A post should appear every Sunday

Sunday April 14th 2024

After the harness débâcle, which was obviously very traumatic for poor Isis, I put the new harness away for two weeks. When I get it out again, I expect that she will refuse to let me  put it over her head, but she accepts it quite calmly. This is a very pleasant surprise.

Soon though, never one to allow a human to become complacent, she begins to wreak her revenge: when I attempt to place her left paw into the harness, she resumes her former strategy of diving onto my hands in the hope of gaining an opportunity for a nip. One morning she thrusts a tooth between two knuckles of my left hand, leaving a deep, black bruise.

Although as far as she is concerned, this is all par for the course, it damn well hurts, and I give her a sharp little smack on the rump. She is then angelic, making her little paw limp, and allowing me to pick it up and put it in place, just like a dog who would never even think of playing silly beggars.

Now we compromise. If her paw is rigid, I don’t even attempt to insert it, just drop the harness on the floor in front of her and wait. Then I pick it up and try again. That’s usually enough, and she is compliant.

But she’s always liked to play games at harness time, so once she’s safely fastened in, she’s allowed to bark and leap around until we open the front door.

This suits both of us just fine, and we walk down to the gate in a most dignified fashion, so that no-one would guess the frivolity of the past ten minutes.

The dull, cloudy wet weather has been a boon for Isis, who, as we know, views the meteorological forecast quite differently from humans – and from many dogs, I’m told. When, as happens very frequently over the past few months, the rain pours down indescriminately, I dress Isis in her warm raincoat, and she doesn’t seem to mind at all. This is fortunate, since if she gets soaked, it takes hours to dry her out: sadly, she is not at all grateful when I attempt to waft the hair dryer over her coat.

We’ve had many good walks over the last weeks. Isis isn’t crazy about the wind, but she’s learning to tolerate it.

She used to revel in strong winds at one time, especially when they blew down leaves and fragments of twigs onto her. Now she just looks put out and makes it clear that she would like to go home.

Isis: Huh! How would you like to have your ears blown flat against your head, your whiskers trashed and your tail blown out behind you like a hairy streamer? Bet if it happened to humans, there’d be no-one in the park except in the summer.

You’ve got to be joking.

This is a dog who once upon a time, grabs at ferociously thorned brambles, drags them from where they are tightly coiled in the hedges round the park, and stretches them out like elastic bands, as far as they will go, then, after a quick tug, runs to and fro with them in her mouth, but still attached to their roots.

This is the dog who once, long ago, discovers the pile of aluminium panels which I have  failed to build into a shed, grabs them one by one, and shakes them vigorously, circling the garden with them, jerking them up and down so that they tremble and twang, until Human spots her and rushes out to intervene and stack them in a – hopefully – even less accessible corner.

And the dog who, also long ago, attacks the new hosepipe, swings it joyfully across the lawn, and grabs in her sharp little teeth so often that it now resembles one of those home irrigation systems which leak out water at regular intervals and keep all the plants nicely damp.

Don’t be such a wimp, Isis!

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.

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.