or two, it also occurs to me that she doesn’t hesitate to step into the kitchen when I serve her meals, even though this entails crossing the previously skiddy spot.

I’m sure that if I don’t call a halt to her masquerade, she’ll manipulate me into accompanying her from the hall to the back door every time I let her out.

Right. I’m not having this, I decide.

So next morning, I walk into the kitchen, open the back door wide, step behind the larder cupboard – and wait.

I always insist on her doing a pee before she has her breakfast, so this is a good moment to challenge her.

I wait.

I take a peek round the side of the cupboard.

She is walking in and out of the back room, pretending to be worried.

I know she is hungry, and I’m determined to sit it out, however long it takes.

Tentatively, she puts one paw over the threshold.

I don’t move a muscle.

After five or six minutes, she jumps into the kitchen, clearing the ex-hazard, executes a little skid, and walks normally out into the garden.

Next time she hesitates for a moment. Within three days, she decides to knock the performance on the head. Now and again – when she remembers, I guess – she does an odd little skip into the kitchen. But by and large, she’s decided that we can do without the drama.

Thank Dog.

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.