A post should appear every Sunday – sorry it’s a day late this week. We’ll put this down to unforeseen circumstances!

Monday December 11th 2023

I am immeresed in a strange dream. After a successful interview, I have a promotion. A few weeks before I take up my post, I am shown round my new workplace. I wish to give a good impression, of course, but despite a continuous struggle to remain upright, dignified and in control of myself, my left leg – the one which was operated on in August – keeps giving way, and I slide to the left. My colleagues to be are doing their best to assist me, but each time I struggle to stand, the leg first becomes numb, and then gives way again.

Each time I fall, I am helped back up. My kind assistants even redeploy desks which then transmogrify into zimmer frames, but still my errant left leg brings me down.

I think it must be the discomfort which makes me regain consciousness: my hip feels sore, and the rest of my leg quite cold. I realise that I have fallen asleep on the daybed. I must have been warm and comfortable when I dropped off.

I sure ain’t now.

Isis, her spine aligned firmly against the back of the bed, is sleeping blissfully. She has all four legs stretched out in front of her, her paws firmly pressed against my right thigh. She has pushed so hard that she has moved me to the very edge of the bed, and my left leg is hanging over into thin air, only a couple of toes touching the floor.

No wonder my hip’s sore.

Podengoes are strong, they say. But this strong?

Evidently.

She weighs around 15 kilos while I weigh around 50, yet when she plants her rear on the pavement, it might as well be stuck to the flags with superglue. No amount of tugging on her lead will induce her to walk; instead, if I persist, all that happens is that her harness comes off over her head and I have to undo it and put it back. Then, I have only two options: one is to tickle her bottom. Perhaps she mistakes this rude gesture for the intrusive male collie we sometimes meet. Whatever her thoughts, she certainly moves on.

The other option, always my last resort, and seldom used except when she insists on standing statue-still in the middle of a busy road, is to grab her harness and give it a shake while at the same time bellowing “Enough!” into her right ear. I know she can’t hear, but she somehow registers this unkind assault enough for her to allow Human to hustle her to safety. Maybe it’s the combination of the harness tugging, and the close, hot breath of irate Human.

Another test of strength is attempting to lift a paw which Isis is determined will not be lifted. When she plays her crazy, rough, resisting game as I try to get her into her feet-first harness, lifting a front paw is like attempting to lift concrete. I don’t know how she achieves the ‘concrete paw’ – it seems as though she has magically poured all of her body weight into one small foot.

Yet once we’re in the park, or when we are in the porch after her walk and she is keen to get into the house, her paws are as putty in my hands, soft, limp and flexible, ready to be removed from her harness.

She almost floats into the car of her own volition, and lies down fluffily next to the safety clip which she knows I will fix. But should I try to move her to retrieve the car keys which are now underneath her, it’s quite a different story. Now there is no fluffy floating, only an irritable growl as I drill under her heavy, resisting body with cold, stiff fingers.

It’s my own fault of course, for dropping the keys, yet again, on the back seat in order to secure Hairy One’s safety anchor.

Needless to say, when she’s pavement walking, or on her lead in the park  I have a struggle to hold her back if she suddenly catches the scent of a homing cat or a long gone small mammal.

A day or two ago, in Kings Heath Park, as I am guiding her around the temporary fences, she comes across something very enticing, and gives a joyful little jump-pounce, running off to circle, then uproot, whatever it is – naturally I, being merely an uninitiated human, can see nothing but closely mown grass.

Beneath its thin turf topping, the field is one huge squelch of mud, so as soon as the hunter has wind of the scent, I drop her lead as though it is red hot, so that she can scamper as fast as she wants. I’ve no wish  for another sprawl in the mud.

Once she homes in on her ‘prey’, she digs with sturdy, stiffened little paws until she’s convinced that whoever it is has not gone to ground, but dodged her and departed.

If she were sighted, I don’t think the squirrels would stand a chance. And I’d not be able to take prey from her as she has jaws like steel traps. She isn’t a destructive dog, so she doesn’t chew up her toys; instead, she tosses them around or lies in her bed, sometimes for an hour or more, with one of her favourites clamped between her teeth.

Even when she looks as though she’s about to fall asleep, if I creep up on her, however stealthily, I can never steal the toy.

Yes, she’s a tough little dog.

That’s great.

Just wish she wouldn’t shove me off the daybed.

 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.