Dog. My dog is a little bitch – a chocolate drop of a creature, sweet and domestic, when she’s minded. But sometimes she is a sharp-clawed ball of instinct and indignation. Why can’t she dig up the raised beds or gnaw on the school shoes? My food should be hers and, indeed, will be if I’m not wary. What a hard lesson for a natural-born killer of socks to know that my bed is not hers, neither always my attention. Though it’s changing – she knows that biting my shirt tail won’t work and I know what she means when she barks for me to open the door. We’re teaching each other.
