Carer

This week I am living with an old bitch. I find her neediness irritating, and I know she must miss her family. But she couldn’t have spent the week alone. Every morning she wakes before me and waits until I give her breakfast and the medicine she needs to ease her stiff joints. We go for walks; not for too long for she moves slowly and tires easily. You can tell she has lived around here for a long time for often people stop to greet her on the common, touch her, wish her well, and continue on their way. Sometimes they smile at me too.

I have been warned that she has moments of incontinence. But in human years she is nearly a hundred, and the ramp to the dog flap has helped.