Sunday

Sunday

A deliberately quiet day today for The Dog’s benefit. Well, mostly. We’ve come to recognise that the mental toll that a visit to either parent’s house puts on all of us needs at least 24 hours recovery. What’s not clear to me yet is why. The physical tiredness is easy to understand but why it’s so emotionally draining isn’t. The changes in The Dog’s behaviour aren’t purely internal. We also know that she’s reflecting back what she feels in us.

The Dog started her day by retching noisily but not too copiously on the living room carpet. Then she asked to be let out into the garden to relieve herself which is a thing she only does in extreme circumstances. She’s been with us just over 5 years now and is only just beginning to trust that she won’t get a beating for soiling the back garden. She remained subdued for the rest of the morning.

We let her choose the route for our walk. She took us into the village and would’ve taken us out the other side had we let her. But we were on target to hit our 10,000 steps already and we’d had enough.

Once The Dog had settled and had begun catching up on the sleep she’d missed yesterday we tackled a couple of small boxes of artifacts from Lesley’s dad’s house. Nothing too major. Just an odd assortment of things that were kept because they might come in useful one day in spite of them all missing some vital component and a couple of dozen pairs of scissors. All blunt, Obviously.

After a couple of hours The Dog gave us the signal that she felt rested and that we had been busy long enough. She started stealing from waste baskets and recycling bins.

We can tell she’s taken something she knows she shouldn’t have by the trademark ‘Trot of Triumph’ that she does when she’s got something. What fascinates me is the level of intelligence she shows when selecting her items.

Somehow, she knows that the receptacles around the house contain things that we’ve discarded. They’re all fair game and anything in them can be taken to the middle of the living room for total destruction. The same goes for whatever container we’re using as an intermediary stage for paper or card before it goes out to the roadside bins.

If neither of those are available she will choose a slipper but then she behaves differently. They don’t get destroyed or even chewed. Just taken.

Her aim is clear – to get a reaction and enjoy the chase. She clearly loves the game and the attention she gets. If she isn’t satisfied with the reaction then she’ll up the stakes and steal something more valuable. As the value goes up, her need to destroy it goes down. Her judgement is very nearly faultless as is her memory. If she sees in our reaction that a line has been crossed and she’s taken something she really shouldn’t have then she never does it again.

It’s the fine judgement of precisely the right level of mischief – doing something she knows she shouldn’t but something that makes me laugh as I take it from her – that’s so appealing. It shows intelligence.