Karen Hunton on the good- and naughty - sides of owning a dog

It’s hard to believe that Jamie is now two years old. It seems like only yesterday that he was stealing socks and shredding post and now he is all grown up. But isn’t that the trouble with dogs? Their time passes so very quickly.

Last weekend we had Bertie, my son’s Border terrier, come to stay. Bertie’s people were away showing their horses and as Bert hasn’t been too well of late, he came to stay at ours where he could take it easy.

At almost fifteen years old, Bertie is a fair age and lucky in the fact that he has always enjoyed robust health, until just a couple of weeks ago when he suffered, what we now believe to have been, a small stroke.

The episode left him feeling nauseous, disorientated, a bit twitchy and suffering some difficulty with the coordination of his back legs. Thankfully, he now seems to be much better. Now Bertie has not always been the easiest of patients when it comes to administering medication, but an agreement has been reached whereby he agrees to take his tablets as long as they are heavily disguised with cheese.

Whilst things may never be quite the same for Bertie as before; he may never be able to walk quite as far, or climb to the top of Roseberry Topping again, he is still enjoying life and that is what matters and even though he’s not been in our house since well before lockdown, he still remembered where the biscuits live.

He was also able to help himself to Jamie’s favourite toy and Jamie, whilst obviously dismayed, knew better than to challenge his guest, fifteen years of age or not.

As for Jamie, well he has been a little star himself recently. It has been a tough few weeks for our family, which has resulted in my mother having to move into a nursing home.

This has been a difficult transition for everyone and Mum in particular.

On the plus side, however, this particular nursing home, as well as being on the sea front, welcomes doggy visitors.

After suffering from pneumonia, Mum has been left very frail and very weak and I couldn’t help but wonder if a Jamie visit might lift her spirits?

There was only one way to find out.

I was more than a little anxious as I rang the doorbell, after all my ‘naughty boy’ had never been in this kind of environment before, but all the staff were so pleased to see him and he really came into his own.

He loved the attention and wagged his tail politely at everyone who stopped to speak to him.

Mum was too weak to sit up in bed at this point, so I pointed to the wheelchair and Jamie obliged by jumping up in to it, so that I could push him close to the side of her bed.

Gently, he rested his head on the cot-side so that Mum could touch him and one by one I passed her a few of his favourite treats. Slowly, she began to feed him, just as she used to when we visited her at home and oh, so very gently, Jamie took the treats from her fingers. When they had all gone, Mum looked exhausted so I asked him to jump down, which he did, quietly laying beneath her bed until the visit was over.

As a reward, and as the nursing home is at the seaside, when we left I took Jamie down to the beach, which is his and my very favourite place to walk.

Within minutes, Jamie had stolen a ball from two children who were trying to play tennis. Flatly refusing to give it back, he ran round us all in circles with the ball in his mouth, which reduced the small boy to tears. Well, a dog can only be good for so long now can't he?